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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.
Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part II-A.
In this litigation we must determine which statute of limitations is applicable to a private suit brought pursuant to § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 891, 15 U. S. C. § 78j(b), and to Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR §240.10b-5 (1990), promulgated thereunder.
I
The controversy arises from the sale of seven Connecticut limited partnerships formed for the purpose of purchasing and leasing computer hardware and software. Petitioner Lampf, Pleva, Lipldnd, Prupis & Petigrow is a West Orange, N. J., law firm that aided in organizing the partnerships and that provided additional legal services, including the preparation of opinion letters addressing the tax consequences of investing in the partnerships. The several plaintiff-respondents purchased units in one or more of the partnerships during the years 1979 through 1981 with the expectation of realizing federal income tax benefits therefrom.
The partnerships failed, due in part to obsolescence of their wares. In late 1982 and early 1983, plaintiff-respondents received notice that the United States Internal Revenue Service was investigating the partnerships. The IRS subsequently disallowed the claimed tax benefits because of overvaluation of partnership assets and lack of profit motive.
On November 3, 1986, and June 4, 1987, plaintiff-respondents filed their respective complaints in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, naming as defendants petitioner and others involved in the preparation of offering memoranda for the partnerships. The complaints alleged that plaintiff-respondents were induced to invest in the partnerships by misrepresentations in the offering memo-randa, in violation of, among other things, § 10(b) of the 1934 Act and Rule 10b-5. The claimed misrepresentations were said to include assurances that the investments would entitle the purchasers to substantial tax benefits; that the leasing of the hardware and software packages would generate a profit; that the software was readily marketable; and that certain equipment appraisals were accurate and reasonable. Plaintiff-respondents asserted that they became aware of the alleged misrepresentations only in 1985 following the disallowance by the IRS of the tax benefits claimed.
After consolidating the actions for discovery and pretrial proceedings, the District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants on the ground that the complaints were not timely filed. App. to Pet. for Cert. 22A. Following precedent of its controlling court, see, e. g., Robuck v. Dean Witter & Co., 649 F. 2d 641 (CA9 1980), the District Court ruled that the securities claims were governed by the state statute of limitations for the most analogous forum-state cause of action. The court determined this to be Oregon’s 2-year limitations period for fraud claims, Ore. Rev. Stat. § 12.110(1) (1989). The court found that reports to plaintiff-respondents detailing the declining financial status of each partnership and allegations of misconduct made known to the general partners put plaintiff-respondents on “inquiry notice” of the possibility of fraud as early as October 1982. App. to Pet. for Cert. 43A. The court also ruled that the distribution of certain fiscal reports and the installation of a general partner previously associated with the defendants did not constitute fraudulent concealment sufficient to toll the statute of limitations. Applying the Oregon statute to the facts underlying plaintiff-respondents’ claims, the District Court determined that each complaint was time barred.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded the cases. See, e. g., Reitz v. Leasing Consultants Associates, 895 F. 2d 1418 (1990) (judgment order). In its unpublished opinion, the Court of Appeals found that unresolved factual issues as to when plaintiff-respondents discovered or should have discovered the alleged fraud precluded summary judgment. Then, as did the District Court, it selected the 2-year Oregon limitations period. In so doing, it implicitly rejected petitioner’s argument that a federal limitations period should apply to Rule 10b-5 claims. App. to Pet. for Cert. 8A. In view of the divergence of opinion among the Circuits regarding the proper limitations period for Rule 10b-5 claims, we granted certiorari to address this important issue. 498 U. S. 894 (1990).
I — l
Plaintiff-respondents maintain that the Court of Appeals correctly identified common-law fraud as the source from which § 10(b) limitations should be derived. They submit that the underlying policies and practicalities of § 10(b) litigation do not justify a departure from the traditional practice of “borrowing” analogous state-law statutes of limitations. Petitioner, on the other hand, argues that a federal period is appropriate, contending that we must look to the “l-and-3year” structure applicable to the express causes of action in § 13 of the Securities Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 84, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 77m, and to certain of the express actions in the 1934 Act, see 15 U. S. C. §§ 78i(e), 78r(c), and 78cc(b). The Solicitor General, appearing on behalf of the Securities and Exchange Commission, agrees that use of a federal period is indicated, but urges the application of the 5-year statute of repose specified in §20A of the 1934 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78t—1(b)(4), as added by § 5 of the Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Enforcement Act of 1988, 102 Stat. 4681. The 5-year period, it is said, accords with “Congress’s most recent views on the accommodation of competing interests, provides the closest federal analogy, and promises to yield the best practical and policy results in Rule 10b-5 litigation.” Brief for Securities and Exchange Commission as Amicus Curiae 8. For the reasons discussed below, we agree that a uniform federal period is indicated, but we hold that the express causes of action contained in the 1933 and 1934 Acts provide the source.
A
It is the usual rule that when Congress has failed to provide a statute of limitations for a federal cause of action, a court “borrows” or “absorbs” the local time limitation most analogous to the case at hand. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 266-267 (1985); Automobile Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S. 696, 704 (1966); Campbell v. Ha-verhill, 155 U. S. 610, 617 (1895). This practice, derived from the Rules of Decision Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1652, has enjoyed sufficient longevity that we may assume that, in enacting remedial legislation, Congress ordinarily “intends by its silence that we borrow state law.” Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U. S. 143, 147 (1987).
The rule, however, is not without exception. We have recognized that a state legislature rarely enacts a limitations period with federal interests in mind, Occidental Life Ins. Co. of Cal. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 367 (1977), and when the operation of a state limitations period would frustrate the policies embraced by the federal enactment, this Court has looked to federal law for a suitable period. See, e. g., DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U. S. 151 (1983); Agency Holding Corp., supra; McAllister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 357 U. S. 221, 224 (1958). These departures from the state-borrowing doctrine have been motivated by this Court’s conclusion that it would be “inappropriate to conclude that Congress would choose to adopt state rules at odds with the purpose or operation of federal substantive law.” DelCos-tello, 462 U. S., at 161.
Rooted as it is in the expectations of Congress, borrowing doctrine” may not be lightly abandoned. We have described federal borrowing as “a closely circumscribed exception,” to be made “only ‘when a rule from elsewhere in federal law clearly provides a closer analogy than available state statutes, and when the federal policies at stake and the practicalities of litigation make that rule a significantly more appropriate vehicle for interstitial lawmaking.’” Reed v. United Transportation Union, 488 U. S. 319, 324 (1989), quoting DelCostello, 462 U. S., at 172.
Predictably, this a ognizing, however, that a period must be selected, our cases do provide some guidance as to whether state or federal borrowing is appropriate and as to the period best suited to the cause of action under consideration. From these cases we are able to distill a hierarchical inquiry for ascertaining the appropriate limitations period for a federal cause of action where Congress has not set the time -within which such-an action must be brought.
First, the court must determine whether a uniform statute of limitations is to be selected. Where a federal cause of action tends in practice to “encompass numerous and diverse topics and subtopics,” Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S., at 273, such that a single state limitations period may not be consistently applied within a jurisdiction, we have concluded that the federal interests in predictability and judicial economy counsel the adoption of one source, or class of sources, for borrowing purposes. Id., at 273-275. This conclusion ultimately may result in the selection of a single federal provision, see Agency Holding Corp., supra, or of a single variety of state actions. See Wilson v. Garcia (characterizing all actions under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 as analogous to a state-law personal injury action).
Second, assuming a uniform limitations period is appropriate, the court must decide whether this period should be derived from a state or a federal source. In making this judgment, the court should accord particular weight to the geographic character of the claim:
“The multistate nature of [the federal cause of action at issue] indicates the desirability of a uniform federal statute of limitations. With the possibility of multiple state limitations, the use of state statutes would present the danger of forum shopping and, at the very least, would ‘virtually guarante[e] . . . complex and expensive litigation over what should be a straightforward matter.’” Agency Holding Corp., 483 U. S., at 154, quoting Report of the Ad Hoc Civil RICO Task Force of the ABA Section of Corporation, Banking and Business Law 392 (1985).
Finally, even where geographic considerations counsel federal borrowing, the aforementioned presumption of state borrowing requires that a court determine that an analogous federal source truly affords a “closer fit” with the cause of action at issue than does any available state-law source. Although considerations pertinent to this determination will necessarily vary depending upon the federal cause of action and the available state and federal analogues, such factors as commonality of purpose and similarity of elements will be relevant.
B
In the present litigation, our task is complicated by the nontraditional origins of the § 10(b) cause of action. The text of § 10(b) does not provide for private claims. Such claims are of judicial creation, having been implied under the statute for nearly half a century. See Kardon v. National Gypsum Co., 69 F. Supp. 512 (ED Pa. 1946), cited in Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 196, n. 16 (1976). Although this Court repeatedly has recognized the validity of such claims, see Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 730 (1975); Affiliated Ute Citizens of Utah v. United States, 406 U. S. 128, 150-154 (1972); Superintendent of Ins. of N. Y. v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 404 U. S. 6, 13, n. 9 (1971), we have made no pretense that it was Congress’ design to provide the remedy afforded. See Ernst & Ernst, 425 U. S., at 196 (“[T]here is no indication that Congress, or the Commission when adopting Rule 10b-5, contemplated such a remedy”) (footnotes omitted). It is therefore no surprise that the provision contains no statute of limitations.
In a case such as this, we are faced with the awkward task of discerning the limitations period that Congress intended courts to apply to a cause of action it really never knew existed. Fortunately, however, the drafters of § 10(b) have provided guidance.
We conclude that where, as here, the claim asserted is one implied under a statute that also contains an express cause of action with its own time limitation, a court should look first to the statute of origin to ascertain the proper limitations period. We can imagine no clearer indication of how Congress would have balanced the policy considerations implicit in any limitations provision than the balance struck by the same Congress in limiting similar and related protections. See DelCostello, 462 U. S., at 171; United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U. S. 56, 69-70 (1981) (opinion concurring in judgment). When the statute of origin contains comparable express remedial provisions, the inquiry usually should be at an end. Only where no analogous counterpart is available should a court then proceed to apply state-borrowing principles.
In the present litigation, there can be no doubt that the contemporaneously enacted express remedial provisions represent “a federal statute of limitations actually designed to accommodate a balance of interests very similar to that at stake here — a statute that is, in fact, an analogy to the present lawsuit more apt than any of the suggested state-law parallels.” DelCostello, 462 U. S., at 169. The 1934 Act contained a number of express causes of action, each with an explicit limitations period. With only one more restrictive exception, each of these includes some variation of a 1-year period after discovery combined with a 3-year period of repose. In adopting the 1934 Act, the 73d Congress also amended the limitations provision of the 1933 Act, adopting the l-and-3-year structure for each cause of action contained therein.
Section 9 of the 1934 Act, 15 the -willful manipulation of security prices, and §18, 15 U. S. C. §78r, relating to misleading filings, target the precise dangers that are the focus of § 10(b). Each is an integral element of a complex web of regulations. Each was intended to facilitate a central goal: “to protect investors against manipulation of stock prices through regulation of transactions upon securities exchanges and in over-the-counter markets, and to impose regular reporting requirements on companies whose stock is listed on national securities exchanges.” Ernst & Ernst, 425 U. S., at 195, citing S. Rep. No. 792, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1-5 (1934).
C
We therefore conclude that we must reject the Commission’s contention that the 5-year period contained in § 20A, added to the 1934 Act in 1988, is more appropriate for § 10(b) actions than is the l-and-3-year structure in the Act’s original remedial provisions. The Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Enforcement Act of 1988, which became law more than 50 years after the original securities statutes, focuses upon a specific problem, namely, the “purchasing or selling [of] a security while in possession of material, nonpublic information,” 15 U. S. C. §78t-1(a), that is, “insider trading.” Recognizing the unique difficulties in identifying evidence of such activities, the 100th Congress adopted § 20A as one of “a variety of measures designed to provide greater deterrence, detection and punishment of violations of insider trading.” H. R. Rep. No. 100-910, p. 7 (1988). There is no indication that the drafters of §20A sought to extend that enhanced protection to other provisions of the 1934 Act. Indeed, the text of § 20A indicates the contrary. Section 20A(d) states: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or condition the right of any person to bring an action to enforce a requirement of this chapter or the availability of any cause of action implied from a provision of this chapter.” 15 U. S. C. § 78t-1(d).
The Commission further argues that because some conduct that is violative of § 10(b) is also actionable under § 20A, adoption of a l-and-3-year structure would subject actions based on § 10(b) to two different statutes of limitations. But § 20A also prohibits insider trading activities that violate sections of the 1934 Act with express limitations periods. The language of § 20A makes clear that the 100th Congress sought to alter the remedies available in insider trading cases, and only in insider trading cases. There is no inconsistency.
Finally, the year period of repose would frustrate the policies underlying § 10(b). The inclusion, however, of the l-and-3-year structure in the broad range of express securities actions contained in the 1933 and 1934 Acts suggests a congressional determination that a 3-year period is sufficient. See Ceres Partners v. GEL Associates, 918 F. 2d 349, 363 (CA2 1990).
Thus, we agree every called upon to apply a federal statute of limitations to a § 10(b) claim that the express causes of action contained in the 1933 and 1934 Acts provide a more appropriate statute of limitations than does § 20A. See Ceres Partners, supra; Short v. Belleville Shoe Mfg. Co., 908 F. 2d 1385 (CA7 1990), cert. pending, No. 90-526; In re Data Access Systems Securities Litigation, 843 F. 2d 1537 (CA3), cert. denied sub nom. Vitiello v. I. Kahlowsky & Co., 488 U. S. 849 (1988).
Necessarily, we that state-law fraud provides the closest analogy to § 10(b). The analytical framework we adopt above makes consideration of state-law alternatives unnecessary where Congress has provided an express limitations period for correlative remedies within the same enactment.
M ) — I I — I
Finally, we address plaintiff-respondents’ contention that, whatever limitations period is applicable to § 10(b) claims, that period must be subject to the doctrine of equitable tolling. Plaintiff-respondents note, correctly, that “[t]ime requirements in lawsuits . . . are customarily subject to ‘equitable tolling.’” Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 95 (1990), citing Hallstrom v. Tillamook County, 493 U. S. 20, 27 (1989). Thus, this Court has said that in the usual case, “where the party injured by the fraud remains in ignorance of it without any fault or want of diligence or care on his part, the bar of the statute does not begin to run until the fraud is discovered, though there be no special circumstances or efforts on the part of the party committing the fraud to conceal it from the knowledge of the other party.” Bailey v. Glover, 21 Wall. 342, 348 (1875); see also Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 396-397 (1946). Notwithstanding this venerable principle, it is evident that the equitable tolling doctrine is fundamentally inconsistent with the l-and-3-year structure.
The 1-year period, by its terms, begins after discovery of the facts constituting the violation, making tolling unnecessary. The 3-year limit is a period of repose inconsistent with tolling. One commentator explains: “[T]he inclusion of the three-year period can have no significance in this context other than to impose an outside limit.” Bloomenthal, The Statute of Limitations and Rule 10b-5 Claims: A Study in Judicial Lassitude, 60 U. Colo. L. Rev. 235, 288 (1989). See also ABA Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities, Report of the Task Force on Statute of Limitations for Implied Actions 645, 655 (1986) (advancing “the inescapable conclusion that Congress did not intend equitable tolling to apply in actions under the securities laws”). Because the purpose of the 3-year limitation is clearly to serve as a cutoff, we hold that tolling principles do not apply to that period.
IV
Litigation instituted pursuant to § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 therefore must be commenced within one year after the discovery of the facts constituting the violation and within three years after such violation. As there is no dispute that the earliest of plaintiff-respondents’ complaints was filed more than three years after petitioner’s alleged misrepresentations, plaintiff-respondents’ claims were untimely.
The judgment of the
It is so ordered.
See, e. g., Nesbit v. McNeil, 896 F. 2d 380 (CA9 1990) (applying state limitations period governing common-law fraud); Bath v. Bushkin, Gaims, Gaines and Jonas, 913 F. 2d 817 (CA10 1990) (same); O’Hara v. Kovens, 625 F. 2d 15 (CA4 1980) (applying state blue sky limitations period), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 1124 (1981); Forrestal Village, Inc. v. Graham, 179 U. S. App. D. C. 225, 551 F. 2d 411 (1977) (same); In re Data Access Systems Securities Litigation, 843 F. 2d 1537 (CA3) (establishing uniform federal period), cert. denied sub nom. Vitiello v. I. Kahlowsky & Co., 488 U. S. 849 (1988); Short v. Belleville Shoe Mfg. Co., 908 F. 2d 1385 (CA7 1990), cert. pending, No. 90-526 (same).
Although not identical in language, all these relate to one year after discovery and to three years after violation.
On rare occasions, this Court has found it to be Congress’ intent that no time limitation be imposed upon a federal cause of action. See, e. g., Occidental Life Ins. Co. of Cal. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355 (1977). No party in the present litigation argues that this was Congress’ purpose in enacting § 10(b), and we agree that there is no evidence of such intent.
Section 10 of the 1934 Act provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person, or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce or of the mails, or of any facility of any national securities exchange—
“(b) To use or employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security. . . any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.” 15 U. S. C. §78j.
Commission Rule 10b-5, first promulgated in 1942, now provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange,
“(a) To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,
“(b) To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, or
“(c) To engage in any act, or course or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person,
“in connection with the purchase or sale of any security." 17 CFR § 240.10b-5 (1990).
Section 16(b), 15 U. S. C. §78p(b), sets a 2-year rather than a 3-year period of repose. Because that provision requires the disgorgement of unlawful profits and differs in focus from § 10(b) and from the other express causes of action, we do not find § 16(b) to be an appropriate source from which to borrow a limitations period here.
Section 9(e) of the 1934 Act provides:
“No action section, unless brought within one year after the discovery of the facts constituting the violation and within three years after such violation.” 15 U. S. C. § 78i(e).
Section 18(c) of the 1934 Act provides:
“No action shall be maintained to enforce any liability created under this section unless brought within one year after the discovery of the facts constituting the cause of action and within three years after such cause of action accrued.” 15 U. S. C. §78r(c).
Section 13 of the 1933 Act, as so amended, provides:
“No action shall be maintained to enforce any liability created under section 77k or 77l(2) of this title unless brought within one year after the discovery of the untrue statement or the omission, or after such discovery should have been made by the exercise of reasonable dilligence, or, if the action is to enforce a liability created under section 77l(l) of this title, unless brought within one year after the violation upon which it is based. In no event shall any such action be brought to enforce a liability created under section 77k or 77l(1) of this title more than three years after the security was bona fide offered to the public, or under section 77l(2) of this title more than three years after the sale.” 15 U. S. C. § 77m.
Justice Kennedy would borrow the 1-year limitations period contained in the 1934 Act but not the accompanying period of repose. In our view, the l-and-3-year scheme represents an indivisible determination by Congress as to the appropriate cutoff point for claims under the statute. It would disserve that legislative determination to sever the two periods. Moreover, we find no support in our cases for the practice of borrowing only a portion of an express statute of limitations. Indeed, such a practice comes close to the type of judicial policymaking that our borrowing doctrine was intended to avoid.
The Commission notes, correctly, that the various l-and-3-year periods contained in the 1934 and 1933 Acts differ slightly in terminology. To the extent that these distinctions in the future might prove significant, we select as the governing standard for an action under § 10(b) the language of § 9(e) of the 1934 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78i(e).
Section 313(a) of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 5114, reads:
“Except as otherwise provided by law, a civil action arising under an Act of Congress enacted after the date of the enactment of this section may not be commenced later than 4 years after the cause of action accrues.” Section 313(c) states that the “amendments made by this section shall apply with respect to causes of action accruing on or after the date [December 1, 1990,] of the enactment of this Act.” This new statute obviously has no application in the present litigation.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 2 (b) of the MeCarran-Ferguson Act provides that “[T]he Federal Trade Commission Act, . . . shall be applicable to the business of insurance to the extent that such business is not regulated by State law.” The State in which the respondent is incorporated prohibits unfair or decéptive practices in the insurance business there or “in any other state.” The question presented is whether the respondent’s interstate mail order insurance business is thereby “regulated by State law” so as to insulate its practices in commerce from the regulative authority of the Federal Trade Commission.
The respondent, a Nebraska corporation, is engaged in the business of selling health insurance. Licensed only in the States of Nebraska and Virginia, the respondent sells no policies through agents, but from its office in Omaha transacts business by mail with residents of every State. It solicits business by mailing circular letters to prospective buyers recommended by existing policyholders. All business is carried on by direct mail from the Omaha office; it is from there that policies are issued, and there that premiums are paid and claims filed.
A Nebraska statute provides: “No person shall engage in this state in unfair methods of competition or in unfair or deceptive acts and practices in the conduct of the business of insurance. No person domiciled in or resident of this state shall engage in unfair methods of competition or in unfair or deceptive acts and practices in the conduct of the business of insurance in any other state, territory, possession, province, country, or district.”
The Court of Appeals set aside a cease-and-desist order of the Federal Trade Commission prohibiting the respondent from making certain statements and representations in its circular letters found by the Commission to be misleading and deceptive in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act. 15 U. S. C. § 45. The court concluded that “[w]ith every activity of the [respondent], in the conduct of its business, subject to the supervision and control of the Director of Insurance of Nebraska, we think that the [respondent’s] practices in the solicitation of insurance by mail in Nebraska or elsewhere reasonably and realistically cannot be held to be unregulated by State law.” The court accordingly decided that the Commission was “without authority to regulate the practices of the [respondent] in soliciting insurance.” 262 F. 2d 241, 244. Judge Yogel dissented, stating his belief that it was “impractical and ineffective” to “force the citizens of other states to rely upon Nebraska’s regulation of the long distance advertising practices of the [respondent] in the promotion and sale by mail or otherwise of insurance outside the State of Nebraska.” It was his view that Nebraska’s regulation of deceptive practices “in any other state” is not “the kind of regulation by state law Congress had in mind” in enacting the McCarran-Ferguson Act. 262 F. 2d 241, 245. Certiorari was granted, 359 U. S. 988, to resolve an important question left undecided in Federal Trade Comm’n v. National Casualty Co., 357 U. S. 560.
In that case the issue involved the effect of state laws regulating the advertising practices of insurance companies which were licensed to do business within the States and which were engaged in advertising programs requiring distribution of material by local agents. In those circumstances the Court found there was “no question but that the States possess ample means to regulate this advertising within their respective boundaries.” 357 U. S., at 564. It was held that § 2 (b) of the McCarran-Ferguson Act “withdrew from the Federal Trade Commission the authority to regulate respondents’ advertising practices in those States which are regulating those practices under their own laws.” 357 U. S., at 563. The Court expressed no view as to “the intent of Congress with regard to interstate insurance practices which the States cannot for constitutional reasons regulate effectively . . . .” 357 U. S., at 564.
The question here is thus quite different from that presented in National Casualty. In this case the state regulation relied on to displace the federal law is not the protective legislation of the States whose citizens are the targets of the advertising practices in question. Rather, we are asked to hold that the McCarran-Ferguson Act operates to oust the Commission of jurisdiction by reason of a single State’s attempted regulation of its domiciliary’s extraterritorial activities. But we cannot believe that this kind of law of a single State takes from the residents of every other State the protection of the Federal Trade Commission Act. In our opinion the state regulation which Congress provided should operate to displace this federal law means regulation by the State in which the deception is practiced and has its impact.
The McCarran-Ferguson Act was passed in 1945. Its basic purpose was to allay doubts, thought to have been raised by this Court’s decision of the previous year in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn., 322 U. S. 533, as to the continuing power of the States to tax and regulate the business of insurance. See Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin, 328 U. S. 408, 429-433; Maryland Casualty Co. v. Cushing, 347 U. S. 409, 413; Securities & Exchange Comm’n v. Variable Annuity Co., 359 U. S. 65, 99 (dissenting opinion). The original bills as passed by both the Senate and the House would have made the Federal Trade Commission Act completely inapplicable to the insurance business. S. 340, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 91 Cong. Rec. 478-488, 1085, 1093-1094. During the debate in the House, however, several members objected to the provision exempting the business of insurance from this federal statute (91 Cong. Rec. 1027-1028, 1086, 1089, 1092-1093), and Representative Sum-ners, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, stated that in conference he would support an amendment which would make the Federal Trade Commission Act applicable to the same extent as the Sherman and Clayton Acts. 91 Cong. Rec. 1093. Thus it was that § 2 (b) in the form finally enacted first appeared as a recommendation of the Conference Committee of the two Houses. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 213, 79th Cong., 1st Sess.
Since the House accepted the Conference Report without debate, 91 Cong. Rec. 1396, the only discussion of § 2 (b) in its present form occurred in the Senate. Yet, from that somewhat limited debate, as well as the earlier debate in both Houses as to the effect of the Sherman and Clayton Acts, it is clear that Congress viewed state regulation of insurance solely in terms of regulation by the law of the State where occurred the activity sought to be regulated. There was no indication of any thought that a State could regulate activities carried on beyond its own borders.
Thus the report on the original House bill stated: “It is not the intention of Congress in the enactment of this legislation to clothe the States with any power to regulate or tax the business of insurance beyond that which they had been held to possess prior to the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Southeastern Underwriters Association case. Briefly, your committee is of the opinion that we should provide for the continued regulation and taxation of insurance by the States, subject always, however, to the limitations set out in the controlling decisions of the United States Supreme Court, as, for instance, in Allgeyer v. Louisiana (165 U. S. 578), St. Louis Cotton Compress Co. v. Arkansas (260 U. S. 346), and Connecticut General Insurance Co. v. Johnson (303 U. S. 77), which hold, inter alia, that a State does not have power to tax contracts of insurance or reinsurance entered into outside its jurisdiction by individuals or corporations resident or domiciled therein covering risks within the State or to regulate such transactions in any way.” (H. R. Rep. No. 143, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. 3.)
Significantly, when Senator McCarran presented to the Senate the bill agreed to in conference, he began by reading most of the foregoing quotation from the original House Report as part of his explanation of the bill. 91 Cong. Rec. 1442. The ensuing Senate debate centered around §2(b). The three Senate conferees, Senators McCarran, O’Mahoney, and Ferguson, repeatedly emphasized that the provision did not authorize state regulation of extraterritorial activities. See, e. g., 91 Cong. Rec. 1481, 1483, 1484. Typical is the following statement by Senator O’Mahoney: “When the moratorium period passes, the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Federal Trade Commission Act come to life again in the field of interstate commerce, and in the field of interstate regulation. Nothing in the proposed law' would authorize a State to try to regulate for other States, or authorize any private group or association to regulate in the field of interstate commerce.” 91 Cong. Rec. 1483.
Not only this specific legislative history, but also a basic motivating policy behind the legislative movement that culminated in the enactment of the McCarran-Ferguson Act serve to confirm the conclusion that when Congress provided that the Federal Trade Commission Act would be displaced to the extent that the insurance business was “regulated” by state law, it referred only to regulation by the State where the business activities have their operative force. One of the major arguments advanced by proponents of leaving regulation to the States was that the States were in close proximity to the people affected by the insurance business and, therefore, were in a better position to regulate that business than the Federal Government. See, e. g., 91 Cong. Rec. 1087; 90 Cong. Rec. 6532. Joint Hearings before the Subcommittees of the Committees on the Judiciary on S. 1362, H. R. 3269, H. R. 3270, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. 17, 37, 117, 238-239, 242-243, 244, 252. Such a purpose would hardly be served by delegating to any one State sole legislative and administrative control of the practices of an insurance business affecting the residents of every other State in the Union. This Court has referred before to the “unwisdom, unfairness and injustice of permitting policyholders to seek redress only in some distant state where the insurer is incorporated.” Travelers Health Assn. v. Virginia, 339 U. S. 643, 649.
Because of our view as to the meaning of § 2 (b) of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, we do not need to consider the constitutional questions that might arise as to the applicability of the Nebraska statute to misrepresentations made to residents of other States. Compare Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 294 U. S. 532; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Brown, 234 U. S. 542; Sligh v. Kirkwood, 237 U. S. 52. Suffice it to note that the impediments, contingencies, and doubts which constitutional limitations might create as to Nebraska’s power to regulate any given aspect of extraterritorial activity serve only to confirm the reading we have given to § 2 (b) of the Act.
It follows that the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be vacated, and the case remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with the views expressed in this opinion.
Vacated and remanded.
The here pertinent portions of the McCarran-Ferguson Act are as follows: “That the Congress hereby declares that the continued regulation and taxation by the several States of the business of insurance is in the public interest, and that silence on the part of the Congress shall not be construed to impose any barrier to the regulation or taxation of such business by the several States.
“Sec. 2. (a) The business of insurance, and every person engaged therein, shall be subject to the laws of the several States which relate to the regulation or taxation of such business.
“(b) No Act of Congress shall be construed to invalidate, impair, or supersede any law enacted by any State for the purpose, of regulating the business of insurance, or which imposes a fee or tax upon such business, unless such Act specifically relates to the business of insurance: Provided, That after June 30, 1948, . . . the Sherman Act, . . . the Clayton Act, and . . . the Federal Trade Commission Act, . . . shall be applicable to the business of insurance to the extent that such business is not regulated by State law. . . 59 Stat. 33, as amended, 61 Stat. 448.
Section 44-1503 of Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska, 1943, as amended by the Emergency Act of May 14, 1957, Laws of Nebraska, 1957, c. 191, § 2. This provision is part of the Nebraska “Unfair Competition and Trade Practices” Act of 1947, as amended. (§§ 44-1501 to 44-1521, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska, 1943, 1957 Cumulative Supplement, Laws of Nebraska, 1957, c. 191.) Other provisions of the Act empower the Director of Insurance (1) to prefer charges against any such insurer if he has reason to believe that it has, in Nebraska or elsewhere, engaged “in any unfair or deceptive act or practice in the conduct of such business,” and to give the insurer notice of a hearing on the charges (§44-1506); (2) to take evidence at the hearing (§ 44-1507); and (3) to issue a cease-and-desist order if he determines that the insurer has engaged in the wrongful acts and practices with which it is charged (§44-1509).
This basic difference was effectively emphasized in Commissioner Gwynne’s separate opinion concurring in the Commission’s action in the present proceeding. He pointed out that he had dissented from the Commission’s assumption of jurisdiction in the American Hospital proceeding, where the “insurance company operated exclusively through agents in various states, in which it was duly licensed under the respective state laws,” where “every such state had adopted the Model Code, or equivalent legislation,” and where the “advertising practice complained of involved bundles of advertising matter mailed from the home office to the company’s agents in the several states and disseminated there by such agents.” 53 F. T. C. 548, 558-559. (Commissioner Gwynne’s view as to the Commission’s lack of jurisdiction in the American Hospital proceeding was ultimately upheld here in Federal Trade Comm’n v. National Casualty Co., 357 U. S. 560, which disposed of both the order against National Casualty Company and the order against American Hospital & Life Insurance Company.) In the present case, by contrast, Commissioner Gwynne pointed out that the respondent was making representations to induce sales of insurance in States where it was not licensed and had no agents. He concluded that “this type of law (that is, a law purporting to protect the people of another state from deceptive advertising) can hardly be said to be the type of law referred to in Section 2 (b) of the McCarran Act. Section 2 (b) makes the Federal Trade Commission Act applicable to the business of insurance to the extent that such business is not regulated by state law. I think this refers to the laws of the state whose citizens are being affected by the advertising and not to laws of some other state operating extra-territorially.” 53 F. T. C. 548, 563. Commissioner Gwynne, as a member of Congress, participated in the debates leading to the passage of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 91 Cong. Rec. 1089, 1090. See also 90 Cong. Rec. 6534-6536.
The respondent has argued in this Court that the Federal Trade Commission lacked jurisdiction because the respondent’s advertising practices are regulated not only by Nebraska, but also by “all other states” in which the respondent conducts its mail order business. To this the petitioner replies that (1) the respondent did not raise this argument before the Commission and, therefore, has waived it; (2) the statutes of the “other” States do not purport to apply to misrepresentations mailed to their residents by unlicensed, nonresident insurance companies having no local agents; and (3) even if these state statutes purported to be applicable to misrepresentations by such insurers, there still would not be regulation by state law within the meaning of the § 2 (b) proviso because the statutes could not be effectively enforced against the respondent. The Court of Appeals gave no consideration to the effect of “regulation” by any State other than Nebraska. In accord with accepted principles, we decline to consider these issues on the present record, leaving them “to be considered for what they are worth by the court below, if duly presented and relied upon Marconi Wireless Co. v. Simon, 246 U. S. 46, 57. See Tunstall v. Brotherhood, 323 U. S. 210, 214; United States v. Beach, 324 U. S. 193, 196; Federal Communications Comm’n v. WJR, 337 U. S. 265, 285.
While the appeal in South-Eastern Underwriters was pending here, there had been abortive attempts in the Seventy-eighth Congress to immunize the business of insurance from the federal antitrust laws. See H. R. 3270, S. 1362, 78th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. Rep. No. 873, 78th Cong., 1st Sess.; 89 Cong. Rec. 7686, 10532, 10659-10664.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we consider whether the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment requires that, before a trial court admits testimony under the “spontaneous declaration” and “medical examination” exceptions to the hearsay rule, the prosecution must either produce the declarant at trial or the trial court must find that the declarant is unavailable. The Illinois Appellate Court concluded that such procedures are not constitutionally required. We agree with that conclusion.
Petitioner was convicted by a jury of aggravated criminal sexual assault, residential burglary, and unlawful restraint. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶¶ 12-14, 19-3, 10-3 (1989). The events giving rise to the charges related to the sexual assault of S. G., then four years old. Testimony at the trial established that in the early morning hours of April 16,1988, S. G.’s babysitter, Tony DeVore, was awakened by S. G.’s scream. DeVore went to S. G.’s bedroom and witnessed petitioner leaving the room, and petitioner then left the house. 6 Tr. 10-11. DeVore knew petitioner because petitioner was a friend of S. G.’s mother, Tammy Grigsby. Id., at 27. DeVore asked S. G. what had happened. According to DeVore’s trial testimony, S. G. stated that petitioner had put his hand over her mouth, choked her, threatened to whip her if she screamed and had “touch[ed] her in the wrong places.” Asked by DeVore to point to where she had been touched, S. G. identified the vaginal area. Id., at 12-17.
Tammy Grigsby, S. G.’s mother, returned home about 30 minutes later. Grigsby testified that her daughter appeared “scared” and a “little hyper.” Id., at 77-78. Grigsby proceeded to question her daughter about what had happened. At trial, Grigsby testified that S. G. repeated her claims that petitioner had choked and threatened her. Grigsby also testified that S. G. stated that petitioner had “put his mouth on her front part.” Id., at 79. Grigsby also noticed that S. G. had bruises and red marks on her neck that had not been there previously. Id., at 81. Grigsby called the police.
Officer Terry Lewis arrived a few minutes later, roughly 45 minutes after S. G.’s scream had first awakened DeVore. Lewis questioned S. G. alone in the kitchen. At trial, Lewis’ summary of S. G.’s statement indicated that she had offered essentially the same story as she had first reported to De-Vore and to Grigsby, including a statement that petitioner had “used his tongue on her in her private parts.” Id., at 110-112.
After Lewis concluded his investigation, and approximately four hours after DeVore first heard S. G.’s scream, S. G. was taken to the hospital. She was examined first by Cheryl Reents, an emergency room nurse, and then by Dr. Michael Meinzen. Each testified at trial, and their testimony indicated that, in response to questioning, S. G. again provided an account of events that was essentially identical to the one she had given to DeVore, Grigsby, and Lewis.
S. G. never testified at petitioner’s trial. The State attempted on two occasions to call her as a witness, but she apparently experienced emotional difficulty on being brought to the courtroom and in each instance left without testifying. App. 14. The defense made no attempt to call S. G. as a witness, and the trial court neither made, nor was asked to make, a finding that S. G. was unavailable to testify. 6 Tr. 105-106.
Petitioner objected on hearsay grounds to DeVore, Grigsby, Lewis, Reents, and Meinzen being permitted to testify regarding S. G.’s statements describing the assault. The trial court overruled each objection. With respect to DeVore, Grigsby, and Lewis the trial court concluded that the testimony could be permitted pursuant to an Illinois hearsay exception for spontaneous declarations. Petitioner’s objections to Reents’ and Meinzen’s testimony was similarly overruled, based on both the spontaneous declaration exception and an exception for statements made in the course of securing medical treatment. The trial court also denied petitioner’s motion for a mistrial based on S. G.’s “presence [and] failure to testify.” App. 14.
Petitioner was found guilty by a jury, and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed his conviction. It held that the trial court operated within the discretion accorded it under state law in ruling that the statements offered by DeVore, Grigsby, and Lewis qualified for the spontaneous declaration exception and in ruling that the statements offered by Re-ents and Meinzen qualified for the medical examination exception. 198 Ill. App. 3d 641, 648-656, 555 N. E. 2d 1241, 1246-1251 (1990). The court then went on to reject petitioner’s Confrontation Clause challenge, a challenge based principally on language contained in this Court’s decision in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U. S. 56 (1980). It concluded that our later decision in United States v. Inadi, 475 U. S. 387 (1986), foreclosed any rule requiring that, as a necessary antecedent to the introduction of hearsay testimony, the prosecution must either produce the declarant at trial or show that the declarant is unavailable. The Illinois Supreme Court denied discretionary review, and we granted certiorari, 500 U. S. 904 (1991), limited to the constitutional question whether permitting the challenged testimony violated petitioner’s Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause right.
We consider as a preliminary matter an argument not considered below but urged by the United States as amicus curiae in support of respondent. The United States contends that petitioner’s Confrontation Clause claim should be rejected because the Confrontation Clause’s limited purpose is to prevent a particular abuse common in 16th- and 17th-century England: prosecuting a defendant through the presentation of ex parte affidavits, without the affiants ever being produced at trial. Because S. G.’s out-of-court statements do not fit this description, the United States suggests that S. G. was not a “witness against” petitioner within the meaning of the Clause. The United States urges this position, apparently in order that we might further conclude that the Confrontation Clause generally does not apply to the introduction of out-of-court statements admitted under an accepted hearsay exception. The only situation in which the Confrontation Clause would apply to such an exception, it argues, would be those few cases where the statement sought to be admitted was in the character of an ex parte affidavit, i. e., where the circumstances surrounding the out-of-court statement’s utterance suggest that the statement has been made for the principal purpose of accusing or incriminating the defendant.
Such a narrow reading of the Confrontation Clause, which would virtually eliminate its role in restricting the admission of hearsay testimony, is foreclosed by our prior cases. The discussions in these cases, going back at least as far as Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237 (1895), have included historical examination of the origins of the Confrontation Clause and of the state of the law of evidence existing at the time the Sixth Amendment was adopted and later. We have been careful “not to equate the Confrontation Clause’s prohibitions with the general rule prohibiting the admission of hearsay statements.” Idaho v. Wright, 497 U. S. 805, 814 (1990) (citations omitted). Nonetheless, we have consistently sought to “stee[r] a middle course,” Roberts, supra, at 68, n. 9, that recognizes that “hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect similar values,” California v. Green, 399 U. S. 149, 156 (1970), and “stem from the same roots,” Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 86 (1970). In Mattox itself, upon which the Government relies, the Court allowed the recorded testimony of a witness at a prior trial to be admitted. But, in the Court’s view, the result was justified not because the hearsay testimony was unlike an ex parte affidavit, but because it came within an established exception to the hearsay rule. We think that the argument presented by the Government comes too late in the day to warrant reexamination of this approach.
We therefore now turn to petitioner’s principal contention that our prior decision in Roberts requires that his conviction be vacated. In Roberts we considered a Confrontation Clause challenge to the introduction at trial of a transcript containing testimony from a probable-cause hearing, where the transcript included testimony from a witness not produced at trial but who had been subject to examination by defendant’s counsel at the probable-cause hearing. In the course of rejecting the Confrontation Clause claim in that case, we used language that might suggest that the Confrontation Clause generally requires that a declarant either be produced at trial or be found unavailable before his out-of-court statement may be admitted into evidence. However, we think such an expansive reading of the Clause is negated by our subsequent decision in Inadi, supra.
In Inadi we considered the admission of out-of-court statements made by a co-conspirator in the course of the conspiracy. As an initial matter, we rejected the proposition that Roberts established a rule that “no out-of-court statement would be admissible without a showing of unavailability.” 475 U. S., at 392. To the contrary, rather than establishing “a wholesale revision of the law of evidence” under the guise of the Confrontation Clause, ibid., we concluded that “Roberts must be read consistently with the question it answered, the authority it cited, and its own facts,” id., at 394. So understood, Roberts stands for the proposition that unavailability analysis is a necessary part of the Confrontation Clause inquiry only when the challenged out-of-court statements were made in the course of a prior judicial proceeding. Ibid.
Having clarified the scope of Roberts, the Court in Inadi then went on to reject the Confrontation Clause challenge presented there. In particular, we refused to extend the unavailability requirement established in Roberts to all out-of-court statements. Our decision rested on two factors. First, unlike former in-court testimony, co-conspirator statements “provide evidence of the conspiracy’s context that cannot be replicated, even if the declarant testifies to the same matters in court,” Inadi, 475 U. S., at 395. Also, given a declarant’s likely change in status by the time the trial occurs, simply calling the declarant in the hope of having him repeat his prior out-of-court statements is a poor substitute for the full evidentiary significance that flows from statements made when the conspiracy is operating in full force. Ibid.
Second, we observed that there is little benefit, if any, to be accomplished by imposing an “unavailability rule.” Such a rule will not work to bar absolutely the introduction of the out-of-court statements; if the declarant either is unavailable, or is available and produced for trial, the statements can be introduced. Id., at 396. Nor is an unavailability rule likely to produce much testimony that adds meaningfully to the trial’s truth-determining process. Ibid. Many declarants will be subpoenaed by the prosecution or defense, regardless of any Confrontation Clause requirement, while the Compulsory Process Clause and evidentiary rules permitting a defendant to treat witnesses as hostile will aid defendants in obtaining a declarant’s live testimony. Id., at 396-398. And while an unavailability rule would therefore do little to improve the accuracy of factfinding, it is likely to impose substantial additional burdens on the fact-finding process. The prosecution would be required to repeatedly locate and keep continuously available each declar-ant, even when neither the prosecution nor the defense has any interest in calling the witness to the stand. An additional inquiry would be injected into the question of admissibility of evidence, to be litigated both at trial and on appeal. Id., at 398-399.
These observations, although expressed in the context of evaluating co-conspirator statements, apply with full force to the case at hand. We note first that the evidentiary rationale for permitting hearsay testimony regarding spontaneous declarations and statements made in the course of receiving medical care is that such out-of-court declarations are made in contexts that provide substantial guarantees of their trustworthiness. But those same factors that contribute to the statements’ reliability cannot be recaptured even by later in-court testimony. A statement that has been offered in a moment of excitement — without the opportunity to reflect on the consequences of one’s exclamation — may justifiably carry more weight with a trier of fact than a similar statement offered in the relative calm of the courtroom. Similarly, a statement made in the course of procuring medical services, where the declarant knows that a false statement may cause misdiagnosis or mistreatment, carries special guarantees of credibility that a trier of fact may not think replicated by courtroom testimony. They are thus materially different from the statements at issue in Roberts, where the out-of-court statements sought to be introduced were themselves made in the course of a judicial proceeding, and where there was consequently no threat of lost evidentiary value if the out-of-court statements were replaced with live testimony.
The preference for live testimony in the case of statements like those offered in Roberts is because of the importance of cross-examination, “the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” Green, 399 U. S., at 158. Thus courts have adopted the general rule prohibiting the receipt of hearsay evidence. But where proffered hearsay has sufficient guarantees of reliability to come within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule, the Confrontation Clause is satisfied.
We therefore think it clear that the out-of-court statements admitted in this case had substantial probative value, value that could not be duplicated simply by the declarant later testifying in court. To exclude such probative statements under the strictures of the Confrontation Clause would be the height of wrongheadedness, given that the Confrontation Clause has as a basic purpose the promotion of the “‘integrity of the factfinding process.’” Coy v. Iowa, 487 U. S. 1012, 1020 (1988) (quoting Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U. S. 730, 736 (1987)). And as we have also noted, a statement that qualifies for admission under a “firmly rooted” hearsay exception is so trustworthy that adversarial testing can be expected to add little to its reliability. Wright, 497 U. S., at 820-821. Given the evidentiary value of such statements, their reliability, and that establishing a generally applicable unavailability rule would have few practical benefits while imposing pointless litigation costs, we see no reason to treat the out-of-court statements in this case differently from those we found admissible in Inadi. A contrary rule would result in exactly the kind of “wholesale revision” of the laws of evidence that we expressly disavowed in Inadi. We therefore see no basis in Roberts or Inadi for excluding from trial, under the aegis of the Confrontation Clause, evidence embraced within such exceptions to the hearsay rule as those for spontaneous declarations and statements made for medical treatment.
As a second line of argument, petitioner presses upon us two recent decisions involving child testimony in child-sexual-assault cases, Coy v. Iowa, supra, and Maryland v. Craig, 497 U. S. 836 (1990). Both Coy and Craig required us to consider the constitutionality of courtroom procedures designed to prevent a child witness from having to face across an open courtroom a defendant charged with sexually assaulting the child. In Coy we vacated a conviction that resulted from a trial in which a child witness testified from behind a screen, and in which there had been no particularized showing that such a procedure was necessary to avert a risk of harm to the child. In Craig we upheld a conviction that resulted from a trial in which a child witness testified via closed circuit television after such a showing of necessity. Petitioner draws from these two cases a general rule that hearsay testimony offered by a child should be permitted only upon a showing of necessity — i. e., in cases where necessary to protect the child’s physical and psychological well-being.
Petitioner’s reliance is misplaced. Coy and Craig involved only the question of what in-court procedures are constitutionally required to guarantee a defendant’s confrontation right once a witness is testifying. Such a question is quite separate from that of what requirements the Confrontation Clause imposes as a predicate for the introduction of out-of-court declarations. Coy and Craig did not speak to the latter question. As we recognized in Coy, the admissibility of hearsay statements raises concerns lying at the periphery of those that the Confrontation Clause is designed to address, 487 U. S., at 1016. There is thus no basis for importing the “necessity requirement” announced in those cases into the much different context of out-of-court declarations admitted under established exceptions to the hearsay rule.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Illinois Appellate Court is
Affirmed.
The spontaneous declaration exception applies to “[a] statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition.” 198 Ill. App. 3d 641, 648, 666 N. E. 2d 1241, 1246 (1990).
Illinois Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶ 116-13 (1989), provides:
“In a prosecution for violation of Section 12-13, 12-14, 12-15 or 12-16 of the ‘Criminal Code of 1961’, statements made by the victim to medical personnel for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment including descriptions of the cause of symptom, pain or sensations, or the inception or general character of the cause or external source thereof insofar as reasonably pertinent to diagnosis or treatment shall be admitted as an exception to the hearsay rule.”
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to . . . be confronted with the witnesses against him_” U. S. Const., Arndt. 6.
We take as a given, therefore, that the testimony properly falls within the relevant hearsay exceptions.
We note also that the position now advanced by the United States has been previously considered by this Court but gained the support of only a single Justice. See Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 93-100 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring in result).
By “unavailability rule,” we mean a rule which would require as a predicate for introducing hearsay testimony either a showing of the declar-ant’s unavailability or production at trial of the declarant.
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right... to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 6.
Indeed, it is this factor that has led us to conclude that “firmly rooted” exceptions carry sufficient indicia of reliability to satisfy the reliability requirement posed by the Confrontation Clause. See Idaho v. Wright, 497 U. S. 805, 817, 820-821 (1990); Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U. S. 171, 182-184 (1987). There can be no doubt that the two exceptions we consider in this case are “firmly rooted.” The exception for spontaneous declarations is at least two centuries old, see 6 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1747, p. 195 (J. Chadbourn rev. 1976), and may date to the late 17th century. See Thompson v. Trevanion, 90 Eng. Rep. 179 (K. B. 1694). It is currently recognized under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(2), and in nearly four-fifths of the States. See Brief for State of California et al. as Amici Curiae 16-16, n. 4 (collecting state statutes and cases). The exception for statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment is similarly recognized in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(4), and is equally widely accepted among the States. See Brief for State of California et al. as Amici Curiae 31-32, n. 13 (same).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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.
Indiana's petition for certiorari argues that the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit incorrectly invalidated two new provisions of Indiana law: the first relating to the disposition of fetal remains by abortion providers; and the second barring the knowing provision of sex-, race-, or disability-selective abortions by abortion providers. See Ind. Code §§ 16-34-2-1.1(a)(1)(K), 16-34-3-4(a), 16-34- 4-4, 16-34-4-5, 16-34-4-6, 16-34-4-7, 16-34- 4-8, 16-41-16-4(d), 16-41-16-5 (2018). We reverse the judgment of the Seventh Circuit with respect to the first question presented, and we deny the petition with respect to the second question presented.
I
The first challenged provision altered the manner in which abortion providers may dispose of fetal remains. Among other changes, it excluded fetal remains from the definition of infectious and pathological waste, §§ 16-41-16-4(d), 16-41-16-5, thereby preventing incineration of fetal remains along with surgical byproducts. It also authorized simultaneous cremation of fetal remains, § 16-34-3-4(a), which Indiana does not generally allow for human remains, § 23-14-31-39(a). The law did not affect a woman's right under existing law "to determine the final disposition of the aborted fetus." § 16-34-3-2(a).
Respondents have never argued that Indiana's law creates an undue burden on a woman's right to obtain an abortion. Cf. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey , 505 U. S. 833, 874, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992) (plurality opinion). Respondents have instead litigated this case on the assumption that the law does not implicate a fundamental right and is therefore subject only to ordinary rational basis review. See Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. v. Commissioner of Indiana State Dept. of Health , 888 F. 3d 300, 307 (C.A.7 2018). To survive under that standard, a state law need only be "rationally related to legitimate government interests." Washington v. Glucksberg , 521 U. S. 702, 728, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997).
The Seventh Circuit found Indiana's disposition law invalid even under this deferential test. It first held that Indiana's stated interest in "the 'humane and dignified disposal of human remains' " was "not ... legitimate." 888 F. 3d at 309. It went on to hold that even if Indiana's stated interest were legitimate, "it [could not] identify a rational relationship" between that interest and "the law as written," because the law preserves a woman's right to dispose of fetal remains however she wishes and allows for simultaneous cremation. Ibid.
We now reverse that determination. This Court has already acknowledged that a State has a "legitimate interest in proper disposal of fetal remains." Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc. , 462 U. S. 416, 452, n. 45, 103 S.Ct. 2481, 76 L.Ed.2d 687 (1983). The Seventh Circuit clearly erred in failing to recognize that interest as a permissible basis for Indiana's disposition law. See Armour v. Indianapolis , 566 U. S. 673, 685, 132 S.Ct. 2073, 182 L.Ed.2d 998 (2012) (on rational basis review, "the burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support it"). The only remaining question, then, is whether Indiana's law is rationally related to the State's interest in proper disposal of fetal remains. We conclude that it is, even if it is not perfectly tailored to that end. See ibid. (the State need not have drawn "the perfect line," as long as "the line actually drawn [is] a rational" one). We therefore uphold Indiana's law under rational basis review.
We reiterate that, in challenging this provision, respondents have never argued that Indiana's law imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to obtain an abortion. This case, as litigated, therefore does not implicate our cases applying the undue burden test to abortion regulations. Other courts have analyzed challenges to similar disposition laws under the undue burden standard. See Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. v. Commissioner of Indiana State Dept. of Health , 917 F.3d 532, 534-535 (CA7, 2018) (Wood, C. J., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc). Our opinion expresses no view on the merits of those challenges.
II
Our opinion likewise expresses no view on the merits of the second question presented, i.e. , whether Indiana may prohibit the knowing provision of sex-, race-, and disability-selective abortions by abortion providers. Only the Seventh Circuit has thus far addressed this kind of law. We follow our ordinary practice of denying petitions insofar as they raise legal issues that have not been considered by additional Courts of Appeals. See this Court's Rule 10.
* * *
In sum, we grant certiorari with respect to the first question presented in the petition and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals with respect to that question. We deny certiorari with respect to the second question presented.
It is so ordered.
Justice SOTOMAYOR would deny the petition for a writ of certiorari as to both questions presented.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Services performed for patients between the ages of 21 and 65 in an “institution for mental diseases” (IMD) are not covered by the Medicaid Act. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has adopted a definition of that term that is broad enough to encompass an “intermediate care facility” (ICF). The Middletown Haven Rest Home is an ICF that provides care for persons with mental illness as well as other diseases. The narrow question presented by this case is whether Middletown Haven is an IMD within the meaning of the Act. The broader question is whether the Secretary’s definition of an IMD, which permits an ICF to be classified as an IMD, is consistent with the intent of Congress.
During the period between January 1977 and September 1979, the State of Connecticut paid Middletown Haven for the services it provided to Medicaid eligible patients, including those between the ages of 21 and 65 who had been transferred to Middletown Haven from state mental hospitals. Under the Medicaid program, the State received federal reimbursement of $1,634,655 for those payments.
After receiving information that Connecticut was discharging large numbers of mental patients from state mental institutions into ICFs and skilled nursing facilities, and after numerous meetings with state officials, the Department of Health and Human Services selected Middletown Haven, which is certified by the State as an ICF, for review and audit. The Department believed that the State was receiving federal financial aid in violation of applicable regulations that prohibited aid to IMDs.
Middletown Haven is a privately owned, 180-bed facility that is licensed by the Connecticut State Department of Health as a “Rest Home with Nursing Supervision” with authority “to care for persons with certain psychiatric conditions.” During the years 1977-1979 over 77% of its patients suffered from a major mental illness, and over half of its patients were transferees from state mental hospitals. Middletown Haven employed a professional staff, including three psychiatrists, that specialized in the care of the mentally ill; they viewed it as a psychiatric facility. In sum, there was ample evidence for the review team’s conclusion that Middletown was “primarily engaged” in providing diagnostic treatment and care for persons with mental diseases within the meaning of the applicable regulations.
After the completion of its audit, the Department gave notice to the State that the federal reimbursement of $1,634,655 was not allowable because Middletown Haven had been identified as an IMD and because payments for services to the mentally ill between the ages of 21 and 65 in IMDs were not eligible for federal financial participation. The State’s request for administrative review of the disallowance decision was consolidated with similar requests by the States of Illinois, Minnesota, and California. The Department’s Grant Appeals Board upheld the disallowance.
The State then obtained judicial review by filing this action. The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut held that the Secretary’s decision was not supported by the statute and set aside the disallowance. Connecticut v. Schweiker, 557 F. Supp. 1077 (1983). The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, 731 F. 2d 1052 (1984), expressly rejecting the contrary reasoning of the Eighth Circuit. See Minnesota v. Heckler, 718 F. 2d 852 (1983). The square conflict on an important question of statutory construction prompted us to grant certiorari. 469 U. S. 929 (1984).
Connecticut contends that the same institution cannot be both an “institution for mental diseases” and an “intermediate care facility”; in other words, IMDs and ICFs are mutually exclusive categories. Because the Secretary acknowledges that Middletown Haven is an ICF, the State concludes that it cannot be an IMD. In our view, however, the State’s position is foreclosed by the plain language of the statute, by the Secretary’s reasonable and longstanding interpretation of the Act, and by the Act’s legislative history. We therefore affirm.
I
In 1965 Congress authorized the Medicaid program by adding Title XIX to the Social Security Act; the program was established “for the purpose of providing federal financial assistance to States that choose to reimburse certain costs of medical treatment for needy persons. ” The program offers the financial assistance to States that submit and have approved by the Secretary plans for “medical assistance.” In its present form, the Act authorizes reimbursement for 18 categories of medical assistance.
For three types of covered medical services — inpatient hospital services, skilled nursing facilities services, and, most importantly, intermediate care facility services — the definition contains an express exception for services performed in IMDs. The thrice-repeated exclusion demonstrates that Congress did not intend the ICF and IMD categories to be mutually exclusive; if Congress had intended separate categories, the IMD exclusion from services in other types of facilities would be unnecessary and illogical.
Other provisions of the Act make it clear that services performed for the mentally ill may be covered, provided the services are performed in a hospital, a skilled nursing facility, or an ICF that is not an IMD. Thus, the definition of an ICF expressly describes persons “who because of their mental or physical condition” require institutional care but do not need the level of services provided by a skilled nursing facility or a hospital. And § 1396d(a)(18)(B) prohibits medical assistance for services to individuals under 65 who are patients in IMDs, while another provision, § 1396d(a)(14), also allows such payments for “inpatient hospital services, skilled nursing facility services, and intermediate care facility services for individuals 65 years of age or over in an institution for mental diseases.” To accept the State’s interpretation would render the language of § 1396d(a)(14) unnecessary and would render lifeless Congress’ approval of ICF services for persons 65 or over in IMDs.
“The term ‘medical assistance’ means payment of part or all of the cost of the following care and services ... for individuals[:]. . .
“(1) inpatient hospital services (other than services in an institution for mental diseases);
“(4)(A) skilled nursing facility services (other than services in an institution for mental diseases) for individuals 21 years of age or older . . . ;
“(15) intermediate care facility services (other than such services in an institution for mental diseases) for individuals who are determined ... to be in need of such care. . . .” 42 U. S. C. §§ 1396d(a)(1), (a)(4)(A), (a)(15) (1982 ed., Supp. III) (emphasis added).
Thus, there is ample textual support for the conclusion that an ICF may be an IMD.
II
In the absence of a statutory definition of the term “institution for mental diseases,” it is appropriate to consider the Secretary’s interpretation of that term.
The Secretary’s initial definition was provided shortly after the Medicaid program was enacted in 1965. It stated:
“Any individual who has not attained 65 years of age and is a patient in an institution for . . . mental diseases; i. e., an institution whose overall character is that of a facility established and maintained primarily for the care and treatment of individuals with . . . mental diseases (whether or not it is licensed) .” (Emphasis added.)
A few years later, the Secretary promulgated the following:
“Whether an institution is one for . . . mental diseases will be determined by whether its overall character is that of a facility established and maintained primarily for the care and treatment of individuals with . . . mental diseases (whether licensed or not) ....
“‘Institution for mental diseases’ means an institution which is primarily engaged in providing diagnosis, treatment or care of persons with mental diseases, including medical attention, nursing care and related services.”
The current definition — like the earlier versions — is essentially the same as the original definition developed almost two decades ago. In both the earliest and the later interpretations of “institution for mental diseases,” the Secretary consistently emphasized the “overall character” of the facility when defining an IMD.
Congress has never indicated dissatisfaction with the Secretary’s undeviating construction. “We have often noted that the interpretation of an agency charged with the administration of a statute is entitled to substantial deference.” Blum v. Bacon, 457 U. S. 132, 141 (1982). Moreover, the agency’s construction need not be the only reasonable one in order to gain judicial approval. It follows that the Secretary was authorized to determine that medical assistance is not available if the overall character of a facility discloses that it is maintained primarily for the care and treatment of individuals with mental diseases. We must therefore reject the State’s suggestion that ICFs and skilled nursing facilities that are primarily engaged in the care of the mentally ill are not “institutions for mental diseases” within the meaning of the Act.
HH I — I HH
The Medicaid program as enacted in 1965 provided coverage for elderly patients in IMDs, but also contained an express exclusion for patients under 65 years of age in IMDs. The Report of the Senate Committee on Finance made it clear that the IMD exclusion applied to both public and private mental institutions, and explained that it was based on the view that long-term care in mental institutions was a state responsibility.
The Committee Report also explained that the decision to provide federal financial assistance to the mentally ill who were 65 years of age or over was based in part on the requirement that the state plan would include adequate provision for individual review of a patient’s needs. Moreover, the Report stated that States had to develop and to implement comprehensive mental health programs. These latter conditions are components of the “Long Amendment,” and provide support for the State’s contention that federal policy favors the transfer of patients — at least the elderly — from IMDs to less restrictive treatment facilities.
In 1967, without amending the Medicaid statute, Congress expanded the aid programs for the aged, blind, and disabled by authorizing federal reimbursement for the cost of services in ICFs. The 1967 amendments do not expressly mention IMDs. Four years later, in 1971, Congress' adopted the amendment to the Medicaid statute that enlarged the definition of covered medical services to include services performed by ICFs. The amendments retained the IMD exclusion, an exclusion that remains in the Act today.
The next year, Congress added coverage for “inpatient psychiatric hospital services for individuals under 21.” In its deliberations on the 1972 amendments, Congress also considered the desirability of extending Medicaid “mental hospital coverage” to persons between the ages of 21 and 65, but decided not to do so. See Schweiker v. Wilson, 450 U. S. 221, 236 (1981).
The State points to several aspects of this lengthy legislative history to support its argument that the exception for IMDs should be narrowly construed to encompass only traditional custodial mental hospitals. It places special emphasis on the “Long Amendment,” which surely indicates that federal policy favors the transfer of mentally ill patients to alternative and less restrictive care facilities when feasible. It also notes that when federal assistance for ICFs was first authorized in 1967, no express exclusion for IMDs was made, and that the text of the Act plainly contemplates that ICF services will be provided for the mentally ill. Finally, it points to a number of comments by legislators indicating that they assumed that the IMD exclusion only referred to traditional mental hospitals.
The history on which the State relies does clearly establish that an individual is not ineligible for Medicaid simply because his need for care is based on a diagnosis of mental illness. Moreover, it is perfectly clear that hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and intermediate care facilities are not ineligible simply because they provide care and treatment for mentally ill patients. However, the legislative history also demonstrates that Congress has thrice since 1965 not accepted proposals to lift the IMD exclusion for persons under 65. But most damaging to the State’s position is a statement by Congress from the legislative history of the 1972 amendments, which authorized Medicaid funding for ICF services for the elderly in IMDs. In explaining this amendment, the Conference Report stated:
“The Senate amendment added a new section to the House bill which provided that when a State chooses to cover individuals age 65 and over in institutions for . . . mental diseases it must cover such care in intermediate care facilities as well as in hospitals and skilled nursing homes.”
This statement of congressional intent is consistent with the plain language of the statute and with the Secretary’s longstanding administrative interpretation: hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and ICFs can be IMDs and the terms are not mutually exclusive.
The State has persuasively argued that its position represents sound and enlightened policy. It has not, however, established that Congress has only excluded “hospitals” in which a mental illness is treated instead of “institutions for mental diseases.” The express authorization for coverage of individuals 65 years of age or over uses language that plainly indicates that a hospital, a skilled nursing facility, or an ICF may be an IMD; this indication is unambiguously confirmed by the fact that the same parenthetical exclusion for IMDs applies to all three types of facilities. Moreover, the Secretary’s interpretation of “institution for mental diseases” comports with the plain language of the statute. Finally, the legislative history does not reveal any clear expression of contrary congressional intent.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
App. 35a-37a.
Id., at 17a.
Id., at 22a-23a.
Id., at 14a. Although Middletown Haven did not hold itself out to the media as a mental institution, and although the level of care provided to patients at the facility was less restrictive than that provided in a typical mental hospital, Middletown Haven did hold itself out as a facility specializing in the treatment of mental diseases to sources of referral. Id., at 15a. Moreover, Middletown Haven cared for individuals' that could have been admitted into mental institutions and had a patient population uncharacteristic of nursing homes. Id., at 20a.
The Secretary’s regulations, 42 CFR §435.1009(e) (1984), define an IMD as follows:
“an institution that is primarily engaged in providing diagnosis, treatment or care of persons with mental diseases, including medical attention, nursing care and related services. Whether an institution is an institution for mental diseases is determined by its overall character as that of a facility established and maintained primarily for the care and treatment of individuals with mental diseases, whether or not it is licensed as such.”
The Secretary has developed criteria designed to focus on what constitutes “primarily engaged” and “overall character.” The review team utilized the following criteria when evaluating Middletown Haven:
1. That a facility is licensed as a mental institution;
2. That it advertises or holds itself out as a mental institution;
3. That more than 50% of the patients have a disability in mental functioning;
4. That it is used by mental hospitals for alternative care;
5. That patients who may have entered a mental hospital are accepted directly from the community;
6. That the facility is in proximity to a state mental institution (within a 25-mile radius);
7. That the age distribution is uncharacteristic of nursing home patients;
8. That the basis of Medicaid eligibility for patients under 65 is due to a mental disability, exclusive of services in an institution for mental disease;
9. That the facility hires staff specialized in the care of the mentally ill; and
10. That independent professional reviews conducted by state teams report a preponderance of mental patients in the facility. App. 12a-13a, 22a-23a.
Id., at 1e-6e. The letter stated that, because federal financial participation “is not available in payments to IMDs for persons aged 21 to 64, and because the State plan does not cover services by such facilities to individuals under 21 or over 65, no payments to IMDs are eligible” for federal financial participation. Id., at 2e.
App. to Pet. for Cert. 40d-44d.
In addition to filing in District Court, the State sought direct appellate review. The Court of Appeals dismissed for want of jurisdiction. 731 F. 2d 1052, 1055 (CA2 1984).
79 Stat. 343.
Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 301 (1980).
42 U. S. C. §§ 1396, 1396a.
See § 1905(a) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396d(a) (1982 ed. and Supp. III), as further amended by the Medicare and Medicaid Budget Reconciliation Amendments of 1984, Pub. L. 98-369, § 2335(f), 98 Stat. 1091.
The definitions of these three categories of service read as follows:
Section 1905(c) of the Act, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 1396d(c), provides in part:
“For purposes of this subchapter the term ‘intermediate care facility’ means an institution which (1) is licensed under State law to provide, on a regular basis, health-related care and services to individuals who do not require the degree of care and treatment which a hospital or skilled nursing facility is designed to provide, but who because of their mental or physical condition require care and services (above the level of room and board) which can be made available to them only through institutional facilities .... The term ‘intermediate care facility’ also includes any skilled nursing facility or hospital which meets the requirements of the proceeding [sic] sentence.... With respect to services furnished to individuals under age 65, the term ‘intermediate care facility’ shall not include, except as provided in subsection (d) of this section, any public institution or distinct part thereof for mental diseases or mental defects.”
It is a familiar principle of statutory construction that courts should give effect, if possible, to every word that Congress has used in a statute. See, e. g., Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 339 (1979).
Cf. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-845 (1984). The Act expressly provides the Secretary with authority to “make and publish such rules and regulations, not inconsistent with” the Act “as may be necessary [for its] efficient administration.” 42 U. S. C. § 1302.
U. S. Dept. of Health, Education & Welfare, Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, Supplement D—Medical Assistance Programs Under Title XIX of the Social Security Act, ¶ D-4620.2 (1966). Regulations fashioned shortly thereafter restated the essence of this definition: covered “ ‘[ijnpatient hospital services’ are those items and services ordinarily furnished by the hospital for the care and treatment of inpatients ... in an institution maintained primarily for treatment and care of patients with disorders other than . . . mental diseases.” 45 CFR § 249.10(b)(1) (1970) (emphasis added); see also §249.10(b)(4)(i) (skilled nursing home services are “those items and services furnished by a skilled nursing home maintained primarily for the care and treatment of inpatients with disorders other than . . . mental diseases”).
45 CFR §§ 248.60(a)(3)(ii) and (b)(7) (1972).
See n. 5, supra.
The State recognizes that the “substance of these provisions has not changed materially since their first adoption.” Brief for Petitioner 8.
See Unemployment Compensation Comm’n of Alaska v. Aragon, 329 U. S. 143, 153 (1946); see also American Paper Institute, Inc. v. American Electric Power Service Corp., 461 U. S. 402, 423 (1983) (“We need only conclude that [the agency’s interpretation] is a reasonable interpretation of the relevant provisions”).
The State also contends that the disallowance undermines the cooperative federalism concept on which the public assistance programs are based. More specifically, the State argues that the disallowance was based on an interpretation of the Act that did not crystallize until after it had received and spent the federal money. In our view, the Secretary’s position has been established with sufficient clarity at least since the 1972 regulations to make this argument untenable. The general policy of federal-state cooperation that underlies the entire program does favor a liberal interpretation of the eligibility provisions of the Act, but as is true of the policy favoring the development of less restrictive treatment programs for the mentally ill that is reflected in the “Long Amendment,” see infra, this page and 534, we must nevertheless respect the apparent limits that Congress has placed on its own decision to fund the implementation of sound policy.
79 Stat. 352. The statute provided that the term “medical assistance” did not include
“(A) any such payments with respect to care or services for any individual who is an inmate of a public institution (except as a patient in a medical institution); or
“(B) any such payments with respect to care or services for any individual who has not attained 65 years of age and who is a patient in an institution for tuberculosis or mental diseases.” Ibid.
The statute also contained a prohibition against payments for certain services rendered in IMDs. Id., at 351-352.
The Report stated:
“Since the enactment of the Social Security Act, patients in public mental and tuberculosis hospitals have not been eligible under the public assistance titles of the Social Security Act, and only prior to 1951 were individuals eligible who were patients in private mental and tuberculosis hospitals. The reason for this exclusion was that long-term care in such hospitals had traditionally been accepted as a responsibility of the States.” S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 144 (1965).
See also H. R. Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 126 (1965).
The Senate Report continued:
26 A second safeguard, under the committee’s bill, is a provision that the State plan include a provision for an individual plan for each patient in the mental hospital to assure that the care provided to him is in his best interests and that there will be initial and periodic review of his medical and other needs. The committee is particularly concerned that the patient receive care and treatment designed to meet his particular needs. Thus, under the committee bill, the State plan would also need to assure that the medical care needed by the patient will be provided him and that other needs considered essential will be met and that there will be periodic redetermination of the need for the individual to be in the hospital.
“The committee believes that responsibility for the treatment of persons in mental hospitals — whether or not they be assistance recipients — is that of the mental health agency of the State.” S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, pp. 145-146 (1965).
See also H. R. Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 128 (1965).
The Report further stated:
“The committee believes it is important that States move ahead promptly to develop comprehensive mental health plans as'contemplated in the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963. In order to make certain that the planning required by the committee’s bill will become a part of the overall State mental health planning under the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, the committee’s bill makes the approvability of a State’s plan for assistance for aged individuals in mental hospitals dependent upon a showing of satisfactory progress toward developing and implementing a comprehensive mental health program — including utilization of community mental health centers, nursing homes, and other alternative forms of care.” S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 146 (1965).
See also H. R. Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 129 (1965).
See 110 Cong. Rec. 21346-21348 (1964); 79 Stat. 347; 42 U. S. C. §§ 1396a(a)(20), 1396a(a)(21). Commenting on the “Long Amendment,” the Senate Report stated, in part:
“The committee bill provides for the development in the State of alternative methods of care and requires that the maximum use be made of the existing resources in the community which offer ways of caring for the mentally ill who are not in hospitals. This is intended to include provision for persons who no longer need care in hospitals and who can, with financial help and social services to the extent needed, make their way in the community.” S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 146 (1965). See also H. R. Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 128 (1965).
81 Stat. 920-921.
The amendments did, however, provide:
“(d) Except when inconsistent with the purposes of this section or contrary to any provision of this section, any modification, pursuant to this section, of an approved State plan shall be subject to the same conditions, limitations, rights, and obligations as obtain with respect to such approved State plan.” Id., at 920.
The amendments were not actually signed until January 2, 1968, but are generally described as the “1967 amendments.”
85 Stat. 809. The amendment also contained a definition of the term “intermediate care facility” that largely tracks the language contained in the 1967 amendments. That definition, however, contained this comment on services for persons under age 65:
“With respect to services furnished to individuals under age 65, the term ‘intermediate care facility’ shall not include, except as provided in subsection (d), any public institution or distinct part thereof for mental diseases or mental defects.” Ibid.
A straightforward reading of this sentence strongly implies that a private institution for mental diseases may qualify as an ICF.
86 Stat. 1460-1461.
The Senate Report on the bill contains this statement:
“The committee also believes that the potential social and economic benefits of extending medicaid inpatient mental hospital coverage to mentally ill persons between the ages of 21 and 65 deserves to be evaluated and has therefore authorized demonstration projects for this purpose.” S. Rep. No. 92-1230, p. 281 (1972).
See also id,., at 57. The proposal was, however, rejected in conference. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 92-1605, p. 65 (1972).
Although the history of the IMD exclusion in various amendments to the Act suggests that Congress may have assumed that it would refer primarily to public institutions, the State does not argue that it is so confined. We are confident that Congress would have used the term “public” if it had not intended the exclusion to encompass private institutions as well.
See Social Security Amendments of 1971: Hearings on H. R. 1 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 92d Cong., 1st and 2d Sess., pt. 2, pp. 924-941 (1972) (statements of Dr. Jonathan Leopold, Commissioner, Vermont Dept. of Mental Health, and Dr. Kenneth Gaver, Commissioner, Ohio Dept. of Mental Hygiene and Corrections); Social Security Amendments of 1970: Hearings on H. R. 17550 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, pp. 500-550 (1970); Social Security Amendments of 1967: Hearings on H. R. 12080 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, p. 1741 (1967) (statement of Dr. Robert W. Gibson, American Psychiatric Association).
The 1971 amendments were technically corrected to explain that the IMD exclusion did not prevent reimbursement for ICF services provided to the elderly in IMDs. 86 Stat. 1329, 1459-1460; S. Rep. No. 92-1230, pp. 320-321 (1972).
H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 92-1605, p. 64 (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.
The Secretary of Labor brought this action in the District Court for the Southern District of Indiana under § 402 (b) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), 73 Stat. 534, 29 U. S. C. § 482 (b), to invalidate the 1970 election of officers of Local 3489, United Steelworkers of America. The Secretary alleged that a provision of the Steelworkers’ International constitution, binding on the Local, that limits eligibility for local union office to members who have attended at least one-half of the regular meetings of the Local for three years previous to the election (unless prevented by union activities or working hours), violated § 401 (e) of the LMRDA, 29 U. S. C. §481 (e). The District Court dismissed the complaint, finding no violation of the Act. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed. 520 F. 2d 516 (1975). We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among Circuits over whether the Steelworkers’ constitutional provision violates § 401 (e). 424 U. S. 907 (1976). We affirm.
I
At the time of the challenged election, there were approximately 660 members in good standing of Local 3489. The Court of Appeals found that 96.5% of these members were ineligible to hold office, because of failure to satisfy the meeting-attendance rule. Of the 23 eligible members, nine were incumbent union officers. The Secretary argues, and the Court of Appeals held, that the failure of 96.5% of the local members to satisfy the meeting-attendance requirement, and the rule’s effect of requiring potential insurgent candidates to plan their candidacies as early as 18 months in advance of the election when the reasons for their opposition might not have yet emerged, established that the requirement has a substantial antidemocratic effect on local union elections. Petitioners argue that the rule is reasonable because it serves valid union purposes, imposes no very burdensome obligation on the members, and has not proved to be a device that entrenches a particular clique of incumbent officers in the local.
II
The opinions in three cases decided in 1968 have identified the considerations pertinent to the determination whether tlie attendance rule violates §401 (e). Wirtz v. Hotel Employees, 391 U. S. 492; Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers Assn., 389 U. S. 463; Wirtz v. Laborers’ Union, 389 U. S. 477.
The LMRDA does not render unions powerless to restrict candidacies for union office. The injunction in § 401 (e) that “every member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office” is made expressly “subject to . . . reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed.” But “Congress plainly did not intend that the authorization . . . of ‘reasonable qualifications . . .’ should be given a broad reach. The contrary is implicit in the legislative history of the section and in its wording . . . .” Wirtz v. Hotel Employees, supra, at 499. The basic objective of Title IV of the LMRDA is to guarantee “free and democratic” union elections modeled on “political elections in this country” where “the assumption is that voters will exercise common sense and judgment in casting their ballots.” 391 U. S., at 504. Thus, Title IV is not designed merely to protect the right of a union member to run for a particular office in a particular election. “Congress emphatically asserted a vital public interest in assuring free and democratic union elections that transcends the narrower interest of the complaining union member.” Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers Assn., supra, at 475; Wirtz v. Laborers’ Union, supra, at 483. The goal was to “protect the rights of rank-and-file members to participate fully in the operation of their union through processes of democratic self-government, and, through the election process, to keep the union leadership responsive to the membership.” Wirtz v. Hotel Employees, supra, at 497.
Whether a particular qualification is “reasonable” within the meaning of § 401 (e) must therefore “be measured in terms of its consistency with the Act’s command to unions to conduct ‘free and democratic’ union elections.” 391 U. S., at 499. Congress was not concerned only with corrupt union leadership. Congress chose the goal of “free and democratic” union elections as a preventive measure “to curb the possibility of abuse by benevolent as well as malevolent entrenched leadership.” Id., at 503. Hotel Employees expressly held that that check was seriously impaired by candidacy qualifications which substantially deplete the ranks of those who might run in opposition to incumbents, and therefore held invalid the candidacy limitation there involved that restricted candidacies for certain positions to members who had previously held union office. “Plainly, given the objective of Title IY, a candidacy limitation which renders 93% of union members ineligible for office can hardly be a 'reasonable qualification.’ ” Id., at 502.
Ill
Applying these principles to this case, we conclude that here, too, the antidemocratic effects of the. meeting-attendance rule outweigh the interests urged in its support. Like the bylaw in Hotel Employees, an attendance requirement that results in the exclusion of 96.5% of the members from candidacy for union office hardly seems to- be a “reasonable qualification” consistent with the goal of free and democratic elections. A requirement having that result obviously severely restricts the free choice of the membership in selecting its leaders.
Petitioners argue, however, that the bylaw held violative of § 401 (e) in Hotel Employees differs significantly from the attendance rule here. Under the Hotel Employees bylaw no member could assure by his own efforts that he would be eligible for union office, since others controlled the criterion for eligibility. Here, on the other hand, • a member can assure himself of eligibility for candidacy by attending some 18 brief meetings over a three-year period. In other words, the union would have its rule treated not as excluding a category of member from eligibility, but simply as mandating a procedure to be followed by any member who wishes to be a candidate.
Even examined from this perspective, however, the rule has a restrictive effect on union democracy.' In the absence of a permanent “opposition party” within the union, opposition to the incumbent leadership is likely to emerge in response to particular issues at different times, and member interest in changing union leadership is therefore likely to be at its highest only shortly before elections. Thus it is probable that to require that a member decide upon a potential candidacy at least 18 months in advance of an election when no issues exist to prompt that decision may not foster but discourage candidacies and to that extent impair the general membership’s freedom to oust incumbents in favor of new leadership.
Nor are we persuaded by petitioners’ argument that the Secretary has failed to show an antidemocratic effect because he has not shown that the incumbent leaders of the union became “entrenched” in their offices as a consequence of the operation of the attendance rule. The reasons for leaderships becoming entrenched are difficult to isolate. The election of the same officers year after year may be a signal that antidemocratic election rules have prevented an effective challenge to the regime, or might well signal only that the members are satisfied with their stewardship; if elections are uncontested, opposition factions may have been denied access to the ballot, or competing interests may have compromised differences before the election to maintain a front of unity. Conversely, turnover in offices may result from an open political process, or from a competition limited to candidates who offer no real opposition to an entrenched establishment. But Congress did not saddle the courts with the duty to search out and remove improperly entrenched union leaderships Bather, Congress chose to guarantee union democracy by regulating not the results of a union’s electoral procedure but the procedure itself. Congress decided that if the elections are “free and democratic,” the members themselves are able to correct abuse of power by entrenched leadership. Procedures that unduly restrict free choice among candidates are forbidden without regard to their success or failure in maintaining corrupt leadership.
Petitioners next argue that the rule is reasonable within § 401 (e) because it encourages attendance at -union meetings, and assures more qualified officers by limiting election to those who have demonstrated an interest in union affairs, and are familiar with union problems. But the rule has plainly not served these goals. It has obviously done little to encourage attendance at meetings, which continue to attract only a handful of members. Even as to the more limited goal of encouraging the attendance of potential dissident candidates, very few members, as we have said, are likely to see themselves as such sufficiently far in advance of the election to be spurred to attendance by the rule.
As for assuring the election of knowledgeable and dedicated leaders, the election provisions of the LMRDA express a congressional determination that the best means to this end is to leave the choice of leaders to the membership in open democratic elections, unfettered by arbitrary exclusions. Pursuing this goal by excluding the bulk of the membership from eligibility for office, and thus limiting the possibility of dissident candidacies, runs directly counter to the basic premise of the statute. We therefore conclude that Congress, in guaranteeing every union member the opportunity to hold office, subject only to “reasonable qualifications,” disabled unions from establishing eligibility qualifications as sharply restrictive of the openness of the union political process as is petitioners’ attendance rule.
IY
Finally, petitioners argue that the absence of a precise statement of what the Secretary of Labor and the courts will regard as reasonable prevents the drafting of a meeting-attendance rule with any assurance that it will be valid under §401 (e). The Secretary, to whom Congress has assigned a special role in the administration of the Act, see Calhoon v. Harvey, 379 U. S. 134, 140 (1964); Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S. 560 (1975), has announced the following view:
“Experience has demonstrated that it is not feasible to establish arbitrary guidelines for judging the reasonableness of [a meeting-attendance eligibility requirement]. Its reasonableness must be gauged in the light of all the circumstances of the particular case, including not only the frequency of meetings, the number of meetings which must be attended and the period of time over which the requirement extends, but also such factors as the nature, availability and extent of excuse provisions, whether all or most members have the opportunity to attend meetings, and the impact of the rule, i. e., the number or percentage of members who would be rendered ineligible by its application.” 29 CFR §452.38 (a) (1976).
Obviously, this standard leads to more uncertainty than would a less flexible rule. But in using the word “reasonable,” Congress clearly contemplated exactly such a flexible result. Moreover, on the facts of this case and in light of Hotel Employees, petitioners’ contention that they had no way of knowing that a rule disqualifying over 90% of a local’s members from office would be regarded as unreasonable in the absence of substantial justification is unpersuasive.
Affirmed.
Constitution of International Union, United Steelworkers of America, Art. VII, §9 (c) (1968).
This section provides, in pertinent part:
“(e) In any election required by this section which is to be held by secret ballot a reasonable opportunity shall be given for the nomination of candidates and every member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office (subject to section 504 and to reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed) and shall have the right to vote for or otherwise support the candidate or candidates of his choice, without being subject to penalty, discipline, or improper interference or reprisal of any kind by such organization or any member thereof. . . . The election shall be conducted in accordance with the constitution and bylaws of such organization insofar as they are not inconsistent with the provisions of this title.”
The Steelworkers’ attendance requirement was held not to violate §401 (e) in Brennan v. Steelworkers, 489 F. 2d 884 (CA6 1973). Similar meeting-attendance requirements of other unions were found unreasonable in Usery v. Transit Union, 545 F. 2d 1300 (CA1 1976); Brennan v. Teamsters, 161 U. S. App. D. C. 173, 494 F. 2d 1092, 1099-1100 (1974); Wirtz v. Bottle Blowers Assn., 405 F. 2d 176 (CA3 1968).
Petitioners challenge this figure in this Court, but we cannot find it clearly erroneous. It is stipulated that of the approximately 660 members of the local, only 22 had attended enough meetings to qualify, and one additional member was found eligible by adding his excused absences to the meetings he attended. Petitioners now contend that other members may also have been eligible because of excused absences. In view of the admitted facts that the average attendance at meetings was
only 47, and that the meetings were held in split day and evening sessions so that workers on any shift could attend, it seems unlikely that a significant number of workers could qualify by this method. In any event, petitioners introduced no evidence to suggest that members other than the above 23 were eligible, and the District Court, in its unpublished opinion, apparently accepted the Secretary’s assertion that “in excess of 90%” of the local’s membership was disqualified. In these circumstances, we cannot speculate that the findings of the courts below may have been materially inaccurate.
Regular meetings were held on a monthly basis. Thus, in order to attend half of the meetings in a three-year period, a previously inactive member desiring to run for office would have to begin attending 18 months before the election.
Petitioners argue that attendance at 18 relatively short meetings over three years is no very onerous burden on a union member. But this argument misconceives the evil at which the statute aims. We must judge the eligibEity rule not by the burden it imposes on the individual candidate but by its effect on free and democratic processes of union government. Wirtz v. Hotel Employees, 391 U. S., at 499.
The Secretary suggests that in most unions there is no such organized opposition and that the pattern described in the text is indeed typical.
Attendance at Local 3489’s meetings averages 47 out of approximately 660 members. There is no indication in the record that this total represents a significant increase over attendance before the institution of the challenged rule.
Also unpersuasive is the argument that a union cannot know in advance how many of its members will be disqualified by a meeting-attendance rule. While the precise number may not be predictable, petitioners must have had some awareness of the general attendance rate at union meetings, and if Local 3489’s attendance rate is at all typical (and there is no contention that it is not), it should have been fairly obvious that a rule disqualifying all who had not maintained 50% attendance for three years, admittedly one of the most stringent such rules among labor unions, would have a significant antidemocratic impact.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, so far as it relates to the suspension of rates phase of the dispute, is vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the cause as moot. United States v. Amarillo-Borger Express, 352 U. S. 1028; Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Dixie Carriers, 355 U. S. 179. With respect to the antitrust phase of the dispute, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas dissent on the holding of Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1959 the respondent, Frank DeForte, a vice president of Teamsters Union Local 266, was indicted in Nassau County, New York, on charges of conspiracy, coercion, and extortion, it being alleged that he had misused his union office to “organize” owners of juke boxes and compel them to pay tribute. Prior to the return of the indictment, the Nassau County District Attorney’s office issued a subpoena duces tecum to Local 266, calling upon it to produce certain books and records. The subpoena was served upon the Union at its offices. When the Union refused to comply, the state officials who had served the subpoena conducted a search and seized union records from an office shared by DeForte and several other union officials. The search and seizure were without a warrant and took place despite the protests of DeForte, who was present in the office at the time. Over DeForte’s objection, the seized material was admitted against him at trial. He was convicted.
On direct appeal to the New York courts, DeForte unsuccessfully argued, inter alia, that the seized material was constitutionally inadmissible in state proceedings under the rule laid down in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, because the search and seizure occurred without a warrant. DeForte subsequently brought a federal habeas corpus proceeding, in which he made the same contention. The United States District Court for the Western District of New York denied the writ, 261 F. Supp. 579, but on appeal the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and directed that the writ issue. 379 F. 2d 897. We granted certiorari, 390 U. S. 903, to consider the State’s contention that the Court of Appeals erred in upsetting this state conviction. Concluding that the Court of Appeals was right, we affirm.
I.
It is desirable at the outset to make clear what is and what is not involved in this case. The decision below was based solely upon a finding that DeForte’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, see Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 30-34, were violated by the search and seizure, and that the seized material was therefore inadmissible under Mapp. It is on this ground alone that DeForte argues for affirmance. Consequently, there is no occasion to consider whether DeForte might successfully have asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination with respect to the use against him of the seized records. Cf. United States v. White, 322 U. S. 694; Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361. Nor is there any need to inquire whether DeForte could have asserted a Fourth or Fifth Amendment claim on behalf of the Union, for he did not do so. Moreover, this is not a case in which it is necessary to decide whether the traditional doctrine that Fourth Amendment rights “are personal rights, and . . . may be enforced by exclusion of evidence only at the instance of one whose own protection was infringed by the search and seizure,” Simmons v. United States, 390 U. S. 377, at 389, should be modified. Cf. id., at 390, n. 12. For DeForte claims that under the traditional rule he does have standing to challenge the admission against him at trial of union records seized from the office where he worked. The questions for decision, then, are whether DeForte has Fourth Amendment standing to object to the seizure of the records and, if so, whether the search was one prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.
II.
We deal, first, with the question of “standing.” The Fourth Amendment guarantees that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” The papers which were seized in this case belonged not to DeForte but to the Union. Hence, DeForte can have personal standing only if, as to him, the search violated the “right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . ...” This Court has held that the word “houses,” as it appears in the Amendment, is not to be taken literally, and that the protection of the Amendment may extend to commercial premises. See, e. g., See v. Seattle, 387 U. S. 541; Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344; Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385.
Furthermore, the Amendment does not shield only those who have title to the searched premises. It was settled even before our decision in Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257, that one with a possessory interest in the premises might have standing. See, e. g., United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48. In Jones, even that requirement was loosened, and we held that “anyone legitimately on premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality . . . when its fruits are proposed to be used against him.” 362 U. S., at 267. The Court’s recent decision in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, also makes it clear that capacity to claim the protection of the Amendment depends not upon a property right in the invaded place but upon whether the area was one in which there was a reasonable expectation of freedom from governmental intrusion. See 389 U. S., at 352. The crucial issue, therefore, is whether, in light of all the circumstances, DeForte’s office was such a place.
The record reveals that the office where DeForte worked consisted of one large room, which he shared with several other union officials. The record does not show from what part of the office the records were taken, and DeForte does not claim that it was a part reserved for his exclusive personal use. The parties have stipulated that DeForte spent “a considerable amount of time” in the office, and that he had custody of the papers at the moment of their seizure.
We hold that in these circumstances DeForte had Fourth Amendment standing to object to the admission of the papers at his trial. It has long been settled that one has standing to object to a search of his office, as well as of his home. See, e. g., Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298; United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452; Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129; cf. Lopez v. United States, 373 U. S. 427; Osborn v. United States, 385 U. S. 323. Since the Court in Jones v. United States, supra, explicitly did away with the requirement that to establish standing one must show legal possession or ownership of the searched premises, see 362 U. S., at 265-267, it seems clear that if DeForte had occupied a “private” office in the union headquarters, and union records had been seized from a desk or a filing cabinet in that office, he would have had standing. Cf. Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344; Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385. In such a “private” office, DeForte would have been entitled to expect that he would not be disturbed except by personal or business invitees, and that records would not be taken except with his permission or that of his union superiors. It seems to us that the situation was not fundamentally changed because DeForte shared an office with other union officers. DeForte still could reasonably have expected that only those persons and their personal or business guests would enter the office, and that records would not be touched except with their permission or that of union higher-ups. This expectation was inevitably defeated by the entrance of state officials, their conduct of a general search, and their removal of records which were in De-Forte’s custody. It is, of course, irrelevant that the Union or some of its officials might validly have consented to a search of the area where the records were kept, regardless of DeForte’s wishes, for it is not claimed that any such consent was given, either expressly or by implication.
Our conclusion that DeForte had standing finds strong support in Jones v. United States, supra. Jones was the occasional occupant of an apartment to which the owner had given him a key. The police searched the apartment while Jones was present, and seized narcotics which they found in a bird’s nest in an awning outside a window. Thus, like DeForte, Jones was not the owner of the searched premises. Like DeForte, Jones had little expectation of absolute privacy, since the owner and those authorized by him were free to enter. There was no indication that the area of the apartment near the bird’s nest had been set off for Jones’ personal use, so that he might have expected more privacy there than in the rest of the apartment; in this, it was like the part of DeForte’s office where the union records were kept. Hence, we think that our decision that Jones had standing clearly points to the result which we reach here.
III.
The remaining question is whether the search of De-Forte’s office was “unreasonable” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The State does not deny that the search and seizure were without a warrant, and it is settled for purposes of the Amendment that “except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, a search of private property without proper consent is ‘unreasonable’ unless it has been authorized by a valid search warrant.” Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 528-529. We think it plain that the state officials’ possession of a district attorney’s subpoena of the kind involved here does not bring this case within one of those “carefully defined classes.” The State has not attempted to justify the search and seizure on that ground, and the New York courts have themselves said as a matter of state law that “[a district attorney’s] subpoena duces tecum confers no right to seize the property referred to in the subpoena . . . .” Amalgamated Union, Local 224 v. Levine, 31 Misc. 2d 416, 417, 219 N. Y. S. 2d 851, 853.
Moreover, the subpoena involved here could not in any event qualify as a valid search warrant under the Fourth Amendment, for it was issued by the District Attorney himself, and thus omitted the indispensable condition that “the inferences from the facts which lead to the complaint'. .. be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.’ Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14.” Giordenello v. United States, 357 U. S. 480, 486. In Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, a corporate office was searched for papers which the corporation had refused to deliver in response to a New York District Attorney’s subpoena, apparently similar to the one in this case. Speaking for the Court, Mr. Justice Holmes not only held that the seizure of the papers was unjustified but characterized it as “an outrage.” Id., at 391. The objections of both the corporation and the officer were sustained. Thus, there can be no doubt that under this Court's past decisions the search of DeForte's office was “unreasonable” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Those appeals culminated in a petition for certiorari to this Court, which was denied sub nom. De Grandis v. New York, 375 U. S. 868.
DeForte’s petition for certiorari following direct appeal was denied in 1963, more than two years after the Court’s decision in Mapp v. Ohio. Under the rule laid down in Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, DeForte is entitled to invoke the exclusionary principle established in Mapp. See 381 U. S., at 622 and n. 5.
The petitioner, Mancusi, is the warden of the New York State prison in which DeForte is confined.
The fact that the seized papers belonged to the Union does not imply of itself that an individual could never have personal standing to object to their admission against him. For example, state officers conceivably might have seized the papers during a search of DeForte’s home, and in that event we think it clear that he would have had standing. Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361, is by no means to the contrary, for in that case there was no physical search at all. The only Fourth Amendment standing question in Wilson was whether a corporate officer had personal standing to object to a subpoena duces tecum addressed to the corporation, on the ground that it was overbroad. See 221 U. S., at 375-376.
The petitioner contends that this holding was not intended to have general application, but that it was devised solely to solve the particular dilemma presented in Jones: that of a defendant who was charged with a possessory offense and consequently might have to concede his guilt in order to establish standing in the usual way. However, this limited reading of Jones overlooks the fact that in Jones standing was held to exist on two distinct grounds: “(1) [The circumstance that] possession both convicts and confers standing, eliminates any necessity for a preliminary showing of an interest in the premises searched or the property seized .... (2) Even ■were this not a prosecution turning on illicit possession, the legally requisite interest in the premises was here satisfied . . . .” 362 U. S., at 263. (Emphasis added.) Thus, the second branch of the holding, with which we are here concerned, was explicitly stated to be of general effect.
See Joint Appendix 51-52.
See also Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483; United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48; McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451; Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20.
A copy of the subpoena appears in the Joint Appendix, at 22. The subpoena was signed by the District Attorney and directed to the Union as a witness in a criminal action. It ordered the Union to appear before the District Attorney forthwith, and to bring with it specified union records. The subpoena appears to have been issued under the authority of N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. §§ 609-613.
See also In re Atlas Lathing Corp., 176 Misc. 959, 29 N. Y. S. 2d 458; Hagan, Impounding and the Subpoena Duces Tecum, 26 Brooklyn L. Rev. 199, 210-211 (1960).
See n. 8, supra.
The Court’s opinion in Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582, does contain dicta to the effect that there is a lesser right to privacy when government officials have a “right” to inspect the seized items. See, e. g., id., at 593. However, the only holding in Davis was that there had been a valid consent- to the search; the case “did not involve a search warrant issue.” See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541, 545, n. 7.
It is, of course, immaterial that the State might have been able to obtain the same papers by means which did not violate the Fourth Amendment. As Mr. Justice Holmes stated in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, supra, at 392: “[T]he rights . . . against unlawful search and seizure are to be protected even if the same result might have been achieved in a lawful way.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner National Mines Corp. (National) is principally-engaged in the business of producing and selling coal. Among its other activities, National mines coal in Kentucky and Pennsylvania and sells it wholesale in West Virginia. During the period relevant here, West Virginia imposed a gross receipts tax on wholesale sales of tangible property. W. Va. Code § ll-13-2c (1983). Local producers were subject to taxes on their production activities, but exempt from the tax on wholesale activities. § 11-13-2.
On December 22, 1980, the State Tax Department of West Virginia assessed $475,345.02 in business and occupation tax (plus interest and penalties) for the period January 1, 1975, through December 31, 1979, on National’s wholesale sales of coal in West Virginia. National filed a petition for reassessment, asserting that the tax violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution. The State Tax Commissioner upheld the assessment, concluding that the tax was fairly apportioned, that the measure of the tax was reasonably related to the benefits conferred by the State, and that the tax did not discriminate against interstate commerce.
A few days before National appealed to the State Circuit Court, this Court issued its opinion in Armco Inc. v. Hardesty, 467 U. S. 638 (1984), which held that the West Virginia business and occupation tax sought to be collected from petitioner was unconstitutional. National’s action was held in abeyance while the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals considered a similar challenge to the state tax in light of Armco. See Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Rose, 177 W. Va. 20, 850 S. E. 2d 531 (1986). After analyzing the retro-activity of Armco under a state-law test that it considered to “follow closely the analysis employed by the United States Supreme Court in Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 106-107 (1971),” 177 W. Va., at 23, n. 6, 350 S. E. 2d, at 534, n. 6, the court concluded that Armco applied prospectively only. The State Supreme Court thus permitted the State to collect the gross receipts taxes due for fiscal years prior to the date of decision in Armco. 177 W. Va., at 25-26, 350 S. E. 2d, at 536-537.
The State Circuit Court in this case followed Ashland Oil to uphold the State’s collection of the assessed taxes. The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals refused to consider National’s petition for appeal.
In its petition for certiorari to this Court, National contends, among other claims, that the state court erred in following Ashland Oil’s nonretroactivity decision and allowing the State to enforce an unconstitutional tax statute. We agree. For the reasons stated today in Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Caryl, ante, p. 916, we hold that Armco applies retroactively under the reasoning of either the plurality or the dissent in American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U. S. 167 (1990). Because the State Circuit Court failed to consider the constitutionality of the taxes assessed against National in light of our decision in Armco, we grant the petition for cer-tiorari, reverse the judgment of the State Circuit Court, and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the legality of a proposed consolidation of two nationally chartered commercial banks operating in adjoining regions of Connecticut. The United States brought a civil antitrust action challenging the consolidation under § 7 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 15 IT. S. C. § 18. Following a lengthy trial and on the basis of extensive findings and conclusions, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut dismissed the Government’s complaint. 362 F. Supp. 240 (1973). The Government brought a direct appeal pursuant to the Expediting Act, 32 Stat. 823, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 29, and the Court noted probable jurisdiction, 414 U. S. 1127 (1974).
The banks desiring to consolidate, Connecticut National Bank (CNB) and First New Haven National Bank (FNH), have offices in contiguous areas in the southwestern portion of Connecticut. CNB maintains its headquarters in the town of Bridgeport, which is situated on the Long Island Sound approximately 60 miles from New York City. CNB is the fourth largest commercial bank in the State. At year-end 1972, it held 6.2% of the deposits in commercial banks in Connecticut. CNB operates 51 offices located in Bridgeport and nearby towns in the extreme southwest section of Connecticut.
FNH has its headquarters in the town of New Haven, approximately 19 miles to the northeast of Bridgeport along the Long Island Sound. FNH is the eighth largest commercial bank in Connecticut. At the end of 1972, it held 4.1% of commercial bank deposits in the State. FNH operates 22 bank offices in New Haven and surrounding towns.
In Connecticut as a whole at the end of 1971, the five largest commercial banks held 61% and the 10 largest commercial banks held 83% of the deposits in such banks in the State. Two large commercial banks based in Hartford, Connecticut Bank & Trust Co. of Hartford and Hartford National Bank, operate essentially statewide. At year-end 1972, they had 41% of the total commercial bank deposits held by Connecticut banks.
CNB and FNH both have offices and are in direct competition in a so-called “four-town area” located between Bridgeport and New Haven. The banks assured the District Court, however, that in implementing the consolidation they would divest themselves of a sufficient number of offices in the four-town area to render insignificant the degree of overlap of their areas of actual operation. The District Court held that this divestiture plan eliminated any antitrust difficulties presented by the merger of direct competitors. 362 F. Supp., at 268-270, 286. The United States has not pursued the point on appeal. Accordingly, the case has been presented to us strictly as a geographic market extension merger on the part of both banks. The proposed consolidation would join the banks under FNH’s national charter (with headquarters in Bridgeport). It would have no effect on the number of banks operating in either the Bridgeport or New Haven area. In that posture, the case presents potential-competition issues similar to those raised in United States v. Marine Bancorporation, Inc., ante, p. 602.
The District Court rejected the Government’s potential-competition arguments, relying on such factors as state-law restraints on de novo branching, the expansion plans and capabilities of the two banks, the posture of national and state regulatory officials regarding the issuance of new bank charters, and the existence and economic feasibility of possible foothold acquisitions. 362 F. Supp., at 286-288. As we have held today in the Marine Bancorporation case, these and analogous factors are the appropriate considerations to take into account in determining the legality under § 7 of the Clayton Act of geographic market extension mergers.by commercial banks. We are unable, however, to reach the question of whether the District Court correctly assessed the import of those factors in the instant case. We have also held in Marine Bancorporation that the legality of a market extension merger must be determined against the backdrop of properly defined product and geographic markets. See ante, at 618. In our view, the District Court erred in its definition of both concepts, and it is not possible to ascertain the degree, if any, to which those errors may have influenced its conclusions with regard to the Government’s potential-competition arguments. Accordingly, the District Court’s judgment must be vacated and the case remanded for reconsideration.
I
The District Court concluded that the appropriate “line of commerce” within the meaning of § 7 included both commercial banks and savings banks. 362 F. Supp., at 281. The court recognized that its conclusion departed from this Court’s holdings in, e. g., United States v. Phillipsburg National Bank, 399 U. S. 350, 359-362 (1970), and United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 356—357 (1963). But in the District Court’s view the pronouncements in Phillipsburg National Bank and Philadelphia National Bank “were not intended to be ironclad, hard and fast rules which require a court to don blinders to block out the true competitive situation existing in every set of circumstances.” 362 F. Supp., at 280.
Several factors led the District Court to the conclusions that “savings banks are in direct and substantial competition with commercial banks in providing product-services to the banking consumers in Connecticut . . . ,” and that “[t]he cold, hard realities of the situation are that savings and commercial banks are fierce competitors in this state.” Ibid. The court noted that under state law savings banks in the near future will be permitted to offer one of the traditional indicia of commercial banks, personal checking accounts. See Conn. Pub. Act No. 73-195 (May 14, 1973). It pointed out that savings banks in Connecticut compete with commercial banks for real estate mortgages, personal loans, IPC (individual, partnership, and corporate) deposits, and, the court found, commercial loans. 362 F. Supp., at 280. It cited United States v. Continental Can Co., 378 U. S. 441 (1964), for the proposition that “complete industry overlap” is not required to establish a relevant line of commerce under § 7. 362 F. Supp., at 281. It also relied on the omission of the “in any line of commerce” phrase from the Bank Merger Act of 1966, 12 U. S. C. § 1828 (c)(5)(B), an Act which in other essential respects tracks the language of § 7 of the Clayton Act. Finally, it distinguished Philadelphia National Bank, supra, and Phillipsburg National Bank, supra, by pointing to the absence of significant competition by savings banks in the relevant geographic markets in those cases. 362 F. Supp., at 281. The District Court’s conclusion on the appropriate line of commerce caused it to “shade” (i. e., to reduce) the Government’s concentration ratios to take into account the presence of savings banks. Id., at 285.
We are in complete agreement with the District Court that Phillipsburg National Bank and Philadelphia National Bank do not require a court to blind itself to economic realities. Similarly, we have no doubt on this record that savings banks and commercial banks in Connecticut are “fierce competitors,” see 362 F. Supp., at 280, to the degree that they offer identical or essentially fungible services. The District Court was also correct that “complete inter-industry competitive' overlap need not be shown.” Continental Can Co., supra, at 457. As the Court declared in Continental Can, “we must recognize meaningful competition where it is found to exist.” 378 U. S., at 449. Nonetheless, we hold for several reasons that the District Court was mistaken in including both savings and commercial banks in the same product market for purposes of this case.
Two of the District Court’s reasons may be dealt with briefly. The court erred as a matter of law in concluding that the absence of a “line of commerce” phrase in the Bank Merger Act of 1966 alters traditional standards under § 7 of the Clayton Act for defining the relevant product market in a bank merger case. United States v. Third National Bank, 390 U. S. 171, 182 n. 15 (1968). See Phillipsburg National Bank, 399 U. S., at 359-362. Moreover, the absence of significant competition from savings banks in Philadelphia National Bank, supra, and Phillipsburg National Bank, supra, is not determinative. The commercial banks in both of those cases faced significant competition from savings and loan associations and other credit institutions. See, e. g., 374 U. S., at 357 n. 34; United States v. Phillipsburg National Bank, 306 F. Supp. 645, 649 (NJ 1969). The Court in both instances nevertheless viewed the business of commercial banking as sufficiently distinct from other credit institutions to merit treatment as a separate “line of commerce” under § 7. Analogous distinctions, although perhaps not as sharply defined, are controlling here.
We believe that the District Court overestimated the degree of competitive overlap that in fact exists between savings banks and commercial banks in Connecticut. To be sure, there is a large measure of similarity between the services marketed by the two categories of banks. In our view, however, the overlap is not sufficient at this stage in the development of savings banks in Connecticut to treat them together with commercial banks in the instant case. Despite the strides that savings banks in that State have made toward parity with commercial banks, the latter continue to be able to provide a cluster of services that the former cannot, particularly with regard to commercial customers, and this Court has repeatedly held that it is the unique cluster of services provided by commercial banks that sets them apart for purposes of § 7.
The Court declared in Phillipsburg National Bank, supra, at 360:
“Philadelphia Bank emphasized that it is the cluster of products and services that full-service banks offer that as a matter of trade reality makes commercial banking a distinct line of commerce. Commercial banks are the only financial institutions in which a wide variety of financial products and services — some unique to commercial banking and others not — are gathered together in one place. The clustering of financial products and services in banks facilitates convenient access to them for all banking customers. . . .” (Emphasis in original.)
From the vantage point of at least one significant consumer of bank services — the commercial enterprise — commercial banks in Connecticut offer a “cluster of products and services” that their savings bank counterparts do not. The facts of this case indicate that the differences in what commercial banks in the State can offer to that important category of bank customers are sufficient to establish commercial banking as a distinct line of commerce.
The District Court concluded that “meaningful competition” existed between commercial and savings banks for commercial loans. 362 F. Supp., at 280. This conclusion is not supported by the record. Commercial loans, generally speaking, are relatively short-term loans to business enterprises of all sizes, usually for purposes of inventory or working capital. At the end of 1971 commercial banks in Connecticut had outstanding $1.03 billion in commercial loans. Savings banks, by comparison, had $26 million in such loans at that time. The disparity in these figures demonstrates that the commercial bank-loan business in Connecticut is controlled almost exclusively by commercial banks. Moreover, commercial banks in the State offer credit-card plans, loans for securities purchases, trust services, investment services, computer and account services, and letters of credit. Savings banks do not.
It is true that under state law savings banks soon will be able to provide some checking account services. Conn. Pub. Act No. 73-195 (May 14, 1973). This will increase the degree of direct competition between savings banks and commercial banks, because demand deposits have traditionally been a unique attribute of the latter institutions. But even this new authority for savings banks will not allow them to serve commercial customers, who constitute a significant percentage of the clientele of commercial banks. The state statute empowering savings banks to offer demand deposits forbids those banks from marketing the service to anyone “for the purpose of, or in connection with, the carrying on of any business, trade, occupation or profession.” Id., §§ 1 (a), 5. Thus, under the new Act, savings banks will be restricted to offering personal checking accounts. Id., § 2.
We do not say, and Phillipsburg National Bank, supra, and Philadelphia National Bank, supra, do not say, that in a case involving a merger of commercial banks a court may never consider savings banks and commercial banks as operating in the same line of commerce, no matter how similar their services and economic behavior. At some stage in the development of savings banks it will be unrealistic to distinguish them from commercial banks for purposes of the Clayton Act. In Connecticut, that point may well be reached when and if savings banks become significant participants in the marketing of bank services to commercial enterprises. But, in adherence to the tests set forth in our earlier bank merger cases, which we are constrained to follow, we hold that such a point has not yet been reached. Accordingly, on remand the District Court should treat commercial banking as the relevant product market.
II
The District Court ruled that the relevant geographic market, or "section of the country,” under § 7, is the State as a whole. 362 F. Supp., at 283. We think the District Court erred on this point for several reasons. If the State were the relevant geographic market, it would then be appropriate to analyze this not as a potential-competition case but as a direct-competition case involving the consolidation of two firms holding an aggregate market share of approximately 10%. Even if this figure is “shaded” by a factor of 10% to account for the influence of banks in New York, see id., at 260; Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U. S., at 364 n. 40, the consolidation of CNB and FNH would create a firm holding a 9% share of statewide commercial-bank deposits. Mergers between direct competitors producing smaller shares of less concentrated markets have been held illegal under § 7. E. g., United States v. Von’s Grocery Co., 384 U.S.270 (1966).
The State cannot be the relevant geographic market, however, because CNB and FNH are not direct competitors on that basis (or for that matter on any other basis pertinent to this appeal). The two banks do not operate statewide, nor do their customers as a general rule utilize commercial banks on that basis. The offices of the two banks are restricted to adjoining sections of the southwest segment of Connecticut. Although the two banks presumably market a small percentage of their loans to large customers on a statewide or broader basis, it is undoubtedly true that almost all of their business originates locally. For example, “about 88% of CNB’s total deposit business derive [s] from the towns in which CNB has offices.” 362 F. Supp., at 250. As the District Court noted in a finding that is inconsistent with its conclusion on the appropriate section of the country, “[c]om-mon sense . . . would indicate that the relevant market areas of CNB and FNH generally coincide with where each has established branch offices.” Ibid.
As indicated by our opinion today in Marine Bancorpo-ration, ante, p. 602, the relevant geographic market of the acquired bank is the localized area in which that bank is in significant, direct competition with other banks, albeit not the acquiring bank. This area must be defined in accordance with this Court’s precedents in prior bank-merger cases. Yet the District Court’s conclusion on this issue conflicts with Philadelphia National Bank, supra. The Court emphasized in that case:
“In banking, as in most service industries, convenience of location is essential to effective competition. Individuals and corporations typically confer the bulk of their patronage on banks in their local community; they find it impractical to conduct their banking business at a distance. . . . The factor of inconvenience localizes banking competition as effectively as high transportation costs in other industries.” 374 U. S., at 358 (footnote and citations omitted).
In recognition of the local character of the great majority of commercial bank activities, Philadelphia National Bank indicated that the relevant geographic market in bank-merger cases must be drawn narrowly to encompass the area where “the effect of the merger on competition will be direct and immediate.” Id., at 357. Moreover, the geographic market must be delineated in a way that takes into account the local nature of the demand for most bank services. It “must be charted by careful selection of the market area in which the seller operates, and to which the purchaser can practicably turn for [alternatives] . . . .” Id., at 359 (citations, internal quotations, and italics omitted). Because the economic scale of separate categories of consumers of bank services will vary, a workable compromise must be struck “to delineate the area in which bank customers that are neither very large nor very small find it practical to do their banking business . . . .” Id., at 361.
On remand the District Court must determine pursuant to the localized approach denoted above the geographic market in which CNB operates and to which the bulk of its customers may turn for alternative commercial bank services. It must do the same with regard to FNH, for this case presents the unusual fact situation of a consolidation of two banks, each with a history of de novo geographic expansion, rather than the acquisition of a geographically stable bank as in Marine Bancorporation, ante, p. 602. The task is important, because the definition of the respective geographic markets determines the number of alternative avenues of entry theoretically open to CNB in piercing FNH’s area of significant competitive influence and vice versa.
We are not unaware of the difficulty of the assignment confronting the District Court. An element of “fuzziness would seem inherent in any attempt to delineate the relevant geographical market.” Philadelphia National Bank, supra, at 360 n. 37. The task is made especially taxing here by the fragmented character of the distribution of the banking offices of the two banks, especially CNB. Apparently because the Connecticut branching statute has created a checkerboard of “open” and “closed” towns, see n. 1, supra, CNB and FNH have not expanded in the past in a manner that produced readily definable, completely covered areas around the towns where they have their home offices. There is, for example, a gap consisting of four towns in the extreme southwest section of Connecticut in which CNB has no offices, although it has established offices in almost all of the surrounding towns in that part of the State. That gap presumably will have to be excluded from consideration on remand.
The difficulty of the responsibility imposed on the District Court with regard to defining the geographic markets of the two banks is ameliorated by several considerations. First, the burden of producing evidence on this subject is on the Government. The Government repeatedly notes that it is not required to define geographic markets by “metes and bounds,” citing United States v. Pabst Brewing Co., 384 U. S. 546, 549 (1966). To the extent that this means that such markets need not — indeed cannot— be defined with scientific precision, it is accurate. But it is nevertheless the Government’s role to come forward with evidence delineating the rough approximation of localized banking markets mandated by Philadelphia National Bank, supra, and Phillipsburg National Bank, supra.
Second, we affirm that portion of the District Court’s judgment holding that the Government cannot rely, without more, on Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA’s) as defining the geographic markets of the two banks. See 362 F. Supp., at 249-250, 281-282. SMSA’s are prepared by the Office of Management and Budget to determine areas of economic and social integration, principally on the basis of the commuting patterns of residents. They are not defined in terms of banking criteria, and they were not developed as a tool for analyzing banking markets. Id., at 249. Exclusive reliance on SMSA’s here may lead to inaccuracies. For example, as the District Court noted, only 57% of CNB’s deposits originate from the Bridgeport SMSA. Id., at 250, 282. This is because CNB’s offices extend to several areas outside the Bridgeport SMSA. The Bridgeport SMSA is relevant, if at all, only to the CNB offices located in Bridgeport, and even then it is at best a crude indicator. The same is true of the New Haven SMSA and the FNH offices located in the town of New Haven. In sum, although the Bridgeport and New Haven SMSA’s may be helpful in defining the general metropolitan characteristics of southwest Connecticut, they are not sufficiently refined in terms of realistic commercial banking markets to satisfy the Government’s burden. The Government must demonstrate more accurately than is possible solely with SMSA’s the localized banking markets, or areas of significant competitive influence, surrounding the sites where CNB and FNH maintain their banking offices.
Third, the District Court may not, as the banks would have it, rely solely on towns as the relevant geographic markets. The towns served by the two banks are highly significant geographic units, because state law restraints on de novo branching are defined in terms of towns. See n. 1, supra. But not all towns are closed to de novo branching by one or the other bank, and it seems fair to assume that the area of significant competitive influence of some bank offices may extend beyond town boundaries.
On remand, the District Court must delineate the localized banking markets surrounding the sites where CNB and FNH maintain their bank offices. It must then evaluate the economically and legally feasible alternative methods of entry, if any, into those areas available to one bank or the other. In so doing, it should keep in mind the considerations outlined today in Marine Bancorporation, ante, p. 602.
Ill
In conformity with its approach in Marine Bancorporation, the Government argues that the State as a whole, although not a banking market, is nonetheless a “section of the country” within the meaning of § 7 of the Clayton Act. The Government repeats the concern expressed in Marine Bancorporation, see ante, at 620, that a statewide linkage of oligopolies “may” arise and that large banks across the state “may engage” in more standardized behavior as a result. Moreover, the Government contends that a statewide approach is appropriate because the challenged consolidation would eliminate one of eight banks in Connecticut with the potential for statewide operation. “Thus the effect of a merger which eliminates even one of these banks will be felt statewide, for it will have an impact in every local market in the state where that bank does not currently operate but which it might otherwise enter.”
We reject the Government’s statewide approach here, as we did in Marine Bancorporation, ante, at 620. The Government’s argument that “a geographic area need not be a banking market to be a section of the country . . .” is foreclosed by the precedents. Ante, at 620-622. Its theory of linked oligopolies appears to be as devoid of evi-dentiary support here as it was in Marine Bancorporation. Finally, its concern for any area of the State in which CNB or FNH “might” enter independently of the consolidation is too speculative to establish a case under the Clayton Act. In advancing the latter argument, the Government borders on espousing a per se rule against geographic market extension mergers by Connecticut commercial banks so long as any town in the State remains open to de novo branching. On remand the District Court will address itself to the geographic markets in which CNB and FNH presently operate.
The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded for further consideration consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Under state law in Connecticut, commercial banks may not branch into a town containing the main office of another bank (the so-called “home office protection” provision). Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. §36-59 (1972). Towns that contain the main office of a bank are referred to as “closed” towns. The remaining towns are “open towns.” The term “town” in Connecticut refers to a political subdivision of the State, somewhat analogous to counties in other States. It does not' denote a metropolitan area, although some cities are more or less congruent with the towns in which they are located.
There are 169 towns in Connecticut. The effect of the “home office protection” provision is to create a checkerboard of “open” and “closed” towns reflecting the location of the main offices of the banks operating in the State. State law forbids any bank that does not have its headquarters in Connecticut from operating banking offices within the State. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. §36-59 (4).
See 362 F. Supp., at 281. The relevant provision of the Bank Merger Act of 1966,80 Stat. 8,12 U. S. C. § 1828 (c) (5) (B), proscribes any bank consolidation:
“Whose effect in any section of the country may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly, or which in any other manner would be in restraint of trade, unless . . . the anticompetitive effects of the proposed transaction are clearly outweighed in the public interest by the probable effect of the transaction in meeting the convenience and needs of the community to be served.”
Section 7 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 64 Stat. 1125, 15 U. S. C. § 18, by comparison provides in pertinent part:
“No corporation engaged in commerce shall acquire, directly or indirectly, the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital and no corporation subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission shaE acquire the whole or any part of the assets of another corporation engaged also in commerce, where in any line ■ of commerce in any section of the country, the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly.”
As we have noted, the District Court identified some of the services offered by both savings and commercial banks, including real estate mortgages, personal loans, and time deposits. As the District Court put it in another context, it would be “ostrich-like,” 362 F. Supp., at 254, to assume that the two types of banks are not in direct and vigorous competition with regard to the services they share or are not viewed by many bank customers as more or less fungible for purposes of those services. Cf. United States v. Phillipsburg National Bank, 399 U. S. 350, 360 (1970). That savings and commercial banks are direct competitors in some submarkets, however, is not the end of the inquiry, as Phillipsburg makes clear. Ibid.
App. 1793.
Id., at 1795.
The pertinent provisions of Conn. Pub. Act No. 73-195 will take effect no later than December 31, 1975, although the enactment of certain federal legislation or other specified events not relevant here may trigger those provisions at an earlier date. See id., § 7.
The Court’s approach in Philadelphia National Bank to defining geographic markets for commercial banks was reaffirmed in Phillips-burg National Bank, 399 U. S., at 362-365.
App. 1435-1437.
The federal bank regulatory agencies define a bank’s service area as the geographic area from which the bank derives 75% of its deposits. See 362 F. Supp., at 250. The service-area concept may be considerably more useful in this case than SMSA’s, although this is a matter we leave to the District Court on remand.
In Marine Bancorporation, ante, at 619, we affirmed the- District Court’s determination of the Spokane metropolitan area as the relevant geographic market. That holding was not an affirmation of SMSA’s as banking markets; SMSA’s were not at issue in that case. The Spokane metropolitan area was defined as the relevant geographic market in Marine Bancorporation because it is an insulated banking market, is comparatively small by geographic standards in the Western States, contains all the banking offices of the target bank, and is the area from which that bank draws some 90% of its deposit accounts.
We note that it is not at all clear that the District Court’s holdings as to potential competition were based on a statewide appraisal of the consolidation at issue, despite its conclusion that the State was the relevant section of the country. For example, the court’s findings with regard to “toehold” acquisitions refer to SMSA’s, towns, and service areas, 362 F. Supp., at 265, and its conclusions under the heading of “potential competition” speak of service area, service market, and towns. Id., at 286-287. Because the District Court did not clarify what local area, if any, it considered controlling for purposes of the potential-competition doctrine, we are unable to hold that its error in denoting the State as the relevant section of the country, see id., at 283, may be ignored.
Brief for United States 34.
Id., at 33 (emphasis added).
Id., at 31.
The District Court also concluded that assuming, arguendo, that the consolidation violated the Clayton Act, it nonetheless met the standards of the “convenience and needs” test of the Bank Merger Act of 1966, 12 U. S. C. § 1828 (c)(5)(B). 362 F. Supp., at 288. Its findings on the “convenience and needs” defense are not controlling, however, if it erred in the standards applied in judging the status of the consolidation under the Clayton Act. United States v. Third National Bank, 390 U. S. 171, 183-184 (1968). See also Phillipsburg National Bank, 399 U. S., at 369-370.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners Gordon and MacLeod were convicted on an indictment of four counts, two charging unlawful possession of goods stolen while in interstate commerce and two that defendants caused this property to be further transported in interstate commerce. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and we granted certiorari limited to questions concerning production and admission of documentary evidence tending to impeach the testimony of a prosecution witness.
The Government proved that film being shipped from Rochester, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, was stolen from a truck in Chicago and that part of it later had been recovered in Detroit. To implicate the two petitioners, it relied principally on one Marshall, who, in Detroit, had pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of the film. Marshall testified that he and a codefendant, Swartz, who died before trial, on several occasions had driven from Detroit to Chicago and back. On each visit they had stopped at petitioner Gordon’s Chicago jewelry store. On one trip, according to Marshall, Gordon accompanied them to a garage in that city and there Gordon and a man resembling MacLeod helped to load into Marshall’s car film that was stacked in the garage. A week later, Marshall said, he and Swartz again called on Gordon, when the latter sent them to see “Ken” at an address which he wrote on a piece of paper. At this address, MacLeod identified himself as “Ken,” and again the three men loaded film from the garage into Marshall’s car.
Partial corroboration of Marshall was supplied by a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, who had been watching the garage. He testified that on the latter occasion he saw Marshall and Swartz drive up to Mac-Leod’s address, whereupon MacLeod removed an old truck from the garage. Later, Swartz and Marshall drove away with film cartons stacked on the back seat of Marshall’s car.
Both petitioners took the stand and denied complicity in the theft and knowledge that the film was stolen. While their physical movements as recited by them were not materially different from those related by government witnesses, petitioners gave a different and innocent version of the relationship of their acts to the criminal transactions. Gordon testified that the deceased Swartz was a business acquaintance who asked on' the first visit if Gordon knew of a garage where a truck could be temporarily stored. Gordon called MacLeod, who was his partner in a rooming-house venture, and told him that he would send two men over who wished to use a garage back of the rooming house. MacLeod testified that he had not known either of the men before they placed a truck in the garage and that, at their request, he had helped load film from the truck into Marshall’s car merely as a favor.
On cross-examination, Marshall admitted that between his apprehension and his final statement to the Government, which implicated petitioners, he had made three or four statements which did not. Petitioners requested the trial judge to order the Government to produce these earlier statements. The request was denied. Marshall also admitted that, one week before he made any statement incriminating petitioners, he had pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of the film in a federal court in Detroit. He was still unsentenced and no date for sentencing had been set, although nine months had elapsed since this plea was received. He denied that he had received any promise of immunity or threats which would influence him to testify as he did. Petitioners then sought to introduce from the transcript of the Detroit proceeding this statement made to Marshall by the federal district judge: “Very well, the plea of guilty is accepted. Now, I am going to refer your case to the Probation Department for presentence report. I think I should say to you, as I said to your lawyer yesterday when he and Mr. Smith called upon me in chambers yesterday morning, that it seemed to me that if you intended to plead guilty and expected a recommendation for a lenient sentence or for probation from the Probation Department, that it would be essential that you satisfy the Probation Department that you have given the law enforcement authorities all the information concerning the merchandise involved in this proceeding. ... I am not holding out any promises to you, but I think you would be well advised to tell the probation authorities the whole story even though it might involve others.” This was excluded on the objection that it was immaterial.
The trial judge in his charge and the Court of Appeals in its opinion recognized that, where, as here, the Government’s case may stand or fall on the jury’s belief or disbelief of one witness, his credibility is subject to close scrutiny. But the question for this Court is whether rejection of petitioners’ two efforts to impeach the credibility of Marshall did not withhold from the jury information necessary to a discriminating appraisal of his trustworthiness to the prejudice of petitioners’ substantial rights. The two issues stand on somewhat different grounds.
The request by the accused to order production of Marshall’s earlier statements was cast in terms of obtaining access to documentary evidence rather than an offer that would require a ruling on its admissibility. But the Government apparently concedes, as we think it must, that if it would have been prejudicial error for the trial judge to exclude these statements, had the defense been able to offer them, it was error not to order their production. The relation of admissibility to production for inspection is by no means settled in the various jurisdictions, but we conclude that the Government does not concede enough. Demands for production and offers in evidence raise related issues but independent ones, and production may sometimes be required though inspection may show that the document could properly be excluded.
In the absence of specific legislation, questions of this nature are governed “by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience.” Apparently, earlier common law did not permit the accused to require production of such documents. Some state jurisdictions still recognize no comprehensive right to see documents in the hands of the prosecution merely because they might aid in the preparation or presentation of the defense. We need not consider such broad doctrines in order to resolve this case, which deals with a limited and definite category of documents to which the holdings of this opinion are likewise confined.
By proper cross-examination, defense counsel laid a foundation for his demand by showing that the documents were in existence, were in possession of the Government, were made by the Government’s witness under examination, were contradictory of his present testimony, and that the contradiction was as to relevant, important and material matters which directly bore on the main issue being tried: the participation of the accused in the crime. The demand was for production of these specific documents and did not propose any broad or blind fishing expedition among documents possessed by the Government on the chance that something impeaching might turn up. Nor was this a demand for statements taken from persons or informants not offered as witnesses. The Government did not assert any privilege for the documents on grounds of national security, confidential character, public interest, or otherwise.
Despite some contrary holdings on which the courts below may have relied, we think their reasoning is outweighed by that of highly respectable authority in state and lower federal courts in support of the view that an accused is entitled to the production of such documents. Indeed, we would find it hard to withstand the force of Judge Cooley’s observation in a similar situation that “The State has no interest in interposing any obstacle to the disclosure of the facts, unless it is interested in convicting accused parties on the testimony of untrustworthy persons.” In the light of our reason and experience, the better rule is that upon the foundation that was laid the court should have overruled the objections which the Government advanced and ordered production of the documents.
The trial court, of course, had no occasion to rule as to their admissibility, and we find it appropriate to consider that question only because the Government argues that the trial judge, in the exercise of his discretion, might have excluded these prior contradictory statements and, since that would not have amounted to reversible error, it was not such to decline their production. We think this misconceives the issue. It is unnecessary to decide whether it would have been reversible error for the trial judge to exclude these statements once they had been produced and inspected. For production purposes, it need only appear that the evidence is relevant, competent, and outside of any exclusionary rule; for rarely can the trial judge understandingly exercise his discretion to exclude a document which he has not seen, and no appellate court could rationally say whether the excluding of evidence unknown to the record was error, or, if so, was harmless. The question to be answered on an application for an order to produce is one of, admissibility under traditional canons of evidence, and not whether exclusion might be overlooked as harmless error.
The Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that Marshall's admission, on cross-examination, of the implicit contradiction between the documents and his testimony removed the need for resort to the statements and the admission was all the accused were entitled to demand. We cannot agree. We think that an admission that a contradiction is contained in a writing should not bar admission of the document itself in evidence, providing it meets all other requirements of admissibility and no valid claim of privilege is raised against it. The elementary wisdom of the best evidence rule rests on the fact that the document is a more reliable, complete and accurate source of information as to its contents and meaning than anyone’s description and this is no less true as to the extent and circumstances of a contradiction. We hold that the accused is entitled to the application of that rule, not merely because it will emphasize the contradiction to the jury, but because it will best inform them as to the document’s impeaching weight and significance. Traditional rules of admissibility prevent opening the door to documents which merely differ on immaterial matters. The alleged contradictions to this witness’ testimony relate not to collateral matters but to the very incrimination of petitioners. Except the testimony of this witness be believed, this conviction probably could not have been had. Yet, his first statement was that he got the film from Swartz; his first four statements did not implicate these petitioners and his fifth did so only after the judicial admonition we will later consider. The weight to be given Marshall’s implication of the petitioners was decisive. Since, so far as we are now informed by the record, we think the statements should have been admitted, we cannot accept the Government’s contention based on a premise that the court was free to exclude them. It was error to deny the application for their production.
The second effort to impeach Marshall was to offer parts already quoted from the transcript of proceedings in Detroit. Although Marshall admitted pleading guilty to the offense and that nine months later he was still unsentenced, he denied that he had received either promises or threats. The transcript would have shown the jury that a federal judge, who still retained power to fix his sentence, in discussing Marshall's expectation of a “recommendation for a lenient sentence or for probation” had urged him to tell all he knew, “even though it might involve others.” Involvement of others, whom Marshall had not theretofore mentioned, soon followed. We think the jury should have heard this warning of the judge, which was an addition to the matter brought out on cross-examination. The question for them is not what the judge intended by the admonition, nor how we, or even they, construe its meaning. We imply no criticism of it, and he expressly stated that he was holding out no promise. But the question for the jury is what effect they think these words had on the mind and conduct of a prisoner whose plea of guilty put him in large measure in the hands of the speaker. They might have regarded it as an incentive to involve others, and to supply a motive for Marshall’s testimony other than a duty to recount the facts as best he could remember them. Reluctant as we are to differ with an experienced trial judge on the scope of cross-examination, the importance of this witness constrains us to hold that the transcript was erroneously excluded.
We believe, moreover, that the combination of these two errors was sufficiently prejudicial to require reversal. The Government, in its brief, argues strongly for the widest sort of discretion in the trial judge in these matters and urges that even if we find error or irregularity we disregard it as harmless and affirm the conviction. We are well aware of the necessity that appellate courts give the trial judge wide latitude in control of cross-examination, especially in dealing with collateral evidence as to character. Michelson v. United States, 335 U. S. 469. But this principle cannot be expanded to justify a curtailment which keeps from the jury relevant and important facts bearing on the trustworthiness of crucial testimony. Reversals should not be based on trivial, theoretical and harmless rulings. But we cannot say that these errors were unlikely to have influenced the jury’s verdict. We believe they prejudiced substantial rights and the judgment must be
Reversed.
18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 659.
18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 2314.
196 F. 2d 886.
344 U. S. 813.
196 F. 2d 886, 888.
Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371; Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., 26.
6 Wigmore on Evidence, § 1859g.
2 Wharton’s Criminal Evidence (11th ed.) §785.
As to the pretrial discovery stage, compare Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 34, with the narrower provisions of Fed. Rules Grim. Proc., 16.
In Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129, the notes sought to be inspected had neither been used in court, nor was there any proof that they would show prior inconsistent statements.
Asgill v. United States, 60 F. 2d 776; United States v. Krulewitch, 145 F. 2d 76, 79; People v. Davis, 52 Mich. 569, 18 N. W. 362; State v. Bachman, 41 Nev. 197, 168 P. 733; People v. Schainuck, 286 N. Y. 161, 164, 36 N. E. 2d 94, 95-96; People v. Walsh, 262 N. Y. 140, 186 N. E. 422.
People v. Davis, 52 Mich. 569, 573, 18 N. W. 362, 363.
We note in passing that the rules relating to impeachment by prior self-contradiction, which provide that such contradiction may be shown only on a matter material to the substantive issues of the trial, contain within themselves a guarantee against multiplication and confusion of issues. Therefore the discretion of the trial judge in excluding otherwise admissible evidence of this type is not as wide as it is in the vague and amorphous area of cross-examination of character witnesses. See Michelson v. United States, 335 U. S. 469.
3 Wigmore on Evidence, § 1037; 3 Wharton’s Criminal Evidence (11th ed.) § 1309.
The best evidence rule is usually relied upon by one opposing admission, on the ground that the evidence offered by the proponent does not meet its standards. Its merit as an assurance of the most accurate record possible commends its extension to this unique situation where it is the proponent who seeks to rely on it.
Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., 52 admonishes us that “Any error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 questions concerning the power of courts to protect Negro railroad employees from loss of their jobs under compulsion of a bargaining agreement which, to avoid a strike, the railroad made with an exclusively white man’s union. Respondent Simon Howard, a Frisco train employee for nearly forty years, brought this action on behalf of himself and other colored employees similarly situated.
In summary the complaint alleged: Negro employees such as respondent constituted a group called “train porters” although they actually performed all the duties of white “brakemen”; the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, bargaining representative of “brakemen” under the Railway Labor Act, had for years used its influence in an attempt to eliminate Negro trainmen and get their jobs for white men who, unlike colored “train porters,” were or could be members of the Brotherhood; on March 7, 1946, the Brotherhood finally forced the Frisco to agree to discharge the colored “train porters” and fill their jobs with white men who, under the agreement, would do less work but get more pay. The complaint charged that the Brotherhood’s “discriminatory action” violated the train porters’ rights under the Railway Labor Act and under the Constitution; that the agreement was void because against public policy, prejudicial to the public interest, and designed to deprive Negro trainmen of their right to earn a livelihood because of their race or color. The prayers were that the court adjudge and decree that the contract was void and unenforceable for the reasons stated; that the Railroad be “enjoined from discontinuing the jobs known as Train Porters” and “from hiring white Brakemen to replace or displace plaintiff and other Train Porters as planned in accordance with said agreement.”
The facts as found by the District Court, affirmed with emphasis by the Court of Appeals, substantially established the truth of the complaint’s material allegations. These facts showed that the Negro train porters had for a great many years served the Railroad with loyalty, integrity and efficiency; that “train porters” do all the work of brakemen; that the Government administrator of railroads during World War I had classified them as brakemen and had required that they be paid just like white brakemen; that when the railroads went back to their owners, they redesignated these colored brakemen as “train porters,” “left their duties untouched,” and forced them to accept wages far below those of white “brakemen” who were Brotherhood members; that for more than a quarter of a century the Brotherhood and other exclusively white rail unions had continually carried on a program of aggressive hostility to employment of Negroes for train, engine and yard service; that the agreement of March 7, 1946, here under attack, provides that train porters shall no longer do any work “generally recognized as brakeman’s duties”; that while this agreement did not in express words compel discharge of “train porters,” the economic unsoundness of keeping them after transfer of their “brakemen” functions made complete abolition of the “train porter” group inevitable; that two days after “the Carriers reluctantly, and as a result of the strike threats” signed the agreement, they notified train porters that “Under this agreement we will, effective April 1, 1946, discontinue all train porter positions.” Accordingly, respondent Howard, and others, were personally notified to turn in their switch keys, lanterns, markers and other brakemen’s equipment, and notices of job vacancies were posted to be bid in by white brakemen only.
The District Court held that the complaint raised questions which Congress by the Railway Labor Act had made subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Mediation Board and the National Railroad Adjustment Board. 72 F. Supp. 695. The Court of Appeals reversed this holding. It held that the agreement, as construed and acted upon by the Railroad, was an “attempted predatory appropriation” of the “train porters’ ” jobs, and was to this extent illegal and unenforceable. It therefore ordered that the Railroad must keep the “train porters” as employees; it permitted the Railroad and the Brotherhood to treat the contract as valid on condition that the Railroad would recognize the colored “train porters”, as members of the craft of “brakemen” and that the Brotherhood would fairly represent them as such. 191 F. 2d 442. We granted certiorari. 342 U. S. 940.
While different in some respects, the basic pattern of racial discrimination in this case is much the same as that we had to consider in Steele v. L. & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192. In this case, as was charged in the Steele case, a Brotherhood acting as a bargaining agent under the Railway Labor Act has been hostile to Negro employees, has discriminated against them, and has forced the Railroad to make a contract which would help Brotherhood members take over the jobs of the colored “train porters.”
There is a difference in the circumstances of the two cases, however, which it is contended requires us to deny the judicial remedy here that was accorded in the Steele case. That difference is this: Steele was admittedly a locomotive fireman although not a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen which under the Railway Labor Act was the exclusive bargaining representative of the entire craft of firemen. We held that the language of the Act imposed a duty on the craft bargaining representative to exercise the power conferred upon it in behalf of all those for whom it acts, without hostile discrimination against any of them. Failure to exercise this duty was held to give rise to a cause of action under the Act. In this case, unlike the Steele case, the colored employees have for many years been treated by the carriers and the Brotherhood as a separate class for representation purposes and have in fact been represented by another union of their own choosing. Since the Brotherhood has discriminated against “train porters” instead of minority members of its own “craft,” it is argued that the Brotherhood owed no duty at all to refrain from using its statutory bargaining power so as to abolish the jobs of the colored porters and drive them from the railroads. We think this argument is unsound and that the opinion in the Steele case points to a breach of statutory duty by this Brotherhood.
As previously noted, these train porters are threatened with loss of their jobs because they are not white and for no other reason. The job they did hold under its old name would be abolished by the agreement; their color alone would disqualify them for the old job under its new name. The end result of these transactions is not in doubt; for precisely the same reasons as in the Steele case “discriminations based on race alone are obviously irrelevant and invidious. Congress plainly did not undertake to authorize the bargaining representative to make such discriminations.” Steele v. L. & N. R. Co., supra, at 203, and cases there cited. Cf. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1. The Federal Act thus prohibits bargaining agents it authorizes from using their position and power to destroy colored workers’ jobs in order to bestow them on white workers. And courts can protect those threatened by such an unlawful use of power granted by a federal act.
Here, as in the Steele case, colored workers must look to a judicial remedy to prevent the sacrifice or obliteration of their rights under the Act. For no adequate administrative remedy can be afforded by the National Railroad Adjustment or Mediation Board. The claims here cannot be resolved by interpretation of a bargaining agreement so as to give jurisdiction to the Adjustment Board under our holding in Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U. S. 239. This dispute involves the validity of the contract, not its meaning. Nor does the dispute hinge on the proper craft classification of the porters so as to call for settlement by the National Mediation Board under our holding in Switchmen’s Union v. National Mediation Board, 320 U. S. 297. For the contention here with which we agree is that the racial discrimination practiced is unlawful, whether colored employees are classified as “train porters,” “brakemen,” or something else. Our conclusion is that the District Court has jurisdiction and power to issue necessary injunctive orders notwithstanding the provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. We need add nothing to what was said about inapplicability of that Act in the Steele case and in Graham v. Brotherhood of Firemen, 338 U. S. 232, 239-240.
Bargaining agents who enjoy the advantages of the Railway Labor Act’s provisions must execute their trust without lawless invasions of the rights of other workers. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court had jurisdiction to protect these workers from the racial discrimination practiced against them. On remand, the District Court should permanently enjoin the Railroad and the Brotherhood from use of the contract or any other similar discriminatory bargaining device to oust the train porters from their jobs. In fashioning its decree the District Court is left free to consider what provisions are necessary to afford these employees full protection from future discriminatory practices of the Brotherhood. However, in drawing its decree, the District Court must bear in mind that disputed questions of reclassification of the craft of “train porters” are committed by the Railway Labor Act to the National Mediation Board. Switchmen’s Union v. National Mediation Board, supra.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing that of the District Court is affirmed, and the cause is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company and its subsidiary St. Louis-San Francisco & Texas Railway Company.
44 Stat. 577, as amended, 48 Stat. 1185, 45 U. S. C. §§ 151 et seq.
In addition to doing all the work done by ordinary brakemen, train porters have been required to sweep the coaches and assist passengers to get on and off the trains. As the Court of Appeals noted, “These aisle-sweeping and passenger-assisting tasks, however, are simply minor and incidental, occupying only, as the record shows, approximately five per cent of a train porter’s time.” 191 F. 2d 442, 444.
One part of the District Court’s order was affirmed. The Court of Appeals held that the District Court had properly enjoined the Railroad from abolishing the position of “train porters” under the notices given, on the ground that these notices were insufficient to meet the requirements of § 2, Seventh, and § 6 of the Railway Labor Act. The view we take makes it unnecessary for us to consider this question.
47 Stat. 70, 29 U. S. C. §§ 101 et seq.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 is the owner of a combination patent covering a fish-canning machíne. A number of machines covered by the patent were manufactured and sold under his authorization. Among them were the four machines in suit, petitioner Wilbur-Ellis Company being the second-hand purchaser. Respondent received out of the original purchase price a royalty of $1,500 per machine. As originally constructed each of these machines packed fish into “1-pound” cans: 3 inches in diameter and 4n/i6 inches high. Three of the machines when acquired by Wilbur-Ellis were corroded, rusted, and inoperative; and all required cleaning and sandblasting to make them usable. Wilbur-Ellis retained petitioner Leuschner to put the machines in condition so they would operate and to resize six of the 35 elements that made up the patented combination. The resizing was for the purpose of enabling the machines to pack fish into “5-ounce” cans: 2% inches in diameter and 3y2 inches long. One of the six elements was so corroded that it could be rendered operable only by grinding it down to a size suitable for use with the smaller “5-ounce” can.
This suit for infringement followed; and both the District Court, 200 F. Supp. 841, and the Court of Appeals, 314 F. 2d 71, held for respondent. The case is here on certiorari. 373 U. S. 921.
We put to one side the case where the discovery or invention resided in or embraced either the size or locational characteristics of the replaced elements of a combination patent or the size of the commodity on which the machine operated. The claims of the patent before us do not reach that far. We also put to one side the case where replacement was made of a patented component of a combination patent. We deal here with a patent that covered only a combination of unpatented components.
The question in terms of patent law precedents is whether what was done to these machines, the original manufacture and sale of which had been licensed by the patentee, amounted to “repair,” in which event there was no infringement, or “reconstruction,” in which event there was. The idea of “reconstruction” in this context has the special connotation of those acts which would impinge on the patentee's right “to exclude others from making,” 35 U. S. C. § 154, the article. As stated in Wilson v. Simpson, 9 How. 109, 123, . . when the material of the combination ceases to exist, in whatever way that may occur, the right to renew it depends upon the right to make the invention. If the right to make does not exist, there is no right to rebuild the combination.” On the other hand, “When the wearing or injury is partial, then repair is restoration, and not reconstruction.” Ibid. Replacing worn-out cutting knives in a planing machine was held to be “repair,” not “reconstruction,” in Wilson v. Simpson, supra. Our latest case was Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 365 U. S. 336,.which a majority of the Court construe as holding that it was not infringement to replace the worn-out fabric of a patented convertible automobile top, whose original manufacture and sale had been licensed by the patentee. See No. 75, Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., decided this day. Post, p. 476.
Whatever view may be taken of the holding in the first Aro case, the majority believe that it governs the present one. These four machines were not spent; they had years of usefulness remaining though they needed cleaning and repair. Had they been renovated and put to use on the “1-pound” cans, there could be no question but that they were “repaired,” not “reconstructed,” within the meaning of the cases. When six of the 35 elements of the combination patent were resized or relocated, no invasion of the patent resulted, for as we have said the size of cans serviced by the machine was no part of the invention; nor were characteristics of size, location, shape and construction of the six elements in question patented. Petitioners in adapting the old machines to a related use were doing more than repair in the customary sense; but what they did was kin to repair for it bore on the useful capacity of the old combination, on which the royalty had been paid. We could not call it “reconstruction” without saying that the patentee’s right “to exclude others from making” the patented machine, 35 U. S. C. § 154, had been infringed. Yet adaptation for use of the machine on a “5-ounce” can is within the patent rights purchased, since size was not an invention.
The adaptation made in the six nonpatented elements improved the usefulness of these machines. That does not, however, make the adaptation “reconstruction” within the meaning of the cases. We are asked in substance to treat the case as if petitioners had a license for use of the machines on “1-pound” cans only. But the sales here were outright, without restriction. Adams v. Burke, 17 Wall. 453, 456, therefore controls:
“. . . when the patentee, or the person having his rights, sells a machine or instrument whose sole value is in its use, he receives the consideration for its use and he parts with the right to restrict that use.”
And see United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241, 250.
Reversed.
MR. Justice Harlan would affirm the judgment substantially for the reasons given in the majority opinion in the Court of Appeals, 314 F. 2d 71.
See Cotton-Tie Co. v. Simmons, 106 U. S. 89 (reconstruction); Heyer v. Duplicator Mfg. Co., 263 U. S. 100 (repair).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), has determined that respondents, beneficiaries under the Social Security Act, have been overpaid. He seeks to recoup those overpayments by withholding future benefits to which respondents would otherwise be entitled. Respondents in turn have requested reconsideration or waiver of recoupment under § 204 of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 404. The primary questions in this case are whether petitioner must grant respondents the opportunity for an oral hearing before recoupment begins, and whether jurisdiction under § 205 (g) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 405 (g), permits a federal district court to certify a nationwide class and grant injunctive relief.
I
Section 204 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act, 53 Stat. 1368, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 404 (a)(1), authorizes the recovery of overpayments made to a beneficiary under the old-age, survivors’, or disability insurance programs administered by HEW. In particular, it permits the Secretary to recoup erroneous overpayments by decreasing future payments to which the overpaid person is entitled.
Section 204 (b), however, expressly limits the recoupment authority conferred by § 204 (a)(1). Section 204 (b), as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 404 (b), commands that
“there shall be no adjustment of payments to, or recovery by the United States from, any person who is without fault if such adjustment or recovery would defeat the purpose of this subchapter or would be against equity and good conscience.”
The Secretary has undertaken to define the terms employed in § 204 (b). Under his regulations, “without fault” means that the recipient neither knew nor should have known that the overpayment or the information on which it was based was incorrect. 20 CFR § 404.507 (1978). For example, a recipient who justifiably relied upon erroneous information from an official source within the Social Security Administration would be “without fault.” § 404.510.
The regulations say that to “defeat the purpose of the sub-chapter” is to “deprive a person of income required for ordinary and necessary living expenses.” §404.508 (a). Those expenses are defined to include, among other things, food, rent, and medical bills. §§404.508 (a)(1) and (2). Recoupment is “against equity and good conscience” when the recipient “because of a notice that such payment would be made or by reason of the incorrect payment, relinquished a valuable right... or changed his position for the worse.” § 404.509. An example of detrimental reliance that would be sufficient is permitting private hospital insurance to lapse in the mistaken expectation of receiving federal hospital benefits. Ibid.
The Secretary's practice is to make an ex parte determination under § 204 (a) that an overpayment has been made, to notify the recipient of that determination, and then to shift to the recipient the burden of either (i) seeking reconsideration to contest the accuracy of that determination, or (ii) asking the Secretary to forgive the debt and waive recovery in accordance with § 204 (b). If a recipient files a written request for reconsideration or waiver, recoupment is deferred pending action on that request. Social Security Claims Manual §§ 5503.2 (c), 5503.4 (b) (Dec. 1978) (Claims Manual). The papers are sent to one of the seven regional offices where the request is reviewed.
If the regional office decision goes against the recipient, recoupment begins. The recipient’s monthly benefits are reduced or terminated until the overpayment has been recouped. Only if the recipient continues to object is he given an opportunity to present his story in person to someone with authority to decide his case. That opportunity takes the form of an on-the-record de novo evidential hearing before an independent hearing examiner. 20 CFR, §§ 404.917, 404.931 (1978). The recipient may seek subsequent review by the Appeals Council, § 404.945, and finally by a federal court. § 205 (g) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 405 (g). If it is decided that the Secretary’s initial determination was in error, the amounts wrongfully recouped are repaid.
II
The Elliott Case
The Secretary overpaid the Hawaii respondents, and notified them of his determination to recoup the overpayments. After unsuccessful attempts to obtain administrative relief, they brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii challenging the legality of the Secretary’s recoupment procedures. They alleged that, because the notice they received was inadequate and because they were not given an opportunity for an oral hearing before recoupment began, the recoupment procedures violated both § 204 of the Act and the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. They sought class certification, and requested both declaratory and injunctive relief that would require the Secretary to cease future recoupment until such time as he provided the class with adequate notice and opportunity for a hearing. App. 11-21.
The District Court certified a class of “all social security old age and disability benefit recipients resident in the State of Hawaii, who are being or will be subjected to adjustment of their social security benefits pursuant to 42 U. S. C. §§ 404 (a) and (b) without adequate prior notice of the grounds for such action and without a prior hearing on disputed issues relating to such actions.” Id., at 35. The court found jurisdiction under the mandamus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1361, and granted relief to respondents. The court said that due process required that the Secretary provide an opportunity for an informal oral hearing before an independent decisionmaker prior to recoupment. In so holding, the court relied on Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970), which determined that, under the Due Process Clause, a statutory right to welfare benefits could not be terminated without prior notice and opportunity for an evidential hearing. The court also held that the Constitution required that the initial overpayment notice be modified to inform the recipient more fully concerning re-coupment procedures. Although the court did not discuss respondents’ statutory claim, it granted judgment for respondents on both statutory and constitutional grounds and ordered injunctive relief for the class. Elliott v. Weinberger, 371 F. Supp. 960 (1974).
The Buffington Case
Relying on annual earnings reports, the Secretary determined that the individual respondents in Buffington had been overpaid for previous years. After receiving notice, both named respondents sought administrative relief, but were unable to halt recoupment. They then brought suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. They, too, alleged that the Secretary’s recoupment procedures were contrary to both § 204 and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. They requested certification of a nationwide class, an injunction ordering repayment of amounts unlawfully withheld, and declaratory and mandamus relief that would require the Secretary to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing before recoupment began again. App. 188-201.
The District Court certified a nationwide class composed of “all individuals eligible for [old-age and survivors’ benefits] whose benefits have been or will be reduced or otherwise adjusted without prior notice and opportunity for a hearing.” The court, however, excluded from the class residents of Hawaii and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where suits raising similar issues were known to have been brought. Id., at 259. See, e. g., Mattern v. Weinberger, 519 F. 2d 150 (CA3 1975). As a precautionary measure, the court also excluded all persons who had participated as plaintiffs or members of a plaintiff class in litigation against the Secretary on similar issues, if a decision on the merits previously had been rendered. App. 259-260.
The court then granted summary judgment for the class. The court found jurisdiction under the mandamus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1361. It enjoined the Secretary from ordering recoupment without having provided recipients with a prior opportunity for an informal hearing before an independent decisionmaker. The court also ordered that the initial notice be amended to provide more information about recoupment procedures. Buffington v. Weinberger, Civ. No. 734—73C2 (WD Wash. Oct. 22, 1974). App. 262-265.
The Court of Appeals
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit consolidated the two cases for disposition on appeal. In an unreported opinion, Elliott v. Weinberger, Nos. 74—1611 and 74-3118 (Oct. 1, 1975), App. to Pet. for Cert. 40A-84A, that court found that the complaints presented substantial constitutional questions and so § 1361 mandamus jurisdiction was proper. It upheld the certification of the classes under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23(b)(2), finding counsel was sufficiently skilled and experienced to represent the class. It rejected the Secretary’s contention that a nationwide class should not have been certified. It found nothing in Rule 23 indicating that such a class was improper, and it believed as a practical matter that, because respondents did not seek damages, no manageability problems were present. It indicated that to require recipients to sue individually would result in an unnecessary duplication of actions, the evil that Rule 23 was designed to prevent. On the merits, the Court of Appeals, without directly addressing respondents’ statutory claims, affirmed the holdings that the Secretary’s recoupment procedures were unconstitutional.
Subsequent to that decision, this Court, in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976), held that the Due Process Clause does not require an oral hearing prior to termination of Social Security disability insurance benefits. We then granted petitions for writs of certiorari filed by the Secretary both in this case and in Mattern, supra, vacated the judgments below, and remanded the cases for further consideration in light of Eldridge. 425 U. S. 987 (1976).
On remand, the Court of Appeals adhered to the essential features of its original decision. Elliott v. Weinberger, 564 F. 2d 1219 (1977). The court reaffirmed its holding that it had jurisdiction under the mandamus statute. It noted that, while Eldridge had indicated that named plaintiffs would be able to assert jurisdiction based on § 205 (g) under Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 755, 764 (1975), there was some doubt as to whether that statute would provide jurisdiction for a class action seeking injunctive relief, and therefore the extraordinary remedy of mandamus could be invoked. The court found that these actions were not foreclosed by the jurisdictional limitations contained in § 205 (h), because these actions were brought to enforce constitutional rights, not “to recover on any claim” for benefits.
On the merits, the court found Eldridge distinguishable. One of three grounds cited in support of this conclusion is of particular relevance here. The court expressly found that the Secretary’s procedures for handling waivers created an undue risk of erroneous deprivation. It said that, unlike the medical decision at issue in Eldridge, the grant of a waiver frequently depended on credibility, which could not be ascertained from the written submission on which the Secretary relied. The court thus held that when waiver was requested, the Due Process Clause required that the recipient be given an oral hearing before recoupment begins. The court said a prior hearing was not required, however, in § 204 (a) reconsideration cases if the dispute was a routine one centering on a computational error or a payment problem that did not demand an evaluation of credibility. The court specified six requirements that the oral hearing should meet, including rights to receive notice, to submit evidence, to cross-examine witnesses, to have counsel, to have an impartial hearing officer, and to receive a written decision. The court did not require that a transcript of the hearing be made. 564 F. 2d, at 1235.
The court also held that the notice must be “plainly and clearly communicated.” Ibid. The court suggested that this could be accomplished by including in the notice such matters as the reason for overpayment, a statement of the right to request reconsideration or waiver, the forms available for that purpose, a description of the nature of reconsideration and waiver, and notice of the right to a prerecoupment hearing. Id., at 1236.
The Secretary filed a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of both the holding that the Due Process Clause required a prerecoupment oral hearing, and the determination that the class was properly certified. The Secretary, however, did not request review of the holding that his notice of recoupment was constitutionally defective. Certiorari was granted. Califano v. Elliott, 439 U. S. 816 (1978).
Ill
A court presented with both statutory and constitutional grounds to support the relief requested usually should pass on the statutory claim before considering the constitutional question. New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer, 440 U. S. 568, 582-583, and n. 22 (1979); United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 110 (1948); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (concurring opinion). Due respect for the coordinate branches of government, as well as a reluctance when conscious of fallibility to speak with our utmost finality, see Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 540 (1953) (Jackson, J., eon-curring in result), counsels against unnecessary constitutional adjudication. And if “a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which [a serious doubt of constitutionality] may be avoided,” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932), a court should adopt that construction. In particular, this Court has been willing to assume a congressional solicitude for fair procedure, absent explicit statutory language to the contrary. See Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S. 474, 507-508 (1959).
The District Courts and Court of Appeals in the cases now before us gave these principles somewhat short shrift in declining to pass expressly on respondents’ contention that § 204 itself requires a prerecoupment oral hearing. We turn to the statute first, and find that it fairly may be read to require a prerecoupment decision by the Secretary. With respect to § 204 (a) reconsideration as to whether overpayment occurred, we agree that the statute does not require that the decision involve a prior oral hearing, and we reject respondents’ contention that the Constitution does so. With respect to § 204 (b) waiver of the Secretary’s right to recoup, however, because the nature of the statutory standards makes a hearing essential, we find it unnecessary to determine whether the Constitution would require a similar result.
A
On its face, § 204 requires that the Secretary make a pre-recoupment waiver decision, and that the decision, like that concerning the fact of the overpayment, be accurate. In the imperative voice, it says “there shall be no adjustment of payments to, or recovery by the United States from, any person” who qualifies for waiver. See Mattern v. Weinberger, 519 F. 2d, at 166, and n. 32. Echoing this requirement, § 204 (a) says that only “proper” adjustments or recoveries are to be made. The implication is that a recoupment from a person qualifying under § 204 (b) would not be “proper.”
Insofar as § 204 is read to require a prerecoupment decision, the reading is in accord with the manner in which the Secretary presently administers the statute. No recoupment is made until a preliminary waiver-or reconsideration decision has taken place, either by default after the recipient has received proper notice, or by review of a written request. Claims Manual §§ 5503.2 (c), 5503.4 (b). This interpretation is also reinforced by a comparison with other sections of the Social Security Act. Section 204 is strikingly unlike § 225, which expressly permits suspension of disability benefits before eligibility is finally decided. See Richardson v. Wright, 405 U. S. 208 (1972). On the other hand, an analogy may be drawn between § 204 and § 303 (a)(1), 42 U. S. C. § 503 (a)(1), which this Court in California Human Resources Dept. v. Java, 402 U. S. 121 (1971), interpreted to require payment of unemployment benefits pending a final determination of eligibility. Neither § 204 nor § 303 (a)(1) expressly addresses the timing of a hearing, but both speak in mandatory terms and imply that the mandated act — here waiver of recoupment, there payment of benefits — is to precede other action.
B
The heart of the present dispute concerns not whether a prerecoupment decision should be made, but whether making the decision by regional office review of the written waiver request is sufficient to protect the recipient’s right not to be subjected to an improper recoupment.
In this regard, requests for reconsideration under § 204 (a), as to whether overpayment occurred, may be distinguished from requests for waiver of the Secretary’s right to recoup under § 204 (b). As the Courts of Appeals in this case and in Mattern noted, requests under § 204 (a) for reconsideration involve relatively straightforward matters of computation for which written review is ordinarily an adequate means to correct prior mistakes. Elliott, 564 F. 2d, at 1231; Mattern v. Mathews, 582 F. 2d 248, 255-256 (CA3 1978). Many of the named respondents were found to have been overpaid based on earnings reports they themselves had submitted. But unlike the Court of Appeals in this case, we do not think that the rare instance in which a credibility dispute is relevant to a § 204 (a) claim is sufficient to require the Secretary to sift through all requests for reconsideration and grant a hearing to the few that involve credibility. The statute authorizes only “proper” recoupment, but some leeway for practical administration must be allowed. Nor do the standards of the Due Process Clause, more tolerant than the strict language here in issue, require that prerecoupment oral hearings be afforded in § 204 (a) cases. The nature of a due process hearing is shaped by the “risk of error inherent in the truthfinding process as applied to the generality of cases, not the rare exceptions.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S., at 344. It would be inconsistent with that principle to require a hearing under § 204 (a) when review of a beneficiary’s written submission is an adequate means of resolving all but a few § 204 (a) disputes. Mattern, 582 F. 2d, at 258.
By contrast, written review hardly seems sufficient to discharge the Secretary’s statutory duty to make an accurate determination of waiver under § 204 (b). Under that subsection, the Secretary must assess the absence of “fault” and determine whether or not recoupment would be “against equity and good conscience.” These standards do not apply under §204 (a). The Court previously has noted that a “broad ‘fault’ standard is inherently subject to factual determination and adversarial input.” Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600, 617 (1974). As the Secretary’s regulations make clear, “fault” depends on an evaluation of “all pertinent circumstances” including the recipient’s “intelligence... and physical and mental condition” as well as his good faith. 20 CFR §404.507 (1978). We do not see how these can be evaluated absent personal contact between the recipient and the person who decides his case. Evaluating fault, like judging detrimental reliance, usually requires an assessment of the recipient’s credibility, and written submissions are a particularly inappropriate way to distinguish a genuine hard luck story from a fabricated tall tale. See Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S., at 269.
The consequences of the injunctions entered by the District Courts confirm the reasonableness of interpreting § 204 (b) to require a prerecoupment oral hearing. In compliance with those orders, the Secretary, beginning with calendar year 1977, has granted what respondents term “a short personal conference with an impartial employee of the Social Security Administration at which time the recipient presents testimony and evidence and cross-examines witnesses, and the administrative employee questions the recipient.” Brief for Respondents 46. Of the approximately 2,000 conferences held between January 1977 and October 1978, 30% resulted in a reversal of the Secretary’s decision. Brief for Petitioner 46. This rate of reversal confirms the view that, without an oral hearing, the Secretary may misjudge a number of cases that he otherwise would be able to assess properly, and that the hearing requirement imposed by the Court of Appeals significantly furthers the statutory goal that “there shall be no” recoupment when waiver is appropriate. We therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that an opportunity for a pre-recoupment oral hearing is required when a recipient requests waiver under § 204 (b).
IV
Without full consideration of the question, the Court of Appeals expressed doubts about the availability of full relief under § 205 (g), the Act’s judicial review provision. It therefore invoked the extraordinary remedy of mandamus, for which jurisdiction is provided by 28 U. S. C. § 1361. In this Court, the Secretary contends that mandamus is not appropriate. And though he concedes that jurisdiction over the claims of the named plaintiffs was proper under § 205 (g), he argues that class relief is inappropriate under that section. The Secretary contends in the alternative that even if class relief were appropriate, a nationwide class should not have been certified, and, because the classes here include individuals who have not filed for reconsideration or waiver, relief was awarded to persons over whom the courts had no § 205 (g) jurisdiction. The Secretary also contends that injunctive relief cannot be awarded in a § 205 (g) suit. While we do not reject the Secretary’s contentions entirely, we find that nothing in § 205 (g) prohibits the prerecoupment hearing relief awarded in this case, and so we do not reach the question whether mandamus would otherwise be available.
A
The Secretary argues that class relief is not available in connection with any action brought under § 205 (g), and therefore that class relief should not have been afforded in this case. In making this argument, the Secretary relies on the language of § 205 (g) which authorizes suit by “[a]ny individual,” speaks of judicial review of “any final decision of the Secretary made after a hearing to which [the plaintiff] was a party,” and empowers district courts “to enter... a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Secretary.” This language, the Secretary says, indicates that Congress contemplated a case-by-case adjudication of claims under § 205 (g) that is incompatible with class relief.
The Secretary contends that the decision in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749 (1975), finding class relief inappropriate on the facts of that case, and the legislative history of § 205 (g) support his argument in this regard. And though the Secretary concedes that every Court of Appeals that has considered this issue has concluded that class relief is available under § 205 (g), he distinguishes those cases on the grounds they evinced insufficient respect for the statute’s plain language and exaggerated the need for class relief in § 205 (g) actions. Restricted judicial review will not have a detrimental effect on the administration of the Social Security Act, the Secretary says, because he will appeal adverse decisions or abide them within the jurisdiction of the courts rendering them. There is thus no need for repetitious litigation in order to establish legal principles beyond the confines of a particular case, and no need to afford class relief in cases brought under § 205 (g).
Section 205 (g) contains no express limitation of class relief. It prescribes that judicial review shall be by the usual type of “civil action” brought routinely in district court in connection with the array of civil litigation. Federal Rule Civ. Proe. 1, in turn, provides that the Rules “govern the procedure in the United States district courts in all suits of a civil nature.” (Emphasis added.) Those Rules provide for class actions of the type certified in this case. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 (b) (2). In the absence of a direct expression by Congress of its intent to depart from the usual course of trying “all suits of a civil nature” under the Rules established for that purpose, class relief is appropriate in civil actions brought in federal court, including those seeking to overturn determinations of the departments of the Executive Branch of the Government in cases where judicial review of such determinations is authorized.
We do not find in § 205 (g) the necessary clear expression of congressional intent to exempt actions brought under that statute from the operation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The fact that the statute speaks in terms of an action brought by “any individual” or that it contemplates case-by-case adjudication does not indicate that the usual Rule providing for class actions is not controlling, where under that Rule certification of a class action otherwise is permissible. Indeed, a wide variety of federal jurisdictional provisions speak in terms of individual plaintiffs, but class relief has never been thought to be unavailable under them. See, e. g., 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (civil rights; provides jurisdiction over civil actions “authorized by law to be commenced by any person”); 28 U. S. C. § 1361 (mandamus; empowers federal courts to compel certain Government officials and agencies “to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff”); 29 U. S. C. § 1132 (a) (Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974; provides jurisdiction over a civil action brought under the Act “by a participant or beneficiary”). It is not unusual that § 205 (g), like these other jurisdictional statutes, speaks in terms of an individual plaintiff, since the Rule 23 class-action device was designed to allow an exception to the usual rule that litigation is conducted by and on behalf of the individual named parties only.
Moreover, class relief is consistent with the need for case-by-case adjudication emphasized by the Secretary, at least so long as the membership of the class is limited to those who meet the requirements of § 205 (g). See Norton v. Mathews, 427 U. S. 524, 535-537, and nn. 4-8 (1976) (Stevens, J., dissenting). Where the district court has jurisdiction over the claim of each individual member of the class, Rule 23 provides a procedure by which the court may exercise that jurisdiction over the various individual claims in a single proceeding.
Finally, we note that class relief for claims such as those presented by respondents in this case is peculiarly appropriate. The issues involved are common to the class as a whole. They turn on questions of law applicable in the same manner to each member of the class. The ultimate question is whether a prerecoupment hearing is to be held, and each individual claim has little monetary value. It is unlikely that differences in the factual background of each claim will affect the outcome of the legal issue. And the class-action device saves the resources of both the courts and the parties by permitting an issue potentially affecting every social security beneficiary to be litigated in an economical fashion under Rule 23.
We therefore agree that where the district court has jurisdiction over the claims of the members of the class in accordance with the requirements set out in § 205 (g), it also has the discretion under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 to certify a class action for the litigation of those claims.
B
The Secretary next argues that, assuming class actions in fact may be maintained under § 205 (g), it was error for the courts here to sustain the nationwide class in the Buffington litigation. He argues that a nationwide class is unwise in that it forecloses reasoned consideration of the same issues by other federal courts and artificially increases the pressure on the docket of this Court by endowing with national importance issues that, if adjudicated in a narrower context, might not require our immediate attention. Moreover, the Secretary, citing Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406 (1977), as an example, argues that nationwide class relief is inconsistent with the rule that injunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.
Nothing in Rule 23, however, limits the geographical scope of a class action that is brought in conformity with that Rule. Since the class here was certified in accordance with Rule 23 (b)(2), the limitations on class size associated with Rule 23 (b) (3) actions do not apply directly. Nor is a nationwide class inconsistent with principles of equity jurisprudence, since the scope of injunctive relief is dictated by the extent of the violation established, not by the geographical extent of the plaintiff class. Dayton Board, 433 U. S., at 414-420. If a class action is otherwise proper, and if jurisdiction lies over the claims of the members of the class, the fact that the class is nationwide in scope does not necessarily mean that the relief afforded the plaintiffs will be more burdensome than necessary to redress the complaining parties.
We concede the force of the Secretary’s contentions that nationwide class actions may have a detrimental effect by foreclosing adjudication by a number of different courts and judges, and of increasing, in certain cases, the pressures on this Court’s docket. It often will be preferable to allow several courts to pass on a given class claim in order to gain the benefit of adjudication by different courts in different factual contexts. For this reason, a federal court when asked to certify a nationwide class should take care to ensure that nationwide relief is indeed appropriate in the case before it, and that certification of such a class would not improperly interfere with the litigation of similar issues in other judicial districts. But we decline to adopt the extreme position that such a class may never be certified. The certification of a nationwide class, like most issues arising under Rule 23, is committed in the first instance to the discretion of the district court. On the facts of this case we cannot conclude that the District Court in Buffington abused that discretion, especially in light of its sensitivity to ongoing litigation of the same issúe in other districts, and the determination that counsel was adequate to represent the class.
C
The Secretary concedes that the named plaintiffs have satisfied the requirements of § 205 (g) jurisdiction. He argues, however, that the District Courts erred in awarding relief to class members who have been subjected to recoupment but who have not sought either reconsideration of overpayment determinations or waiver of recovery. The Secretary contends that these class members have failed to obtain a “final decision” from the Secretary as required by § 205 (g), as construed in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749 (1975), and Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976).
The relief to which the Secretary objects in this Court is the determination that he must afford class members an opportunity for a prerecoupment oral hearing. With respect to that relief, the classes certified were plainly too broad. Both the Elliott and the Buffington classes included persons who had not filed requests for reconsideration or waiver in the past and would not do so in the future. As to them, no “final decision” concerning the right to a prerecoupment hearing has been or will be made.
The Secretary errs, however, in suggesting that the lower courts ordered that an opportunity for a prerecoupment oral hearing be afforded to those persons. The Court of Appeals aptly summarized its holding, and that of the District Courts, as being that recipients are entitled to the opportunity for a hearing “when they claim a waiver.” 564 F. 2d, at 1222. Because the procedure for claiming waiver involves filing a written request with the Secretary, we cannot agree that the Court of Appeals ordered this relief for those who do not meet the jurisdictional prerequisites of § 205 (g). The Secretary's objection to the class definition is well taken, but it provides no basis for altering the relief actually granted in this case.
D
Finally, the Secretary contends that the District Courts erred in granting injunctive relief. He argues that the grant of jurisdiction found in § 205 (g), which speaks only of the power to enter a judgment “affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Secretary,” does not encompass the equitable power to direct that the statute be implemented through procedures other than those authorized by the Secretary. Invoking the maxim that equitable relief is appropriate only when a party has no adequate remedy at law, he says that respondents would have an adequate remedy if a court simply reversed the Secretary’s decision not to grant them pre-recoupment oral hearings. In the face of such an order, he would be forced, he says, to suspend recoupment until the recipient was afforded a hearing.
The Secretary’s reading of the statute is too grudging. Absent the clearest command to the contrary from Congress, federal courts retain their equitable power to issue injunctions in suits over which they have jurisdiction. See Porter v. Warner Holding Co., 328 U. S. 395, 398 (1946); Scripps-Howard Radio v. FCC, 316 U. S. 4, 9-11 (1942). Nothing in either the language or the legislative history of § 205 (g) indicates that Congress intended to preclude injunctive relief in § 205 (g) suits.
Injunctions can play an essential role in § 205 (g) litigation. Without the power to order a stay of recoupment pending decision, a court for all practical purposes would be unable to “reverse” a decision concerning prerecoupment rights. In class actions, injunctions may be necessary to protect the interests of absent class members and to prevent repetitive litigation. While the grant of' injunctive relief makes the Secretary’s duty to comply enforceable by contempt order, “[s'Jurely Congress did not intend § 205 (g) to provide reluctant federal officials with a means of delay in the remote eventuality that they might not feel bound by the judgment of a federal court.” Norton v. Mathews, 427 U. S., at 535 (dissenting opinion). The conclusion that injunctive relief is available under § 205 (g) is supported both by our implicit holding that a three-judge court was properly convened in Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U. S. 628 (1974), and by the opinions of four Courts of Appeals.
y
For these reasons, we hold that recipients who file a written request for waiver under § 204 (b) are entitled to the opportunity for a prerecoupment oral hearing; that those who merely request reconsideration under § 204 (a) are not so entitled; that class certification is permissible under § 205 (g); that the Buffington court did not abuse its discretion in certifying a nationwide class; that the class did exceed the bounds permitted by § 205 (g), but that the class members who received relief all satisfied the § 205 (g) requirement that a request for waiver be filed; and that injunctive relief may be awarded in a § 205 (g)
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
These cases arise under the Clean Air Act, as amended by the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 1676, 42 U. S. C. § 1857 et seg., and raise questions concerning the authority of the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to compel various types of implementation and enforcement actions by the States. Four separate decisions in the Courts of Appeals reviewed transportation control plans promulgated by the Administrator for several States which had previously failed to submit adequate plans of their own. Four petitions have been filed seeking review of those decisions which, with limited exceptions, invalidated the Administrator’s transportation control plans which had been adopted in the form of regulations.
Those transportation control plans have a variety of aspects which need not be discussed in great detail to explain our disposition of these cases. In general, they imposed upon the States the obligations (1) to develop an inspection and maintenance program pertaining to the vehicles registered in the affected Air Quality Control Regions, and to submit to the Administrator, by fixed deadlines, both a schedule of compliance and the operative regulations by which the program was to be run; (2) to develop various retrofit programs pertaining to several classes of older vehicles, in order to minimize several different types of emissions; (3) to designate and enforce preferential bus and carpool lanes, on streets sometimes specifically identified in the regulations and sometimes left to be chosen by the State; (4) to develop a program to monitor actual emissions as affected by the foregoing programs; and (5) to adopt certain other programs which varied from State to State.
The critical fact about all of the foregoing obligations was that they were imposed on the States, under 40 CFR § 52.23 (1976), as elements of an applicable implementation plan. A State's failure to carry out any of them would therefore not merely allow the Administrator to step in and carry them out himself under § 113 (a) (2) of the Clean Air Act, but would, in the view of each of the Courts of Appeals, render the State “in violation of any requirement of an applicable implementation plan” and therefore apparently subject to direct enforcement actions against it under the provisions of § 113 (a)(1), 42 U. S. C. § 1857c~8 (a)(1):
“Whenever, on the basis of any information available to him, the Administrator finds that any person is in violation of any requirement of an applicable implementation plan, the Administrator shall notify the person in violation of the plan and the State in which the plan applies of such finding. If such violation extends beyond the 30th day after the date of the Administrator's notification, the Administrator may issue an order requiring such person to comply with the requirements of such plan or he may bring a civil action in accordance with subsection (b) of this section.”
Under dual challenges by the States that these regulations were not within the mandate of the Act, and that if they were they were in violation of the Constitution, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Ninth, Fourth, and District of Columbia Circuits struck them down. All of the courts rested on statutory interpretation, but noted also that serious constitutional questions might be raised if the statute were read as the United States argued it should be. Brown v. EPA, 521 F. 2d 827 (CA9 1975); Arizona v. EPA, 521 F. 2d 825 (CA9 1975); District of Columbia v. Train, 172 U. S. App. D. C. 311, 521 F. 2d 971 (1975); Maryland v. EPA, 530 F. 2d 215 (CA4 1975). The only substantial variation in the outcome of these decisions was that the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed regulations requiring the creation of bus lanes, the purchase by the affected jurisdictions of a fixed number of new buses, and the denial of registration to a vehicle whose owner is unable to produce a federal certificate of compliance, should a federal inspection program be instituted.
The Solicitor General’s petitions from all three Courts of Appeals challenged them only insofar as they invalidated the regulations requiring state inspection and maintenance programs. In addition, we granted the petition for certiorari of the Commonwealth of Virginia on its challenge to the regulations which the District of Columbia Circuit had upheld. Prior to argument, the Solicitor General informed the Court that repeal of the bus purchase regulations was imminent, Reply Brief for Federal Parties 25, and that issue was thereby effectively removed from the case. Thus the litigation has undergone a great deal of shrinkage since the decisions below due to the federal parties’ exercise of their prerogative not to seek review of the invalidation of certain regulations.
But the federal parties have not merely renounced an intent to pursue certain specified regulations; they now appear to admit that those remaining in controversy are invalid unless modified in certain respects:
“The Administrator . . . concedes the necessity of removing from the regulations all requirements that the States submit legally adopted regulations; the [Administrator’s] regulations contain no requirement that the State adopt laws.” Brief for Federal Parties 20 n. 14.
The federal parties’ position now appears to be that, while the challenged transportation plans do not require the enactment of state legislation, they do now contain, and must be modified to eliminate, certain requirements that the State promulgate regulations. See Reply Brief for Federal Parties 14 n. 22.
We decline the federal parties’ invitation to pass upon the EPA regulations, when the only ones before us are admitted to be in need of certain essential modifications. Such action on our part would amount to the rendering of an advisory opinion. For this Court to review regulations normally required to be first reviewed in the Court of Appeals, before such review is had, is extraordinary. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 584-585 (1952). For it to review regulations not yet promulgated, the final form of which has only been hinted at, would be wholly novel. See generally Columbia Broadcasting System v. United States, 316 U. S. 407, 417-419 (1942); United States v. Los Angeles & Salt Lake R. Co., 273 U. S. 299, 309-310 (1927).
The judgments of the respective Courts of Appeals are vacated, and the cases are remanded for consideration of mootness and such other proceedings as may be consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 113 (a)(2), 42 U. S. C. § 1857c-8 (a)(2), provides:
“Whenever, on the basis of information available to him, the Administrator finds that violations of an applicable implementation plan are so widespread that such violations appear to result from a failure of the State in which the plan applies to enforce the plan effectively, he shall so notify the State. If the Administrator finds such failure extends beyond the 30th day after such notice, he shall give public notice of such finding. During the period beginning with such public notice and ending when such State satisfies the Administrator that it will enforce such plan (hereafter referred to in this section as ‘period of federally assumed enforcement’), the Administrator may enforce any requirement of such plan with respect to any person—
“(A) by issuing an order to comply with such requirement, or
“(B) by bringing a civil action under subsection (b) of this section.”
Prior to the decision of the Ninth Circuit, a similar set of regulations pertaining to Pennsylvania had been upheld by the Third Circuit. Pennsylvania v. EPA, 500 F. 2d 246 (1974). That decision is not presently before the Court.
The regulations were officially rescinded on February 8, 1977. 42 Fed. Reg. 7957.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO or Act), 18 U. S. C. §§ 1961-1968, provides a private right of action for treble damages to “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation” of the Act’s criminal prohibitions. § 1964(c). The question presented in this case is whether a plaintiff asserting a RICO claim predicated on mail fraud must plead and prove that it relied on the defendant’s alleged misrepresentations. Because we agree with the Court of Appeals that a showing of first-party reliance is not required, we affirm.
I
Each year the Cook County, Illinois, Treasurer’s Office holds a public auction at which it sells tax liens it has acquired on the property of delinquent taxpayers. Prospective buyers bid on the liens, but not in cash amounts. Instead, the bids are stated as percentage penalties the property owner must pay the winning bidder in order to clear the lien. The bidder willing to accept the lowest penalty wins the auction and obtains the right to purchase the lien in exchange for paying the outstanding taxes on the property. The property owner may then redeem the property by paying the lienholder the delinquent taxes, plus the penalty established at the auction and an additional 12% penalty on any taxes subsequently paid by the lienholder. If the property owner does not redeem the property within the statutory redemption period, the lienholder may obtain a tax deed for the property, thereby in effect purchasing the property for the value of the delinquent taxes.
Because property acquired in this manner can often be sold at a significant profit over the amount paid for the lien, the auctions are marked by stiff competition. As a result, most parcels attract multiple bidders willing to accept the lowest penalty permissible — 0%, that is to say, no penalty at all. (Perhaps to prevent the perverse incentive taxpayers would have if they could redeem their property from a winning bidder for less than the amount of their unpaid taxes, the county does not accept negative bids.) The lower limit of 0% creates a problem: Who wins when the bidding results in a tie? The county’s solution is to allocate parcels “on a rotational basis” in order to ensure that liens are apportioned fairly among 0% bidders. App. 18.
But this creates a perverse incentive of its own: Bidders who, in addition to bidding themselves, send agents to bid on their behalf will obtain a disproportionate share of liens. To prevent this kind of manipulation, the county adopted the “Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule,” which requires each “tax buying entity” to submit bids in its own name and prohibits it from using “apparent agents, employees, or related entities” to submit simultaneous bids for the same parcel. Id., at 67. Upon registering for an auction, each bidder must submit a sworn affidavit affirming that it complies with the Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule.
Petitioners and respondents are regular participants in Cook County’s tax sales. In July 2005, respondents filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, contending that petitioners had fraudulently obtained a disproportionate share of liens by violating the Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule at the auctions held from 2002 to 2005. According to respondents, petitioner Sabre Group, LLC, and its principal Barrett Rochman arranged for related firms to bid on Sabre Group’s behalf and directed them to file false attestations that they complied with the Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule. Having thus fraudulently obtained the opportunity to participate in the auction, the related firms collusively bid on the same properties at a 0% rate. As a result, when the county allocated liens on a rotating basis, it treated the related firms as independent entities, allowing them collectively to acquire a greater number of liens than would have been granted to a single bidder acting alone. The related firms then purchased the liens and transferred the certificates of purchase to Sabre Group. In this way, respondents allege, petitioners deprived them and other bidders of their fair share of liens and the attendant financial benefits.
Respondents’ complaint contains five counts. Counts I-IV allege that petitioners violated and conspired to violate RICO by conducting their affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity involving numerous acts of mail fraud. In support of their allegations of mail fraud, respondents assert that petitioners “mailed or caused to be mailed hundreds of mailings in furtherance of the scheme,” id., at 49, when they sent property owners various notices required by Illinois law. Count V alleges a state-law claim of tortious interference with prospective business advantage.
On petitioners’ motion, the District Court dismissed respondents’ RICO claims for lack of standing. It observed that “[o]nly [respondents] and other competing buyers, as opposed to the Treasurer or the property owners, would suffer a financial loss from a scheme to violate the Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a. But it concluded that respondents “are not in the class of individuals protected by the mail fraud statute, and therefore are not within the ‘zone of interests’ that the RICO statute protects,” because they “were not recipients of the alleged misrepresentations and, at best were indirect victims of the alleged fraud.” Id., at 18a. The District Court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over respondents’ tortious-interference claim and dismissed it without prejudice.
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed. It first concluded that “[standing is not a problem in this suit” because respondents suffered a “real injury” when they lost the valuable chance to acquire more liens, and because “that injury can be redressed by damages.” 477 F. 3d 928, 930 (2007). The Court of Appeals next concluded that respondents had sufficiently alleged proximate cause under Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U. S. 258 (1992), and Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U. S. 451 (2006), because they (along with other losing bidders) were “immediately injured” by petitioners’ scheme. 477 F. 3d, at 930-932. Finally, the Court of Appeals rejected petitioners’ argument that respondents are not entitled to relief under RICO because they did not receive, and therefore did not rely on, any false statements: “A scheme that injures D by making false statements through the mail to E is mail fraud, and actionable by D through RICO if the injury is not derivative of someone else’s.” Id., at 932.
With respect to this last holding, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that courts have taken conflicting views. By its count, “[t]hree other circuits that have considered this question agree... that the direct victim may recover through RICO whether or not it is the direct recipient of the false statements,” ibid, (citing Mid Atlantic Telecom, Inc. v. Long Distance Servs., Inc., 18 F. 3d 260,263-264 (CA4 1994); Systems Management, Inc. v. Loiselle, 303 F. 3d 100,103-104 (CA1 2002); Ideal Steel Supply Corp. v. Anza, 373 F. 3d 251, 263 (CA2 2004)), whereas two Circuits hold that the plaintiff must show that it in fact relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations, 477 F. 3d, at 932 (citing VanDenBroeck v. CommonPoint Mortgage Co., 210 F. 3d 696,701 (CA6 2000); Sikes v. Teleline, Inc., 281 F. 3d 1350, 1360-1361 (CA11 2002)). Compare also Sandwich Chef of Texas, Inc. v. Reliance Nat. Indemnity Ins. Co., 319 F. 3d 205, 223 (CA5 2003) (recognizing “a narrow exception to the requirement that the plaintiff prove direct reliance on the defendant’s fraudulent predicate act... when the plaintiff can demonstrate injury as a direct and contemporaneous result of [a] fraud committed against a third party”), with Appletree Square I, L. P. v. W. R. Grace & Co., 29 F. 3d 1283,1286-1287 (CA8 1994) (requiring the plaintiff to show that it detrimentally relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations).
We granted certiorari, 552 U. S. 1087 (2008), to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals on “the substantial question,” Anza, supra, at 461, whether first-party reliance is an element of a civil RICO claim predicated on mail fraud.
II
We begin by setting forth the applicable statutory provisions. RICO’s private right of action is contained in 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c), which provides in relevant part that “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue therefor in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.” Section 1962 contains RICO’s criminal prohibitions. Pertinent here is § 1962(c), which makes it “unlawful for any person employed by or associated with” an enterprise engaged in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce “to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.” The term “racketeering activity” is defined to include a host of so-called predicate acts, including “any act which is indictable under... section 1341 (relating to mail fraud).” § 1961(1)(B).
The upshot is that RICO provides a private right of action for treble damages to any person injured in his business or property by reason of the conduct of a qualifying enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of acts indictable as mail fraud. Mail fraud, in turn, occurs whenever a person, “having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud,” uses the mail “for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do.” §1341. The gravamen of the offense is the scheme to defraud, and any “mailing that is incident to an essential part of the scheme satisfies the mailing element,” Schmuck v. United States, 489 U. S. 705, 712 (1989) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted), even if the mailing itself “contain[s] no false information,” id., at 715.
Once the relationship among these statutory provisions is understood, respondents’ theory of the case is straightforward. They allege that petitioners devised a scheme to defraud when they agreed to submit false attestations of compliance with the Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule to the county. In furtherance of this scheme, petitioners used the mail on numerous occasions to send the requisite notices to property owners. Each of these mailings was an “act which is indictable” as mail fraud, and together they constituted a “pattern of racketeering activity.” By conducting the affairs of their enterprise through this pattern of racketeering activity, petitioners violated § 1962(c). As a result, respondents lost the opportunity to acquire valuable liens. Accordingly, respondents were injured in their business or property by reason of petitioners’ violation of § 1962(c), and RICO’s plain terms give them a private right of action for treble damages.
Petitioners argue, however, that because the alleged pattern of racketeering activity consisted of acts of mail fraud, respondents must show that they relied on petitioners’ fraudulent misrepresentations. This they cannot do, because the alleged misrepresentations — petitioners’ attestations of compliance with the Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule — were made to the county, not respondents. The county may well have relied on petitioners’ misrepresentations when it permitted them to participate in the auction, but respondents, never having received the misrepresentations, could not have done so. Indeed, respondents do not even allege that they relied on petitioners’ false attestations. Thus, petitioners submit, they fail to state a claim under RICO.
If petitioners’ proposed requirement of first-party reliance seems to come out of nowhere, there is a reason: Nothing on the face of the relevant statutory provisions imposes such a requirement. Using the mail to execute or attempt to execute a scheme to defraud is indictable as mail fraud, and hence a predicate act of racketeering under RICO, even if no one relied on any misrepresentation. See Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 24-25 (1999) (“The common-law requirement] of 'justifiable reliance’... plainly ha[s] no place in the [mail, wire, or bank] fraud statutes”). And one can conduct the affairs of a qualifying enterprise through a pattern of such acts without anyone relying on a fraudulent misrepresentation.
It thus seems plain — and indeed petitioners do not dispute — that no showing of reliance is required to establish that a person has violated § 1962(c) by conducting the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity consisting of acts of mail fraud. See Anza, 547 U. S., at 476 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“Because an individual can commit an indictable act of mail or wire fraud even if no one relies on his fraud, he can engage in a pattern of racketeering activity, in violation of § 1962, without proof of reliance”). If reliance is required, then, it must be by virtue of § 1964(c), which provides the right of action. But it is difficult to derive a first-party reliance requirement from § 1964(c), which states simply that “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962” may sue for treble damages. The statute provides a right of action to “[a]ny person” injured by the violation, suggesting a breadth of coverage not easily reconciled with an implicit requirement that the plaintiff show reliance in addition to injury in his business or property.
Moreover, a person can be injured “by reason of” a pattern of mail fraud even if he has not relied on any misrepresentations. This is a case in point. Accepting their allegations as true, respondents clearly were injured by petitioners’ scheme: As a result of petitioners’ fraud, respondents lost valuable liens they otherwise would have been awarded. And this is true even though they did not rely on petitioners’ false attestations of compliance with the county’s rules. Or, to take another example, suppose an enterprise that wants to get rid of rival businesses mails misrepresentations about them to their customers and suppliers, but not to the rivals themselves. If the rival businesses lose money as a result of the misrepresentations, it would certainly seem that they were injured in their business “by reason of” a pattern of mail fraud, even though they never received, and therefore never relied on, the fraudulent mailings. Yet petitioners concede that, on their reading of § 1964(c), the rival businesses would have no cause of action under RICO, Tr. of Oral Arg. 4, even though they were the primary and intended victims of the scheme to defraud.
Lacking textual support for this counterintuitive position, petitioners rely instead on a combination of common-law rules and policy arguments in an effort to show that Congress should be presumed to have made first-party reliance an element of a civil RICO claim based on mail fraud. None of petitioners’ arguments persuades us to read a first-party reliance requirement into a statute that by its terms suggests none.
Ill
A
Petitioners first argue that RICO should be read to incorporate a first-party reliance requirement in fraud cases “under the rule that Congress intends to incorporate the well-settled meaning of the common-law terms it uses.” Neder, supra, at 23. It has long been settled, they contend, that only the recipient of a fraudulent misrepresentation may recover for common-law fraud, and that he may do so “if, but only if... he relies on the misrepresentation in acting or refraining from action.” 4 Restatement (Second) of Torts §537 (1977). Given this background rule of common law, petitioners maintain, Congress should be presumed to have adopted a first-party reliance requirement when it created a civil cause of action under RICO for victims of mail fraud.
In support of this argument, petitioners point to our decision in Beck v. Prupis, 529 U. S. 494 (2000). There, we considered the scope of RICO’s private right of action for violations of § 1962(d), which makes it “unlawful for any person to conspire to violate” RlCO’s criminal prohibitions. The question presented was “whether a person injured by an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy may assert a civil RICO conspiracy claim under § 1964(c) for a violation of § 1962(d) even if the overt act does not constitute ‘racketeering activity.’” Id., at 500. Answering this question in the negative, we held that “injury caused by an overt act that is not an act of racketeering or otherwise wrongful under RICO is not sufficient to give rise to a cause of action under § 1964(c) for a violation of § 1962(d).” Id., at 505 (citation omitted). In so doing, we “turn[ed] to the well-established common law of civil conspiracy.” Id., at 500. Because it was “widely accepted” by the time of RlCO’s enactment “that a plaintiff could bring suit for civil conspiracy only if he had been injured by an act that was itself tortious,” id., at 501, we presumed “that when Congress established in RICO a civil cause of action for a person ‘injured... by reason of’ a ‘conspiracy],’ it meant to adopt these well-established common-law civil conspiracy principles,” id., at 504 (quoting §§ 1964(c), 1962(d); alterations in original). We specifically declined to rely on the law of criminal conspiracy, relying instead on the law of civil conspiracy:
“We have turned to the common law of criminal conspiracy to define what constitutes a violation of § 1962(d), see Salinas v. United States, 522 U. S. 52, 63-65 (1997), a mere violation being all that is necessary for criminal liability. This case, however, does not present simply the question of what constitutes a violation of § 1962(d), but rather the meaning of a civil cause of action for private injury by reason of such a violation. In other words, our task is to interpret §§ 1964(c) and 1962(d) in conjunction, rather than § 1962(d) standing alone. The obvious source in the common law for the combined meaning of these provisions is the law of civil conspiracy.” Id., at 501, n. 6.
Petitioners argue that, as in Beck, we should look to the common-law meaning of civil fraud in order to give content to the civil cause of action § 1964(c) provides for private injury by reason of a violation of § 1962(c) based on a pattern of mail fraud. The analogy to Beck, however, is misplaced. The critical difference between Beck and this case is that in § 1962(d) Congress used a term — “conspiracy]”—that had a settled common-law meaning, whereas Congress included no such term in § 1962(c). Section 1962(c) does not use the term “fraud”; nor does the operative language of §1961(1)(B), which defines “racketeering activity” to include “any act which is indictable under... section 1341.” And the indictable act under § 1341 is not the fraudulent misrepresentation, but rather the use of the mails with the purpose of executing or attempting to execute a scheme to defraud. In short, the key term in § 1962(c) — “racketeering activity” — is a defined term, and Congress defined the predicate act not as fraud sim/pliciter, but mail fraud — a statutory offense unknown to the common law. In these circumstances, the presumption that Congress intends to adopt the settled meaning of common-law terms has little pull. Cf. Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 552 U. S. 148, 162 (2008) (rejecting the argument that § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78j(b), incorporates common-law fraud). There is simply no “reason to believe that Congress would have defined ‘racketeering activity’ to include acts indictable under the mail and wire fraud statutes, if it intended fraud-related acts to be predicate acts under RICO only when those acts would have been actionable under the common law.” Anza, 547 U. S., at 477-478 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Nor does it help petitioners’ cause that here, as in Beck, the question is not simply “what constitutes a violation of §1962[(c)],... but rather the meaning of a civil cause of action for private injury by reason of such a violation.” 529 U. S., at 501, n. 6. To be sure, Beck held that a plaintiff cannot state a civil claim for conspiracy under § 1964(c) merely by showing a violation of § 1962(d) and a resulting injury. But in so doing, Beck relied not only on the fact that the term “conspiracy” had a settled common-law meaning, but also on the well-established common-law understanding of what it means to be injured by a conspiracy for purposes of bringing a civil claim for damages. See id., at 501-504. No comparable understanding exists with respect to injury caused by an enterprise conducting its affairs through a pattern of acts indictable as mail fraud. And even the common-law understanding of injury caused by fraud does not support petitioners’ argument. As discussed infra, at 656-657, the common law has long recognized that plaintiffs can recover in a variety of circumstances where, as here, their injuries result directly from the defendant’s fraudulent misrepresentations to a third party.
For these reasons, we reject petitioners’ contention that the “common-law meaning” rule dictates that reliance by the plaintiff is an element of a civil RICO claim predicated on a violation of the mail fraud statute. Congress chose to make mail fraud, not common-law fraud, the predicate act for a RICO violation. And “the mere fact that the predicate acts underlying a particular RICO violation happen to be fraud offenses does not mean that reliance, an element of common-law fraud, is also incorporated as an element of a civil RICO claim.” Anza, swpra, at 476 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
B
Petitioners next argue that even if Congress did not make first-party reliance an element of a RICO claim predicated on mail fraud, a plaintiff who brings such a claim must show that it relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations in order to establish the requisite element of causation. In Holmes, we recognized that §1964(c)’s “language can, of course, be read to mean that a plaintiff is injured ‘by reason of’ a RICO violation, and therefore may recover, simply on showing that
the defendant violated § 1962, the plaintiff was injured, and the defendant’s violation was a ‘but for’ cause of plaintiff’s injury.” 503 U. S., at 265-266 (footnote omitted). We nonetheless held that not “all factually injured plaintiffs” may recover under § 1964(c). Id., at 266. Because Congress modeled § 1964(c) on other provisions that had been interpreted to “requir[e] a showing that the defendant’s violation not only was a ‘but for’ cause of his injury, but was the proximate cause as well,” we concluded that § 1964(c) likewise requires the plaintiff to establish proximate cause in order to show injury “by reason of” a RICO violation. Id., at 268.
Proximate cause, we explained, is a flexible concept that does not lend itself to “ ‘a black-letter rule that will dictate the result in every case.’ ” Id., at 272, n. 20 (quoting Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519, 536 (1983)). Instead, we “use[d] ‘proximate cause’ to label generically the judicial tools used to limit a person’s responsibility for the consequences of that person’s own acts,” Holmes, 503 U. S., at 268, with a particular emphasis on the “demand for some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged,” ibid.; see also Anza, supra, at 461 (“When a court evaluates a RICO claim for proximate causation, the central question it must ask is whether the alleged violation led directly to the plaintiff’s injuries”). The direct-relation requirement avoids the difficulties associated with attempting “to ascertain the amount of a plaintiff’s damages attributable to the violation, as distinct from other, independent, factors,” Holmes, 503 U. S., at 269; prevents courts from having “to adopt complicated rules apportioning damages among plaintiffs removed at different levels of injury from the violative acts, to obviate the risk of multiple recoveries,” ibid.; and recognizes the fact that “directly injured victims can generally be counted on to vindicate the law as private attorneys general, without any of the problems attendant upon suits by plaintiffs injured more remotely,” id., at 269-270.
Pointing to our reliance on common-law proximate-causation principles in Holmes and Anza, petitioners argue that ‘‘[u]nder well-settled common-law principles, proximate cause is established for fraud claims only where the plaintiff can demonstrate that he relied on the misrepresentation.” Brief for Petitioners 28. In support of this argument, petitioners cite 3 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 548A, which provides that “[a] fraudulent misrepresentation is a legal cause of a pecuniary loss resulting from action or inaction in reliance upon it if, but only if, the loss might reasonably be expected to result from the reliance.” Thus, petitioners conclude, “a plaintiff asserting a civil RICO claim predicated on mail fraud cannot satisfy the proximate cause requirement unless he can establish that his injuries resulted from his reliance on the defendant’s fraudulent misrepresentation.” Brief for Petitioners 28.
Petitioners’ argument is twice flawed. First, as explained above, the predicate act here is not common-law fraud, but mail fraud. Having rejected petitioners’ argument that reliance is an element of a civil RICO claim based on mail fraud, we see no reason to let that argument in through the back door by holding that the proximate-cause analysis under RICO must precisely track the proximate-cause analysis of a common-law fraud claim. “Reliance is not a general limitation on civil recovery in tort; it ‘is a specialized condition that happens to have grown up with common law fraud.’” Anza, 547 U. S., at 477 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (quoting Systems Management, 303 F. 3d, at 104). That “specialized condition,” whether characterized as an element of the claim or as a prerequisite to establishing proximate causation, simply has no place in a remedial scheme keyed to the commission of mail fraud, a statutory offense that is distinct from common-law fraud and that does not require proof of reliance.
Second, while it may be that first-party reliance is an element of a common-law fraud claim, there is no general common-law principle holding that a fraudulent misrepresentation can cause legal injury only to those who rely on it. The Restatement provision cited by petitioners certainly does not support that proposition. It provides only that the plaintiff’s loss must be a foreseeable result of someone’s reliance on the misrepresentation. It does not say that only those who rely on the misrepresentation can suffer a legally cognizable injury. And any such notion would be contradicted by the long line of cases in which courts have permitted a plaintiff directly injured by a fraudulent misrepresentation to recover even though it was a third party, and not the plaintiff, who relied on the defendant’s misrepresentation. Indeed, so well established is the defendant’s liability in such circumstances that the Restatement (Second) of Torts sets forth as a “[g]eneral [principle” that “[o]ne who intentionally causes injury to another is subject to liability to the other for that injury, if his conduct is generally culpable and not justifiable under the circumstances.” § 870. As an illustration, the Restatement provides the example of a defendant who “seeks to promote his own interests by telling a known falsehood to or about the plaintiff or his product.” Id., Comment h (emphasis added). And the Restatement specifically recognizes “a cause of action” in favor of the injured party where the defendant “defrauds another for the purpose of causing pecuniary harm to a third person.” Id., § 435A, Comment a. Petitioners’ contention that proximate cause has traditionally incorporated a first-party reliance requirement for claims based on fraud cannot be reconciled with these authorities.
Nor is first-party reliance necessary to ensure that there is a sufficiently direct relationship between the defendant’s wrongful conduct and the plaintiff’s injury to satisfy the proximate-cause principles articulated in Holmes and Anza. Again, this is a case in point. Respondents’ alleged injury— the loss of valuable liens — is the direct result of petitioners’ fraud. It was a foreseeable and natural consequence of petitioners’ scheme to obtain more liens for themselves that other bidders would obtain fewer liens. And here, unlike in Holmes and Anza, there are no independent factors that account for respondents’ injury, there is no risk of duplicative recoveries by plaintiffs removed at different levels of injury from the violation, and no more immediate victim is better situated to sue. Indeed, both the District Court and the Court of Appeals concluded that respondents and other losing bidders were the only parties injured by petitioners’ misrepresentations. App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a; 477 F. 3d, at 931. Petitioners quibble with that conclusion, asserting that the county would be injured too if the taint of fraud deterred potential bidders from participating in the auction. But that eventuality, in contrast to respondents’ direct financial injury, seems speculative and remote.
Of course, none of this is to say that a RICO plaintiff who alleges injury “by reason of” a pattern of mail fraud can prevail without showing that someone relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations. Cf. Field v. Mans, 516 U. S. 59, 66 (1995) (“No one, of course, doubts that some degree of reliance is required to satisfy the element of causation inherent in the phrase ‘obtained by’” in 11 U. S. C. §523(a)(2)(A), which prohibits the discharge of debts for money or property “obtained by” fraud). In most cases, the plaintiff will not be able to establish even but-for causation if no one relied on the misrepresentation. If, for example, the county had not accepted petitioners’ false attestations of compliance with the Single, Simultaneous Bidder Rule, and as a result had not permitted petitioners to participate in the auction, respondents’ injury would never have materialized. In addition, the complete absence of reliance may prevent the plaintiff from establishing proximate cause. Thus, for example, if the county knew petitioners’ attestations were false but nonetheless permitted them to participate in the auction, then arguably the county’s actions would constitute an intervening cause breaking the chain of causation between petitioners’ misrepresentations and respondents’ injury.
Accordingly, it may well be that a RICO plaintiff alleging injury by reason of a pattern of mail fraud must establish at least third-party reliance in order to prove causation. “But the fact that proof of reliance is often used to prove an element of the plaintiff’s cause of action, such as the element of causation, does not transform reliance itself into an element of the cause of action.” Anza, 547 U. S., at 478 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Nor does it transform first-party reliance into an indispensable requisite of proximate causation. Proof that the plaintiff relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations may in some cases be sufficient to establish proximate cause, but there is no sound reason to conclude that such proof is always necessary. By the same token, the absence of first-party reliance may in some cases tend to show that an injury was not sufficiently direct to satisfy § 1964(c)’s proximate-cause requirement, but it is not in and of itself dispositive. A contrary holding would ignore Holmes’ instruction that proximate cause is generally not amenable to bright-line rules.
C
As a last resort, petitioners contend that we should interpret RICO to require first-party reliance for fraud-based claims in order to avoid the “over-federalization” of traditional state-law claims. In petitioners’ view, respondents’ claim is essentially one for tortious interference with prospective business advantage, as evidenced by count V of their complaint. Such claims have traditionally been handled under state law, and petitioners see no reason why Congress would have wanted to supplement traditional state-law remedies with a federal cause of action, complete with treble damages and attorney’s fees, in a statute designed primarily to combat organized crime. See Anza, supra, at 471-475 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Beck, 529 U. S., at 496-497. A first-party reliance requirement, they say, is necessary “to prevent garden-variety disputes between local competitors (such as this case) from being converted into federal racketeering actions.” Reply Brief for Petitioners 3.
Whatever the merits of petitioners’ arguments as a policy matter, we are not at liberty to rewrite RICO to reflect their — or our — views of good policy. We have repeatedly refused to adopt narrowing constructions of RICO in order to make it conform to a preconceived notion of what Congress intended to proscribe. See, e. g., National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 510 U. S. 249, 252 (1994) (rejecting the argument that “RICO requires proof that either the racketeering enterprise or the predicate acts of racketeering were motivated by an economic purpose”); H. J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Telephone Co., 492 U. S. 229, 244 (1989) (rejecting “the argument for reading an organized crime limitation into RICO’s pattern concept”); Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 481 (1985) (rejecting the view that RICO provides a private right of action “only against defendants who had been convicted on criminal charges, and only where there had occurred a ‘racketeering injury’ ”).
We see no reason to change course here. RICO’s text provides no basis for imposing a first-party reliance requirement. If the absence of such a requirement leads to the undue proliferation of RICO
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
In 1965, after a jury trial in a Tennessee court, respondent was convicted of rape and was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. The State’s evidence consisted in part of testimony concerning a station-house identification of respondent by the victim. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed. Biggers v. State, 219 Tenn. 553, 411 S. W. 2d 696 (1967). On certiorari, the judgment of the Tennessee Supreme Court was affirmed by an equally divided Court. Biggers v. Tennessee, 390 U. S. 404 (1968) (Marshall, J., not participating). Respondent then brought a federal habeas corpus action raising several claims. In reply, petitioner contended that the claims were barred by 28 U. S. C. § 2244(c), which provides in pertinent part:
“In a habeas corpus proceeding brought in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a prior judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States on an appeal or review by a writ of certiorari at the instance of the prisoner of the decision of such State court, shall be conclusive as to all issues of fact or law with respect to an asserted denial of a Federal right which constitutes ground for discharge in a habeas corpus proceeding, actually adjudicated by the Supreme Court therein .. . ”
The District Court held that the claims were not barred and, after a hearing, held in an unreported opinion that the station-house identification procedure was so suggestive as to violate due process. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 448 F. 2d 91 (1971). We granted certiorari to decide whether an affirmance by an equally divided Court is an actual adjudication barring subsequent consideration on habeas corpus, and, if not, whether the identification procedure violated due process. 405 U. S. 954 (1972).
I
The intended scope of the phrase “actually adjudicated by the Supreme Court” must be determined by reference to the peculiarities of federal court jurisdiction and the context in which § 2244 (c) was enacted. Jurisdiction to hear state prisoner claims on habeas corpus was first expressly conferred on the federal courts by the Judiciary Act of 1867, c. 28, 14 Stat. 385. Thereafter, decisions of this Court established not only that res judicata, was inapplicable, e. g., Salinger v. Loisel, 265 U. S. 224, 230 (1924); Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 423 (1963), but also that federal courts were obliged in appropriate cases to redetermine issues of fact and federal law. By the same token, the Court developed a number of limiting principles to restrain open-ended relitigation, among them that a successive habeas corpus application raising grounds rejected in a previous application might be denied without reaching the merits. Salinger v. Loisel, supra, at 231.
In 1948, Congress codified a version of the Salinger rule in 28 U. S. C. § 2244. As redesignated and amended in 1966, § 2244 (b) shields against senseless repetition of claims by state prisoners without endangering the principle that each is entitled, other limitations aside, to a -redetermination of his federal claims by a federal court on habeas corpus. With this in mind, the purpose of § 2244 (c), also enacted in 1966, becomes clear. This subsection embodies a recognition that if this Court has “actually adjudicated” a claim on direct appeal or certiorari, a state prisoner has had the federal redetermi-nation to which he is entitled. A subsequent application for habeas corpus raising the same claims would serve no valid purpose and would add unnecessarily to an already overburdened system of criminal justice.
In this light, we review our cases explicating the disposition “affirmed by an equally divided Court.” On what was apparently the first occasion of an equal division, The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66 (1825), the Court simply affirmed on the point of division without much discussion. Id., at 126-127. Faced with a similar division during the next Term, the Court again affirmed, Chief Justice Marshall explaining that “the principles of law which have been argued, cannot be settled; but the judgment is affirmed, the court being divided in opinion upon it.” Etting v. Bank of the United States, 11 Wheat. 59, 78 (1826). As was later elaborated, in such cases it is the appellant or petitioner who asks the Court to overturn a lower court’s decree.
“If the judges are divided, the reversal cannot be had, for no order can be made. The judgment of the court below, therefore, stands in full force. It is, indeed, the settled practice in such case to enter a judgment of affirmance; but this is only the most convenient mode of expressing the fact that the cause is finally disposed of in conformity with the action of the court below, and that that court can proceed to enforce its judgment. The legal effect would be the same if the appeal, or writ of error, were dismissed.” Durant v. Essex Co., 7 Wall. 107, 112 (1869).
Nor is an affirmance by an equally divided Court entitled to precedential weight. Ohio ex rel. Eaton v. Price, 364 U. S. 263, 264 (1960). We decline to construe §2244 (c)’s bar as extending to claims on which the judgment of a state court stands because of the absence of a majority position in this Court, and accordingly conclude that the courts below properly reached the merits.
h-i I — I
We proceed, then, to consider respondent’s due process claim. As the claim turns upon the facts, we must first review the relevant testimony at the jury trial and at the habeas corpus hearing regarding the rape and the identification. The victim testified at trial that on the evening of January 22, 1965, a youth with a butcher knife grabbed her in the doorway to her kitchen:
“A. [H] e grabbed me from behind, and grappled— twisted me on the floor. Threw me down on the floor.
“Q. And there was no light in that kitchen?
“A. Not in the kitchen.
“Q. So you couldn’t have seen him then?
“A. Yes, I could see him, when I looked up in his face.
“Q. In the dark?
“A. He was right in the doorway — it was enough light from the bedroom shining through. Yes, I could see who he was.
“Q. You could see? No light? And you could see him and know him then?
“A. Yes.” Tr. of Rec. in No. 237, O. T. 1967, pp. 33-34.
When the victim screamed, her 12-year-old daughter came out of her bedroom and also began to scream. The assailant directed the victim to “tell her [the daughter] to shut up, or I’ll kill you both.” She did so, and was then walked at knifepoint about two blocks along a railroad track, taken into a woods, and raped there. She testified that “the moon was shining brightly, full moon.” After the rape, the assailant ran off, and she returned home, the whole incident having taken between 15 minutes and half an hour.
She then gave the police what the Federal District Court characterized as “only a very general description,” describing him as “being fat and flabby with smooth skin, bushy hair and a youthful voice.” Additionally, though not mentioned by the District Court, she testified at the habeas corpus hearing that she had described her assailant as being between 16 and 18 years old and between five feet ten inches and six feet tall, as weighing between 180 and 200 pounds, and as having a dark brown complexion. This testimony was substantially corroborated by that of a police officer who was testifying from his notes.
On several occasions over the course of the next seven months, she viewed suspects in her home or at the police station, some in lineups and others in showups, and was shown between 30 and 40 photographs. She told the police that a man pictured in one of the photographs had features similar to those of her assailant, but identified none of the suspects. On August 17, the police called her to the station to view respondent, who was being detained on another charge. In an effort to construct a suitable lineup, the police checked the city jail and the city juvenile home. Finding no one at either place fitting respondent’s unusual physical description, they conducted a showup instead.
The showup itself consisted of two detectives walking respondent past the victim. At the victim’s request, the police directed respondent to say “shut up or I’ll kill you.” The testimony at trial was not altogether clear as to whether the victim first identified him and then asked that he repeat the words or made her identification after he had spoken. In any event, the victim testified that she had “no doubt” about her identification. At the habeas corpus hearing, she elaborated in response to questioning.
“A. That I have no doubt, I mean that I am sure that when I — see, when I first laid eyes on him, I knew that it was the individual, because his face— well, there was just something that I don’t think I could ever forget. I believe-
“Q. You say when you first laid eyes on him, which time are you referring to?
“A. When I identified him — when I seen him in the courthouse when I was took up to view the suspect.” App. 127.
We must decide whether, as the courts below held, this identification and the circumstances surrounding it failed to comport with due process requirements.
Ill
We have considered on four occasions the scope of due process protection against the admission of evidence deriving from suggestive identification procedures. In Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293 (1967), the Court held that the defendant could claim that "the confrontation conducted . . . was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification that he was denied due process of law.” Id., at 301-302. This, we held, must be determined “on the totality of the circumstances.” We went on to find that on the facts of the case then before us, due process was not violated, emphasizing that the critical condition of the injured witness justified a showup in her hospital room. At trial, the witness, whose view of the suspect at the time of the crime was brief, testified to the out-of-court identification, as did several police officers present in her hospital room, and also made an in-court identification.
Subsequently, in a case where the witnesses made in-court identifications arguably stemming from previous exposure to a suggestive photographic array, the Court restated the governing test:
“[W]e hold that each case must be considered on its own facts, and that convictions based on eyewitness identification at trial following a pretrial identification by photograph will be set aside on that ground only if the photographic identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.” Simmons v. United States, 390 U. S. 377, 384 (1968).
Again we found the identification procedure to be supportable, relying both on the need for prompt utilization of other investigative leads and on the likelihood that the photographic identifications were reliable, the witnesses having viewed the bank robbers for periods of up to five minutes under good lighting conditions at the time of the robbery.
The only case to date in which this Court has found identification procedures to be violative of due process is Foster v. California, 394 U. S. 440, 442 (1969). There, the witness failed to identify Foster the first time he confronted him, despite a suggestive lineup. The police then arranged a showup, at which the witness could make only a tentative identification. Ultimately, at yet another confrontation, this time a lineup, the witness was able to muster a definite identification. We held all of the identifications inadmissible, observing that the identifications were “all but inevitable” under the circumstances. Id., at 443.
In the most recent case of Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U. S. 1 (1970), we held admissible an in-court identification by a witness who had a fleeting but “real good look” at his assailant in the headlights of a passing car. The witness testified at a pretrial suppression hearing that he identified one of the petitioners among the participants in the lineup before the police placed the participants in a formal line. Mr. Justice Brennan for four members of the Court stated that this evidence could support a finding that the in-court identification was “entirely based upon observations at the time of the assault and not at all induced by the conduct of the lineup.” Id., at 5-6.
Some general guidelines emerge from these cases as to the relationship between suggestiveness and misidenti-fication. It is, first of all, apparent that the primary evil to be avoided is “a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.” Simmons v. United States, 390 U. S., at 384. While the phrase was coined as a standard for determining whether an in-court identification would be admissible in the wake of a suggestive out-of-court identification, with the deletion of “irreparable” it serves equally well as a standard for the admissibility of testimony concerning the out-of-court identification itself. It is the likelihood of mis-identification which violates a defendant’s right to due process, and it is this which was the basis of the exclusion of evidence in Foster. Suggestive confrontations are disapproved because they increase the likelihood of misidentification, and unnecessarily suggestive ones are condemned for the further reason that the increased chance of misidentification is gratuitous. But as Stovall makes clear, the admission of evidence of a showup without more does not violate due process.
What is less clear from our cases is whether, as intimated by the District Court, unnecessary suggestiveness alone requires the exclusion of evidence. While we are inclined to agree with the courts below that the police did not exhaust all possibilities in seeking persons physically comparable to respondent, we do not think that the evidence must therefore be excluded. The purpose of a strict rule barring evidence of unnecessarily suggestive confrontations would be to deter the police from using a less reliable procedure where a more reliable one may be available, and would not be based on the assumption that in every instance the admission of evidence of such a confrontation offends due process. Clemons v. United States, 133 U. S. App. D. C. 27, 48, 408 F. 2d 1230, 1251 (1968) (Leventhal, J., concurring); cf. Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263, 273 (1967); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961). Such a rule would have no place in the present case, since both the confrontation and the trial preceded Stovall v. Denno, supra, when we first gave notice that the suggestiveness of confrontation procedures was anything other than a matter to be argued to the jury.
We turn, then, to the central question, whether under the “totality of the circumstances” the identification was reliable even though the confrontation procedure was suggestive. As indicated by our cases, the factors to be considered in evaluating the likelihood of misidentification include the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation. Applying these factors, we disagree with the District Court’s conclusion.
In part, as discussed above, we think the District Court focused unduly on the relative reliability of a lineup as opposed to a showup, the issue on which expert testimony was taken at the evidentiary hearing. It must be kept in mind also that the trial was conducted before Stovall and that therefore the incentive was lacking for the parties to make a record at trial of facts corroborating or undermining the identification. The testimony was addressed to the jury, and the jury apparently found the identification reliable. Some of the State’s testimony at the federal evidentiary hearing may well have been self-serving in that it too neatly fit the case law, but it surely does nothing to undermine the state record, which itself fully corroborated the identification.
We find that the District Court’s conclusions on the critical facts are unsupported by the record and clearly erroneous. The victim spent a considerable period of time with her assailant, up to half an hour. She was with him under adequate artificial light in her house and under a full moon outdoors, and at least twice, once in the house and later in the woods, faced him directly and intimately. She was no casual observer, but rather the victim of one of the most personally humiliating of all crimes. Her description to the police, which included the assailant’s approximate age, height, weight, complexion, skin texture, build, and voice, might not have satisfied Proust but was more than ordinarily thorough. She had “no doubt” that respondent was the person who raped her. In the nature of the crime, there are rarely witnesses to a rape other than the victim, who often has a limited opportunity of observation. The victim here, a practical nurse by profession, had an unusual opportunity to observe and identify her assailant. She testified at the habeas corpus hearing that there was something about his face “I don’t think I could ever forget.” App. 127.
There was, to be sure, a lapse of seven months between the rape and the confrontation. This would be a seriously negative factor in most cases. Here, however, the testimony is undisputed that the victim made no previous identification at any of the showups, lineups, or photographic showings. Her record for reliability was thus a good one, as she had previously resisted whatever suggestiveness inheres in a showup. Weighing all the factors, we find no substantial likelihood of mis-identification. The evidence was properly allowed to go to the jury.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The legislative history adds little. The Senate Report states, cryptically, that “[t]his subsection is intended to give a conclusive presumption only to actual adjudications of Federal rights, by the Supreme Court, and not to give such a presumption to mere denials of writs of certiorari.” S. Rep. No. 1797, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1966). We conclude from this only that Congress did not expressly address itself to the effect of an affirmance by an equally divided Court. Nor is this surprising in view of the rarity of such divided affirmances in criminal cases.
We have been aided, and are confirmed in this view, by the thoughtful opinion of Judge Mansfield in United States ex rel. Radich v. Criminal Ct. of City of New York, 459 F. 2d 745 (CA2 1972), pet. for cert. pending sub nom. Ross v. Radich, No. 71-1510.
The dissent would have us decline to address the merits because the District Court, after an evidentiary hearing, found due process to have been violated, and the Court of Appeals — after reviewing the entire record — found that "the conclusions of fact of the District Judge are [not] clearly erroneous.” 448 F. 2d 91, 95. It is said that we should not depart from “our long-established practice not to reverse findings of fact concurred in by two lower courts unless shown to be clearly erroneous.” Post, at 202. This rule of practice, under which the Court does not lightly overturn the concurrent findings of fact of two lower federal courts, is a salutary one to be followed where applicable. We think it inapplicable here where the dispute between the parties is not so much over the elemental facts as over the constitutional significance to be attached to them. Moreover, this is a habeas corpus case in which the facts are contained primarily in the state court record (equally available to us as to the federal courts below) and where the evidentiary hearing in the District Court purported to be “confined” to two specific issues which we deem not controlling. Of the nine cases cited in the dissenting opinion in support of the rule of practice urged upon us, eight of them involved civil litigation in the federal system. Only one of the cases cited, Boulden v. Holman, 394 U. S. 478 (1969), involved a habeas corpus review and the Court simply held — on the basis of “an independent study of the entire record” — that the conclusion reached by the District Court and the Court of Appeals “was justified.” Id., at 480, 481.
At trial, one of the police officers present at the identification testified explicitly that the words were spoken after the identification. The victim testified:
“Q. What physical characteristics, if any, caused you to be able to identify him?
“A. First of all, — uh—his size, — next I could remember his voice.
“Q. What about his voice? Describe his voice to the Jury.
“A. Well, he has the voice of an immature youth — I call it an immature youth. I have teen-age boys. And that was the first thing that made me think it was the boy.” Tr. of Rec. in No. 237, O. T. 1967, p. 17.
The colloquy continued, with the victim describing the voice and other physical characteristics. At the habeas corpus hearing, the victim and all of the police witnesses testified that a visual identifica-' tion preceded the voice identification. App. 80, 123, 134.
See Clemons v. United States, 133 U. S. App. D. C. 27, 47, 408 F. 2d 1230, 1250 (1968) (McGowan, J., for the court en banc), cert. denied, 394 U. S. 964 (1969). In the present case, there has been controversy, in our view irrelevant, over whether, as she testified at the habeas corpus hearing, the victim actually made an in-court identification. While we think it evident from the many testimonial links between her out-of-court identification and “the defendant” before her in court that the answer is “yes,” we recognize that if the testimony concerning the out-of-court identification was inadmissible, the conviction must be overturned.
The District Court stated:
“In this case it appears to the Court that a line-up, which both sides admit is generally more rehable than a show-up, could have been arranged. The fact that this was not done tended needlessly to decrease the fairness of the identification process to which petitioner was subjected.” App. 42.
See United States ex rel. Phipps v. Follette, 428 F. 2d 912, 915-916 (CA2) (Friendly, J.), cert. denied, 400 U. S. 908 (1970).
Respondent attaches some weight to the failure of the victim’s daughter to identify him. Apart from the fact that this does not bear directly on the reliability of her mother’s identification, the girl was only 12 years old and had, as best we can tell, only a very brief view of the assailant from across the room.
Respondent’s habeas corpus petition raised a number of other claims, including one challenging the legality of his detention at the time he was viewed by the victim. The courts below did not address these claims, nor do we.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases, here on certiorari, present this important question under the Federal Tort Claims Act: May an insurance company bring suit in its own name against the United States upon a claim to which it has become subrogated by payment to an insured who would have been able to bring such an action? That question, in turn, requires our consideration of R. S. 3477, the “anti-assignment” statute.
Three cases, each presenting a slightly different aspect of the problem, were heard by the Court. In No. 35, the complaint alleges that an employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was injured as a result of the negligence of a United States Post Office Department employee. Respondent insurance carrier had insured the Federal Reserve Bank against its liability for workmen’s compensation, and duly paid the injured person’s claim under the New York. Workmen’s Compensation Law. The complaint further alleges that the injured person failed to commence any action against the United States within one year after the accident, and that his inaction operated, according to New York law, as an assignment to the insurer of his cause of action against the United States. The District Court dismissed the complaint, 76 F. Supp. 333, but the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded the cause for trial. 170 F. 2d 469.
In No. 36, the Government’s motion to dismiss the complaint was denied, and, after trial, it was found as fact that an employee of the United States Forest Service had negligently driven a Government vehicle into a vehicle owned by one Harding, causing damages of $1,484.50; that Harding was insured by the respondent insurance carrier and, pursuant to the terms of the policy, had been paid $784.50 by the insurer, to which it was now subrogated. Judgment was thereupon entered against the United States in favor of Harding for $700.00 and in favor of respondent insurance company for $784.50. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed.
Nos. 37 and 38 present the situation in which two insurance companies, each of which has paid part of a claim of loss occasioned by the negligence of an employee of the United States, bring suits in their own names, each asking recovery of the amount it has paid to the assured. The District Court dismissed the complaints on motion of the Government, but the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed and remanded the causes. 171 F. 2d 374.
We granted certiorari in these cases, 336 U. S. 960, because of a conflict of decisions in the circuits and the manifest importance of the question.
The Federal Tort Claims Act provides in pertinent part that
“. . . the United States district court for the district wherein the plaintiff is resident or wherein the act or omission complained of occurred, . . . sitting without a jury, shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear, determine, and render judgment on any claim against the United States, for money only, ... on account of damage to or loss of property or on account of 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 for such damage, loss, injury, or death in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. Subject to the provisions of this chapter, the United States shall be liable in respect of such claims to the same claimants, in the same manner, and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances . ...”
While the language of the Act indicates a congressional purpose that the United States be treated as if it were a private person in respect of torts committed by its employees, except for certain specific exceptions enumerated in the Act, neither the terms of the Act nor its legislative history precludes the application of R. S. 3477 in this situation.
It is the Government’s position that R. S. 3477, which in terms makes “All transfers and assignments ... of any claim upon the United States, or of any part or share thereof, or interest therein . . . absolutely null and void . . .” except for assignments made after payment of the claim and in accordance with certain prescribed safeguards, includes assignments by operation of law and prohibits suit by the subrogee in its own name. Petitioner reads R. S. 3477 not as prohibiting transfer of a claimant’s substantive rights to an insurer-subrogee and ultimate recovery by the insurer but as a procedural requirement that the insurance carrier sue and recover judgment in the name of the original claimant. United States v. American Tobacco Co., 166 U. S. 468 (1897). Its purpose in invoking the anti-assignment statute is said to be two-fold: “(1) to insure that the United States may avoid involvement in any litigation as to the existence or extent of subrogation or other assignment of such claims; and (2) to insure that the suits and any judgments against the United States will be in the names of the original claimants so that the United States will be able to avail itself of its statutory rights in respect of venue, and of counterclaim and offset on account of any cross-claims it may have against the original claimants.” It is pointed out that “the provisions of the statute making void an assignment or power of attorney by a Government contractor are for the protection of the Government. Hobbs v. McLean, 117 U. S. 567, 576; McGowan v. Parish, 237 U. S. 285, 294, 295. In the absence of such a rule, the Government would be in danger of becoming embroiled in conflicting claims, with delay and embarrassment and the chance of multiple liability.” Martin v. National Surety Co., 300 U. S. 588, 594 (1937). The Government contends that the inconvenience, administrative and accounting difficulties, and procedural problems which, it is apprehended, may involve the Government if subrogees are permitted to bring suits under the Tort Claims Act in their own names make this an apt situation for application of R. S. 3477, and that that was the congressional intent.
It should be noted at the outset, however, that in the courts below and until argument in this Court (and even in its petition for certiorari) the Government contended that R. S. 3477 was a complete bar to recovery by a subrogee. Only in brief and argument here was it suggested that the insurance carrier could recover if suit was brought in the name of the insured to the use of the insurer, citing for the first time United States v. American Tobacco Co., supra, a decision reflecting common-law procedure, upon which reliance is now placed. It is for that reason that the opinions below were focused upon whether R. S. 3477 is an absolute bar to recovery by the subrogee rather than merely a bar to recovery in the name of the subrogee. We think, however, that even this limited, and somewhat anomalous, reliance upon R. S. 3477 is untenable, first, because of the uniform interpretation given that statute by this Court for the past 75 years, and, second, because of many affirmative indications of congressional intent that subrogation claims should not be excluded from suit in the name of the subrogee under the Tort Claims Act.
R. S. 3477 was enacted in 1853 as part of a statute entitled “An Act to prevent Frauds upon the Treasury of the United States.” Its primary purpose was undoubtedly to prevent persons of influence from buying up claims against the United States, which might then be improperly urged upon officers of the Government. Spofford v. Kirk, 97 U. S. 484, 490 (1878). Another purpose, that upon which the Government now relies, has been inferred by this Court from the language of the statute. That purpose was to prevent possible multiple payment of claims, to make unnecessary the investigation of alleged assignments, and to enable the Government to deal only with the original claimant. Spofford v. Kirk, supra; Goodman v. Niblack, 102 U. S. 556, 560 (1881). Most of the early cases construed the statute strictly, holding that all assignments were included within the statute and that such assignments conferred no rights of any kind upon the assignee; that R. S. 3477 “incapacitates every claimant upon the government from creating an interest in the claim in any other than himself.” Spofford v. Kirk, supra, pp. 488-89. See also National Bank of Commerce v. Downie, 218 U. S. 345 (1910); Nutt v. Knut, 200 U. S. 12 (1906); St. Paul & Duluth R. Co. v. United States, 112 U. S. 733 (1885).
The rigor of this rule was very early relaxed in cases which were thought not to be productive of the evils which the statute was designed to obviate. And one of the first such exceptions was to transfers by operation of law. In United States v. Gillis, 95 U. S. 407 (1877), the Court held that a provision in the Act creating the Court of Claims that suits on assignments may be brought in the name of the assignee did not mean that R. S. 3477 was inapplicable to suits in the Court of Claims, but referred to claims which were excepted from the prohibition of that statute, such as “devolutions of title by force of law, without any act of parties, or involuntary assignments, compelled by law.” During the following term a case was presented in which an assignee in bankruptcy had sued the United States on a claim of the bankrupt. This Court held the suit maintainable despite R. S. 3477, on the ground that
“The act of Congress of Feb. 26, 1853, to prevent frauds upon the treasury of the United States, which was the subject of consideration in the Gillis Case, applies only to cases of voluntary assignment of demands against the government. It does not embrace cases where there has been a transfer of title by operation of law. The passing of claims to heirs, devisees, or assignees in bankruptcy are not within the evil at which the statute aimed; nor does the construction given by this court deny to such parties a standing in the Court of Claims.” Erwin v. United States, 97 U. S. 392, 397 (1878).
This construction of R. S. 3477 — that assignments by operation of law are not within the prohibition of the statute — was recognized as settled law in Goodman v. Niblack, supra, and has been repeated with approval in a great many subsequent cases.
The Government now contends, contrary to the statements in all of the cases approving Erwin v. United States, supra, that an assignment by operation of law is not always exempt from the bar of R. S. 3477, but that in addition the assignment must be of a kind that will not involve the Government in the procedural difficulties previously referred to. All of the cases in which R. S. 3477 has been held inapplicable on the ground of assignment by operation of law are explained as presenting situations in which the Government could suffer no such procedural embarrassments. In cases of transfer by descent (Erwin v. United States, supra), consolidation of corporations (Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. United States, 256 U. S. 655 (1921)), and purchase at a judicial sale in a corporate reorganization (Western Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 268 U. S. 271 (1925)) it is pointed out that the Government may deal with the substituted representative as it would have dealt with the claimant if there had been no substitution. Rights of counterclaim and set-off are said to be retained against the universal successor, while such universal assignments by operation of law can give rise to no controversies as to the existence and extent of the transfer for adjudication between the United States and the original claimant and his trustee, receiver, or administrator.
Without considering whether some of the cases are not comprehended within this rationale, we do not think that it explains the exception made for transfers by operation of law in the cases referred to. In the first place, the Court has always stated the fiat exception of all transfers by operation of law, as distinguished from voluntary transfers. If the cases rest upon the premise advanced by the Government, it has never been articulated in the opinions. In the second place, and consistent with the exception of all transfers by operation of law, this Court has a number of times indicated that neither of the purposes of R. S. 3477 is contravened by transfers by operation of law. In Goodman v. Niblack, supra, it was held that:
“The language of the statute, ‘all transfers and assignments of any claim upon the United States, or of any part thereof, or any interest therein,’ is broad enough (if such were the purpose of Congress) to include transfers by operation of law, or by will. Yet we held it did not include a transfer by operation of law, or in bankruptcy, and we said it did not include one by will. The obvious reason of this is that there can be no purpose in such cases to harass the government by multiplying the number of persons with whom it has to deal, nor any danger of enlisting improper influences in advocacy of the claim, and that the exigencies of the party who held it justified and required the transfer that was made.” (102 U. S. at 560; italics added.) See also Hager v. Swayne, 149 U. S. 242, 247-48 (1893).
The fact that some administrative problems may be the unintended by-products of an involuntary assignment was not thought to be an evil within the scope of a statute aimed at fraud and harassment. That interpretation has, for nearly a century, exempted all transfers by operation of law from the prohibition of R. S. 3477.
That it was the understanding of Congress that subrogation claims were not within the bar of R. S. 3477 when it passed the Tort Claims Act is abundantly clear from a number of different particulars:
1. The Small Tort Claims Act of 1922 provided that heads of departments may “consider, ascertain, adjust, and determine any claim ... on account of damages to or loss of privately owned property where the amount of the claim does not exceed $1,000, caused by the negligence of any officer or employee of the Government acting within the scope of his employment.” Such claims as were found due were certified to Congress for payment. A question was directed to the Attorney General in 1932 as to “whether such a claim, which if made by the owner of the property damaged could have been certified, may properly be certified if made by an insurance company which has become subrogated to the rights of the owner to receive compensation for the damage suffered.” Attorney General Mitchell’s opinion was: (1) that subrogation is a transfer by operation of law of the right to receive payment of the amount due; and (2) that R. S. 3477 applies only to cases of voluntary assignment of demands against the Government. He thought, however, that inasmuch as the question was one concerning the purpose and intent of Congress in enacting the Small Tort Claims Act, that body should be asked to interpret the statute by passing upon subrogation claims certified to it and expressly called to its attention. Thereafter subrogation claims in the names of insurance carriers were regularly submitted to Congress and were consistently approved until the Act was repealed by the present Tort Claims Act. The Attorney General’s opinion was approved and congressional acquiescence noted by the Comptroller General in opinions in 19 Comp. Gen. 503, 21 Comp. Gen. 341, and 22 Comp. Gen. 611. A unique interpretation by Congress of its own statute thus settled the question whether R. S. 3477 was a bar to subrogation claims under the Small Tort Claims Act, which, in language nearly identical with that of the present Tort Claims Act, permitted recovery “on account of damages to or loss of privately owned property . . . .”
2. That specific reference in the statute was necessary to preclude recovery by subrogees in their own names (i. e., that R. S. 3477 is inapplicable to subrogees) was clearly the view of Congress when it enacted the Tort Claims Act. For in foreign claims legislation where it intended that result, Congress explicitly provided that Claims Officers should consider, ascertain, determine, and pay claims on account of injury or death, or property loss or damage to claimants in foreign countries, “including claims of insured but excluding claims of subrogees.” The purpose of this provision, which was enacted in 1943, was to fulfill the very office which petitioner now contends is performed by R. S. 3477. No such exception is found in the Tort Claims Act, although other exceptions are spelled out with great particularity. The significance of this provision in the foreign claims statute is, first, that when Congress wished to exclude claims by subrogees it said so; and second, that Congress did not think R. S. 3477 performed that function. For a similar provision, see 49 Stat. 2194.
3. Nor did executive departments themselves interpret R. S. 3477 as applicable to subrogation claims, as the report of the hearings on H. R. 6442, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (1942) makes plain. That bill, which was drafted by the Treasury Department, would have required subrogees to institute actions against their subrogors in some court of competent jurisdiction, which would then restrain the original claimant from receiving any funds from the Government until final decision was reached as to who was to receive the money. The Assistant General Counsel of the Treasury, in explaining the bill, stated:
“In 1877 the Supreme Court, in the ease of U. S. v. Gillis (95 U. S. 407), after stating in effect that section 3477 was of universal application and covered all claims against the United States in every tribunal in which they might be asserted, indicated in language not necessary to the decision that transfers or assignments compelled by law or resulting from the operation of law might not have been within the purview of section 3477.
“Now from that time on one exception after another has been carved from section 3477, until now the courts recognize many types of adverse claims as the basis for what in effect are third-party suits against the Government, including suits based upon assignments by operation of law, subrogation, and equitable liens.” Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, on H. R. 6442, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (1942), at p. 3.
It cannot therefore be seriously contended that Congress and the executive departments were not cognizant of the exemption of subrogation claims from R. S. 3477 when the Tort Claims Act was passed. The broad sweep of its language assuming the liability of a private person, the purpose of Congress to relieve itself of consideration of private claims, and the fact that subrogation claims made up a substantial part of that burden are also persuasive that Congress did not intend that such claims should be barred.
If, then, R. S. 3477 is inapplicable, the Government must defend suits by subrogees as if it were a private person. Rule 17 (a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which were specifically made applicable to Tort Claims litigation, provides that “Every action shall be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest,” and of course an insurer-subrogee, who has substantive equitable rights, qualifies as such. If the subrogee has paid an entire loss suffered by the insured, it is the only real party in interest and must sue in its own name. 3 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed.) p. 1339. If it has paid only part of the loss, both the insured and insurer (and other insurers, if any, who have also paid portions of the loss) have substantive rights against the tortfeasor which qualify them as real parties in interest.
In cases of partial subrogation the question arises whether suit may be brought by the insurer alone, whether suit must be brought in the name of the insured for his own use and for the use of the insurance company, or whether all parties in interest must join in the action. Under the common-law practice rights acquired by subrogation could be enforced in an action at law only in the name of the insured to the insurer’s use, Hall & Long v. Railroad Companies, 13 Wall. 367 (1872); United States v. American Tobacco Co., supra, as was also true of suits on assignments, Glenn v. Marbury, 145 U. S. 499 (1892). Mr. Justice Stone characterized this rule as “a vestige of the common law’s reluctance to admit that a chose in action may be assigned, [which] is today but a formality which has been widely abolished by legislation.” Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Moses, 287 U. S. 530, 540 (1933). Under the Federal Rules, the “use” practice is obviously unnecessary, as has long been true in equity, Garrison v. Memphis Insurance Co., 19 How. 312 (1857), and admiralty, Liverpool & Great Western Steam Co. v. Phenix Insurance Co., 129 U. S. 397, 462 (1889). Rule 17 (a) was taken almost verbatim from Equity Rule 37. No reason appears why such a practice should now be required in cases of partial subrogation, since both insured and insurer “own” portions of the substantive right and should appear in the litigation in their own names.
Although either party may sue, the United States, upon timely motion, may compel their joinder. Delaware County v. Diebold Safe & Lock Co., 133 U. S. 473, 488 (1890) (applying a state code under the Conformity Act). 3 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed.) p. 1348. Both are “necessary” parties. Rule 19 (b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The pleadings should be made to reveal and assert the actual interest of the plaintiff, and to indicate the interests of any others in the claim. Additional parties may be added at any stage of the proceedings, on motion of the United States, upon such terms as may be just. Rule 21.
It is true that under this rationale, there will be cases in which all parties cannot be joined because one or more are outside the jurisdiction, and the court may nevertheless proceed in the action under Rule 19 (b). In such cases the United States, like other tortfeasors, may have to defend two or more actions on the same tort and may be unable to assert counterclaims and offsets against the original claimant upon unrelated transactions.
If R. S. 3477 is inapplicable, as we think is clearly the case, these objections have no legal foundation upon which to rest. In argument before a number of District Courts and Courts of Appeals, the Government relied upon the doctrine that statutes waiving sovereign immunity must be strictly construed. We think that the congressional attitude in passing the Tort Claims Act is more accurately reflected by Judge Cardozo’s statement in Anderson v. Hayes Construction Co., 243 N. Y. 140, 147, 153 N. E. 28, 29-30: “The exemption of the sovereign from suit involves hardship enough where consent has been withheld. We are not to add to its rigor by refinement of construction where consent has been announced.”
The decision of the Court of Appeals in each of these cases is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Black dissents.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
60 Stat. 842; formerly codified as 28 U. S. C. § 931 et seq. The new Judicial Code became effective on Sept. 1, 1948, while these actions were pending on appeal, and the provisions formerly embodied in the Tort Claims Act are now distributed through various chapters of the new Code.
10 Stat. 170 as amended; 31 U. S. C. § 203.
When this action was brought, § 29 of the New York Workmen’s Compensation Act provided that if an injured employee has taken compensation but has failed to commence action against the tortfeasor within one year after the cause of action accrued, “such failure shall operate as an assignment of the cause of action against such other ... to the person, association, corporation, or insurance carrier liable for the payment of such compensation.”
Courts of Appeals in seven circuits have upheld the right of subrogees to sue under the Tort Claims Act. State Farm Mutual Liability Insurance Co. v. United States, 1st Cir., 172 F. 2d 737; Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. United States, 2d Cir., 170 F. 2d 469; Yorkshire Insurance Co. v. United States, 3d Cir., 171 F. 2d 374; United States v. South Carolina State Highway Dept., 4th Cir., 171 F. 2d 893; Old Colony Insurance Co. v. United States, 6th Cir., 168 F. 2d 931; National American Fire Insurance Co. v. United States, 9th Cir., 171 F. 2d 206; United States v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 10th Cir., 171 F. 2d 377.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reached a contrary conclusion, United States v. Hill, 171 F. 2d 404, Judge Hutcheson dissenting. Reargument was ordered before the full bench and, upon reconsideration, the original opinion was modified, 174 F. 2d 61, Judge Hutcheson concurring in the result “as in substantial accordance with the views the dissent expressed.”
Formerly 28 U. S. C. § 931. This section is now divided and, with immaterial changes, appears in 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346 (b) and 2674.
See 28 U. S. C. § 2680.
This contention was also made in reargument of United States v. Hill, before the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which took place after certiorari was granted by this Court. See note 4.
Petitioner’s argument is, in effect, that R. S. 3477 does not prevent the assignment of substantive rights against the United States but merely controls the method of procedure by which the assignee may recover. This position is in square conflict with Spofford v. Kirk, 97 U. S. 484, and is not justified by anything said in Martin v. National Surety Co., 300 U. S. 588. Furthermore, it would require that the real party in interest provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 17 (a), be disregarded, despite the fact that they are made specifically applicable to suits under the Tort Claims Act, and that suits against the Government in which a subrogee owns the substantive right be conducted according to the old common-law procedures in effect prior to the promulgation of the Federal Rules. Petitioner admits as much by its reliance upon United States v. American Tobacco Co., 166 U. S. 468. This is not to say that R. S. 3477 was “repealed” by the Federal Rules, but that a new interpretation of the statute which is incompatible with the Rules, as expressly incorporated in the Tort Claims Act, must be clearly justified.
10 Stat. 170.
Other sections of the Act made it unlawful for officers of the United States or Members of Congress to have any interest in claims against the Government or to act for claimants, penalized bribery or undue influencing of Members of Congress, and prohibited the destruction or withdrawal of public records.
See, e. g., St. Paul & Duluth R. Co. v. United States, 112 U. S. 733, 736; Butler v. Goreley, 146 U. S. 303, 311; Hager v. Swayne, 149 U. S. 242; Ball v. Halsell, 161 U. S. 72, 79; Price v. Forrest, 173 U. S. 410, 421; National Bank of Commerce v. Downie, 218 U. S. 345, 356; Western Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 268 U. S. 271, 275.
For example, transfers by will or intestacy, which are not within the prohibition of R. S. 3477 under the cases, would obviously multiply the persons with whom the United States must deal and might very well embroil it in conflicting claims.
42 Stat. 1066, 31 U. S. C. § 215.
Reported at 36 Op. Atty. Gen. 553. See Holtzoff, Handling of Tort Claims Against the Federal Government, 9 Law & Contemp. Prob. 311, 318; The Federal Tort Claims Act, 42 Ill. L. Rev. 344, 349.
57 Stat. 66, 31 U. S. C. § 224d.
The House Committee Report states that “Such a provision of law leaves undisturbed, as between the parties, the rights of the insured and of insurance companies and others who have become subrogated to the rights of the owners of the property or of the person who is injured or whose death results, but permits the Government to settle with a single claimant and without the necessity of inquiry into, or determination of, the relative rights of the parties.” H. R. Rep. No. 312, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2.
That members of the House Committee on Claims were aware of the problem of recovery by insurance carrier-subrogees at the time the Tort Claims Act was passed is demonstrated by that Committee’s report, submitted less than two weeks prior to passage of the Act, on subrogation claims presented by insurance companies in connection with the crash of an army airplane into the Empire State Building. The War Department had recommended to Congress that Empire State, Inc., and other private claimants be paid their uninsured losses (which was done) but refused to recommend payment of insured losses. H. R. 6683 was introduced “to appropriate the sum of $143,279.94 to 22 fire-insurance companies in full satisfaction of their subrogation claims against the United States . . . .” The Committee made specific reference to Attorney General Mitchell’s opinion, noted that since that time the War Department had paid subrogation claims of less than $1,000 under the Military Claims Act, 31 U. S. C. § 223, and disapproved that department’s refusal to certify claims of over $1,000. To the assertion that Congress had consistently refused to recognize subrogation claims as barred by R. S. 3477, the Committee report contains the flat denial: “That statement is not in accordance with the fact” and cites a number of subrogation claims favorably acted upon by Congress. The bill was favorably reported, H. R. Rep. No. 2655, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., but nine days later the Tort Claims Act was passed, § 131 of which provided that no private bill should authorize payment of money for claims for which suit might be brought under that Act, extending retroactively to claims accruing after January 1, 1945. Since the claims involved had accrued subsequent to that date, the insurance company subrogees brought suit in a federal district court, where the Government once more interposed a defense based on R. S. 3477, despite the Committee’s specific approval of payment directly to the subrogees. The defense was rejected. Niagara Fire Ins. Co. v. United States, 76 F. Supp. 850.
Formerly 28 U. S. C. § 932. See note 8, supra.
They are clearly not "indispensable” parties under the familiar test of Shields v. Barrow, 17 How. 130, 139 (1855), that such parties have “an interest of such a nature that a final decree cannot be made without either affecting that interest, or leaving the controversy in such a condition that its final termination may be wholly inconsistent with equity and good conscience.” See Delaware County v. Diebold Safe & Lock Co., 133 U. S. 473, 488 (1890); Hubbard v. Manhattan Trust Co., 87 F. 51; Rogers v. Penobscot Mining Co., 154 F. 606; 3 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed.) p. 2178.
The counterclaim statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (c), confers jurisdiction on district courts over any “counterclaim, or other claim or demand whatever on the part of the United States against any plaintiff commencing an action.” The offset statute, 31 U. S. C. §§ 71, 227, directs the deduction from judgments and allowed claims against the United States of debts as to which “the plaintiff therein shall be indebted to the United States.” (Italics added.) We need not and do not consider what rights of counterclaim and set-off may lie in the United States in suits brought by insurer-subrogees. Cf. United States v. Munsey Trust Co., 332 U. S. 234 (1947); Defense Supplies Corp. v. United States Lines Co., 148 F. 2d 311.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Louisiana requires that objections to a grand jury be raised before the expiration of the third judicial day following the end of the grand jury’s term or before trial, whichever is earlier. In these cases we are asked to decide whether this statute as applied violates the Fourteenth Amendment. The three petitioners, all Negroes sentenced to death for aggravated rape, make no attack on the composition of the petit jury nor on the fairness of their trials but challenge the composition of the grand juries which indicted them on the ground that there was a systematic exclusion of Negroes from the panels. No hearing was held on these allegations because the lower courts found that the question had been waived. In each case the Supreme Court of Louisiana affirmed, 225 La. 1040, 74 So. 2d 207, and 226 La. 201, 75 So. 2d 333, and we granted certiorari, 348 U. S. 936 and 950, because of the importance of the issues involved.
Grand juries in Orleans Parish are impaneled in September and March to serve for six months. Since § 202 of the Louisiana Criminal Code, as interpreted, requires a defendant to object to the grand jury before three judicial days after its term, the time to raise such objections may vary from a minimum of three days — if the defendant is indicted on the last day of the term — to a much longer period if he is indicted during the term. Section 284 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure provides that in any case such objections must be made before arraignment.
We do not find that this requirement on its face raises an insuperable barrier to one making claim to federal rights. The test is whether the defendant has had “a reasonable opportunity to have the issue as to the claimed right heard and determined by the state court.” Parker v. Illinois, 333 U. S. 571, 574; Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U. S. 22; Central Union Co. v. Edwardsville, 269 U. S. 190; Paterno v. Lyons, 334 U. S. 314. See Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442. In Avery v. Alabama, 308 U. S. 444, this Court held that a lapse of three days between the appointment of counsel and the date of trial was not of itself a denial of due process. In Louisiana a motion to quash is a short, simple document, easily prepared in a single afternoon. In the light of Avery,- a three-day minimum for such a motion is not unreasonable. Wilson v. Louisiana, 320 U. S. 714. But in the circumstances of a particular case, the application of such a rule may not give a reasonable opportunity to raise the federal question. See Reece v. Georgia, ante, p. 85, decided this day. Accordingly we pass to a consideration of the facts in each of these cases.
No. 82. John Michel. — Michel was indicted by the grand jury on February 19, 1953, and was presented to the court for arraignment on February 23. He appeared without counsel and the arraignment was continued for one week. During that week, the trial judge talked with Mr. Schreiber, a former assistant district attorney with wide experience in local criminal practice. He asked Mr. Schreiber whether he would take the case if private counsel was not retained. The judge indicated that if Mr. Schreiber accepted, additional counsel would be appointed.
The term of the grand jury which indicted Michel expired March 2,1953. On that same date Michel appeared again for arraignment without counsel. Mr. Schreiber was also present in court on other business and the trial judge then appointed him counsel for Michel. Whereupon Mr. Schreiber asked the court to give him an opportunity to look it over and continue the matter for one week. No mention of co-counsel was made, and the continuance was granted.
Thereafter, on March 5, Mr. Schreiber received a formal notice of his appointment which, though not required by Louisiana law, appears at times to have been served in appointment cases. On March 6, Mr. Fust was appointed co-counsel. The motion to quash the indictment was filed on March 9 — four days after Mr. Schreiber received the formal notice of appointment, and five judicial days (7 calendar days) after the expiration of the term of the grand jury. The State demurred on the ground that it came too late.
The determination of a single question of fact is decisive in this case: the precise date of appointment of counsel for Michel. It is contended that Mr. Schreiber was not appointed as counsel until March 5, the date of his formal notice; that he was not aware that he was to be chief counsel until after Mr. Fust told him on the 7th of his appointment to “assist” Mr. Schreiber; and that even if he assumed that he was appointed on March 2, he was unfamiliar with the case and thought the week’s continuance held open for that period all of petitioner’s rights. The record, however, shows without contradiction that Mr. Schreiber was appointed in open court, in the presence of petitioner, on March 2. The trial judge so found and the Supreme Court of Louisiana explicitly upheld this finding. While such findings are not conclusive on this Court, Rogers v. Alabama, 192 U. S. 226, they are entitled to great weight, Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, 272. On a question of state practice with which we are unfamiliar, we will not ordinarily overturn the findings of two courts on the mere assertion of counsel that he did not consider himself appointed on the date of record. Since we find that counsel, a lawyer experienced in state criminal practice, had adequate time to file the motion after his appointment, we hold that the application of § 202 in this case was not unreasonable'.
No. 36. Poret and Labat. — These codefendants were also convicted of rape and sentenced to death. Neither made any attack on the composition of the petit jury, but both filed motions to quash their indictments claiming discrimination in the selection of the grand-jury panel. The facts in each case will be considered separately.
Poret. — Shortly after the crime was committed, Poret eluded police officers and fled the State of Louisiana. He was indicted on December 11, 1950, but he was not arrested and nothing was known of his whereabouts until late 1951 when Louisiana authorities discovered that he was in prison in Tennessee. That State refused to release him until he had served his term. Louisiana filed a de-tainer against him, and he was returned to New Orleans on October 3, 1952. At his arraignment on October 27, 1952, he was assisted by counsel of his own selection. He pleaded not guilty to the indictment and was granted additional time to file a motion for severance. On November 7, after denial of his motion for severance, he moved — for the first time — to quash the indictment because of systematic exclusion of Negroes from the grand jury. After a hearing at which it was determined that Poret was a fugitive from justice, this motion was denied by the trial court on the ground that it was filed more than a year and a half too late. Under § 202, the time for filing had expired in March 1951, and the trial court held that the provisions of § 202 would not be “suspended or nullified for the benefit of a fugitive from justice who, by his own conduct” was unable to assert his right. The holding was affirmed on this ground by the Supreme Court of Louisiana.
It is beyond question that under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment Louisiana may attach reasonable time limitations to the assertion of federal constitutional rights. More particularly, the State may require prompt assertion of the right to challenge discriminatory practices in the make-up of a grand jury. The problem here is whether such a limitation may be avoided by Poret simply on the showing that he was a fugitive from prosecution throughout the entire period provided him.
Petitioner argues that he has had no opportunity to make his challenge to the grand jury, since the time allowed him by § 202 had expired before he was returned to Louisiana. But the record shows that he was not sentenced in Tennessee until five months after that period had expired, and nothing appears to have intervened during this period except his own voluntary flight. Thus Poret’s claim is, in effect, that a flight which itself is a violation of federal law, 18 U. S. C. § 1073, is converted into a federal immunity from the operation of a valid state rule. We do not believe that the mere fugitive status existing here excuses a failure to resort to Louisiana’s established statutory procedure available to all who wish to assert claimed constitutional rights. This is not to say that the act of fleeing and becoming a fugitive deprives one of federal rights. We hold only that due regard for the fair as well as effective administration of' criminal justice gives the State a legitimate interest in requiring reasonable attacks on its inquisitorial process and that the present case is not one in which this interest must bow to essential considerations of fairness to individual defendants.
But it is said that Poret had no lawyer, either before he fled the State or during the 87-day period from his indictment to the expiration of his time to file under § 202. However, during all of this time he remained a fugitive, and there is no showing that he could not have filed in time had he not elected to flee. In fact, in each of the other cases before us, the court appointed counsel in ample time for those petitioners to raise their claims. We cannot assume that Poret would not have received like treatment if he had been unable to select counsel of his own choice. We, therefore, conclude that Poret, by his own action, failed to avail himself of Louisiana’s adequate remedies. “No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right . . . .” Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, 444. Even in federal felony cases where, unlike state prosecutions, indictment by a grand jury is a matter of right, this Court has strictly circumscribed the time within which motions addressed to the composition of the grand jury may be made. Fed. Rules Crim. Proc., 12 (b) (3). Likewise the Congress has denied the benefit of such important federal procedural rules as the Statute of Limitations to “any person fleeing from justice.” 18 U. S. C. § 3290.
Poret’s case affords a perfect illustration of the necessity for prompt determination of claims such as he raises here. Five years have now elapsed since the crime was committed, and the delay has been largely caused by Poret’s own actions. Even if available, and memory permitted, the victim and chief witness would be reluctant to retell the sordid story of her unfortunate experience. Poret’s conviction by a petit jury whose composition he did not attack has been affirmed by Louisiana’s highest court and no constitutional challenge is made here to the fairness of that trial.
Furthermore, it may be added that after being returned to Louisiana on October 3, and employing his personal lawyer on October 26, Poret still did not file his motion to quash until November 7. At this time he had already been arraigned and had filed other motions which implied a waiver of his objections to the grand jury. Rather than asserting his federal claim at the first opportunity, he delayed the filing of his motion until 12 days after his selection of counsel. This is four times the period we upheld in Michel. We, therefore, find no violation of due process in denying this motion as out of time.
Labat.- — -Edgar Labat was Poret’s codefendant. He was apprehended the evening of the crime, and implicated Poret. Labat was indicted December 11, 1950, and arraigned on January 3, 1951, and he pleaded not guilty. On January 5 the court appointed Mr. E. I. Mahoney as counsel for petitioner. Thereafter the status of the case remained unchanged for more than a year. The next entry is dated January 29,1952, when Mr. Mahoney asked leave to withdraw. Mr. Gill was thereafter employed, and on June 12,1952, moved for a continuance. After a hearing, the motion was granted and the case was again continued. In October the codefendant Poret was returned to the State. Labat filed his motion to quash the indictment on November 7. The term of the grand jury that indicted Labat had expired in March 1951.
Petitioner now contends that he was denied effective representation of counsel. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45. Mr. Mahoney had a reasonable time in which to file his motion to quash, but did not do so. It was stated on oral argument that he was 76 or 77 years old when he took the case, and was ill in bed during several months of the year. The trial court and the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that the facts did not show a lack of effective counsel. As in No. 32, Michel’s case, we accept these findings. There is little support for the opposite conclusion in the record. Mr. Mahoney was a well-known criminal lawyer with nearly fifty years’ experience at the bar. There is no evidence of incompetence. The mere fact that a timely motion to quash was not filed does not overcome the presumption of effectiveness. Feeley v. Ragen, 166 F. 2d 976. The delay might be considered sound trial strategy, particularly since the codefendant could not be found. We cannot infer lack of effective counsel from this circumstance alone. Such an inference would vitiate state rules of procedure designed to require preliminary objections to be disposed of before trial.
At argument, petitioners for the first time raised the contention that the requirements of § 202 had been applied by the district attorney only when Negro defendants attempted to attack the composition of the grand jury. They cited two cases in which the district attorney had failed to file demurrers to such motions and the indictments were quashed after the time set out in the statute. The present district attorney, who had been in office some eighteen months but was not serving at the time of these prosecutions, stated that it was his policy to apply § 202 whenever possible. Petitioners’ contention was not raised below, and we do not believe it has been properly put in issue, Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Illinois Buick Co., 297 U. S. 447, 463. If such an allegation had been presented and preserved, and found support in the record, we might have a very different case here. See Rogers v. Alabama, 192 U. S. 226.
For the reasons stated the judgments of the Supreme Court of Louisiana are
Affirmed.
Section 202 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, R. S. § 15:202, provides that:
“All objections to the manner of selecting or drawing any juror or jury or to any defect or irregularity that can be pleaded against any array or venire must be filed, pleaded, heard or urged before the expiration of the third judicial day of the term for which said jury shall have been drawn, or before entering upon the trial of the case if it be begun sooner; otherwise, all such objections shall be considered as waived and shall not afterwards be urged or heard.”
In State v. Wilson, 204 La. 24, 14 So. 2d 873, appeal dismissed, 320 U. S. 714, the Supreme Court of Louisiana interpreted the phrase “the third judicial day of the term” to mean “the third judicial day following the term.” Such a construction has been adhered to, State v. Chianelli, 226 La. 552, 76 So. 2d 727, and is not open to attack here.
The motion to quash filed in Michel’s case is as follows:
“Motion to Quash
“Now into this Honorable Court comes John Michel, defendant herein, and having heard the Indictment read and protesting that he is not guilty of the offense set out therein, moves to quash the said Indictment in its entirety, and to quash and set aside the general venire involved herein and to quash and set aside the Grand Jury Panel herein for the reason that in the proceedings prior to and attending the presentment of said Indictment, mover was deprived of due process of law and equal protection of law as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and the State of Louisiana as follows:
“1. Defendant is a member of the colored race.
“2. That considering the negro population of the Parish of Orleans and the number of negroes qualified for jury service, there has been systematic, unlawful and unconstitutional exclusion of negroes from the general venire and Grand Jury Panel and Grand Jury involved in the returning of the Indictment herein; that said systematic, unlawful and unconstitutional exclusion of negroes from said units has existed continuously prior hereto for a number of years in the Parish of Orleans; that said exclusion has existed because of race or color; that a negro has never served on a Grand Jury in the Parish of Orleans; that in those instances where negroes have been included in the general venire and Grand Jury Panels referred to herein, negroes have been discriminated against by an arbitrary and inap-portionate [sic] limiting of their number by State officials who have not sufficiently acquainted themselves with the qualifications of all potential jurors.
“WherepoRE, the said John Michel prays that this Motion to Quash be maintained and that the said Indictment, general venire and Grand Jury Panel be declared null and void and that he be discharged from said Indictment.”
In dismissing the appeal from State v. Wilson, supra, n. 1, the Court stated: “The motion to dismiss is granted and the appeal is dismissed, it appearing that the decision is based upon a nonfederal ground adequate to support it.” 320 U. S. 714.
“A state procedural rule which forbids the raising of federal questions at late stages in the case, or by any other than a prescribed method, has been recognized as a valid exercise of state power. The principle is clear enough.” Williams v. Georgia, 349 U. S. 375, 382-383, and cases cited at n. 6. See also Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 486.
Not only may the prompt determination of such preliminary matters avoid the necessity of a second trial, but a long delay in its determination, such as here, makes it extremely difficult in this class of case for the State to overcome the prima facie claim which may be established by a defendant. Material witnesses and grand jurors may die or leave the jurisdiction, and memories as to intent or specific practices relating to the selection of a particular grand jury may lose their sharpness. Furthermore, a successful attack on a grand jury that sat several years earlier may affect other convictions based on indictments returned by the same grand jury.
Cf. Agnew v. United States, 165 U. S. 36.
On the contrary, Mr. Mahoney, since deceased, was recognized as an exceptionally qualified counsel. On June 1, 1955, the legal profession in New Orleans honored him with a plaque which cited him as “an astute and honored criminal lawyer who has ever been mindful of the oath administered him 52 years ago to uphold the law and to guarantee to each accused his day in court.” As pointed out in the State’s brief, whether or not to make an immediate attack on the grand jury was entirely within the discretion of Mr. Mahoney and there were valid reasons for not doing so at the time.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Two Terms ago, in Matal v. Tam , 582 U. S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 1744, 198 L.Ed.2d 366 (2017), this Court invalidated the Lanham Act's bar on the registration of "disparag[ing]" trademarks. 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a). Although split between two non-majority opinions, all Members of the Court agreed that the provision violated the First Amendment because it discriminated on the basis of viewpoint. Today we consider a First Amendment challenge to a neighboring provision of the Act, prohibiting the registration of "immoral[ ] or scandalous" trademarks. Ibid. We hold that this provision infringes the First Amendment for the same reason: It too disfavors certain ideas.
I
Respondent Erik Brunetti is an artist and entrepreneur who founded a clothing line that uses the trademark FUCT. According to Brunetti, the mark (which functions as the clothing's brand name) is pronounced as four letters, one after the other: F-U-C-T. See Brief for Respondent 1. But you might read it differently and, if so, you would hardly be alone. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5 (describing the brand name as "the equivalent of [the] past participle form of a well-known word of profanity"). That common perception caused difficulties for Brunetti when he tried to register his mark with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).
Under the Lanham Act, the PTO administers a federal registration system for trademarks. See 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051, 1052. Registration of a mark is not mandatory. The owner of an unregistered mark may still use it in commerce and enforce it against infringers. See Tam , 582 U. S., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1752. But registration gives trademark owners valuable benefits. For example, registration constitutes "prima facie evidence" of the mark's validity. § 1115(a). And registration serves as "constructive notice of the registrant's claim of ownership," which forecloses some defenses in infringement actions. § 1072. Generally, a trademark is eligible for registration, and receipt of such benefits, if it is "used in commerce." § 1051(a)(1). But the Act directs the PTO to "refuse[ ] registration" of certain marks. § 1052. For instance, the PTO cannot register a mark that "so resembles" another mark as to create a likelihood of confusion. § 1052(d). It cannot register a mark that is "merely descriptive" of the goods on which it is used. § 1052(e). It cannot register a mark containing the flag or insignia of any nation or State. See § 1052(b). There are five or ten more (depending on how you count). And until we invalidated the criterion two years ago, the PTO could not register a mark that "disparage[d]" a "person[ ], living or dead." § 1052(a) ; see Tam , 582 U. S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 1744, 198 L.Ed.2d 366.
This case involves another of the Lanham Act's prohibitions on registration-one applying to marks that "[c]onsist[ ] of or comprise[ ] immoral[ ] or scandalous matter." § 1052(a). The PTO applies that bar as a "unitary provision," rather than treating the two adjectives in it separately. In re Brunetti , 877 F.3d 1330, 1336 (C.A. Fed. 2017) ; Brief for Petitioner 6 (stating that the PTO "has long treated the two terms as composing a single category"). To determine whether a mark fits in the category, the PTO asks whether a "substantial composite of the general public" would find the mark "shocking to the sense of truth, decency, or propriety"; "giving offense to the conscience or moral feelings"; "calling out for condemnation"; "disgraceful"; "offensive"; "disreputable"; or "vulgar." 877 F.3d at 1336 (internal quotation marks omitted); see Brief for Petitioner 6 (agreeing that the PTO "generally defines" the category in that way).
Both a PTO examining attorney and the PTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decided that Brunetti's mark flunked that test. The attorney determined that FUCT was "a total vulgar" and "therefore[ ] unregistrable." App. 27-28. On review, the Board stated that the mark was "highly offensive" and "vulgar," and that it had "decidedly negative sexual connotations." App. to Pet. for Cert. 59a, 64a-65a. As part of its review, the Board also considered evidence of how Brunetti used the mark. It found that Brunetti's website and products contained imagery, near the mark, of "extreme nihilism" and "anti-social" behavior. Id., at 64a. In that context, the Board thought, the mark communicated "misogyny, depravity, [and] violence." Ibid . The Board concluded: "Whether one considers [the mark] as a sexual term, or finds that [Brunetti] has used [the mark] in the context of extreme misogyny, nihilism or violence, we have no question but that [the term is] extremely offensive." Id., at 65a.
Brunetti then brought a facial challenge to the "immoral or scandalous" bar in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That court found the prohibition to violate the First Amendment. As usual when a lower court has invalidated a federal statute, we granted certiorari. 586 U. S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 782, 202 L.Ed.2d 510 (2019).
II
This Court first considered a First Amendment challenge to a trademark registration restriction in Tam , just two Terms ago. There, the Court declared unconstitutional the Lanham Act's ban on registering marks that "disparage" any "person[ ], living or dead." § 1052(a). The eight-Justice Court divided evenly between two opinions and could not agree on the overall framework for deciding the case. (In particular, no majority emerged to resolve whether a Lanham Act bar is a condition on a government benefit or a simple restriction on speech.) But all the Justices agreed on two propositions. First, if a trademark registration bar is viewpoint-based, it is unconstitutional. See 582 U. S., at ---- - ----, ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1751, 1762-1763 (opinion of ALITO, J.); id., at ---- - ----, ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1751, 1753 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). And second, the disparagement bar was viewpoint-based. See id., at ---- - ----, ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1751, 1762-1763 (opinion of ALITO, J.); id., at ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1751-1753 (opinion of Kennedy, J.)
The Justices thus found common ground in a core postulate of free speech law: The government may not discriminate against speech based on the ideas or opinions it conveys. See Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va. , 515 U.S. 819, 829-830, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995) (explaining that viewpoint discrimination is an "egregious form of content discrimination" and is "presumptively unconstitutional"). In Justice Kennedy's explanation, the disparagement bar allowed a trademark owner to register a mark if it was "positive" about a person, but not if it was "derogatory." Tam , 582 U. S., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1750. That was the "essence of viewpoint discrimination," he continued, because "[t]he law thus reflects the Government's disapproval of a subset of messages it finds offensive." Id., at ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1766. Justice ALITO emphasized that the statute "denie[d] registration to any mark" whose disparaging message was "offensive to a substantial percentage of the members of any group." Id., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1763. The bar thus violated the "bedrock First Amendment principle" that the government cannot discriminate against "ideas that offend." Id., at ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1751. Slightly different explanations, then, but a shared conclusion: Viewpoint discrimination doomed the disparagement bar.
If the "immoral or scandalous" bar similarly discriminates on the basis of viewpoint, it must also collide with our First Amendment doctrine. The Government does not argue otherwise. In briefs and oral argument, the Government offers a theory for upholding the bar if it is viewpoint-neutral (essentially, that the bar would then be a reasonable condition on a government benefit). See Brief for Petitioner 14-26. But the Government agrees that under Tam it may not "deny registration based on the views expressed" by a mark. Tr. of Oral Arg. 24. "As the Court's Tam decision establishes," the Government says, "the criteria for federal trademark registration" must be "viewpoint-neutral to survive Free Speech Clause review." Pet. for Cert. 19. So the key question becomes: Is the "immoral or scandalous" criterion in the Lanham Act viewpoint-neutral or viewpoint-based?
It is viewpoint-based. The meanings of "immoral" and "scandalous" are not mysterious, but resort to some dictionaries still helps to lay bare the problem. When is expressive material "immoral"? According to a standard definition, when it is "inconsistent with rectitude, purity, or good morals"; "wicked"; or "vicious." Webster's New International Dictionary 1246 (2d ed. 1949). Or again, when it is "opposed to or violating morality"; or "morally evil." Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 961 (3d ed. 1947). So the Lanham Act permits registration of marks that champion society's sense of rectitude and morality, but not marks that denigrate those concepts. And when is such material "scandalous"? Says a typical definition, when it "giv[es] offense to the conscience or moral feelings"; "excite[s] reprobation";
or "call[s] out condemnation." Webster's New International Dictionary, at 2229. Or again, when it is "shocking to the sense of truth, decency, or propriety"; "disgraceful"; "offensive"; or "disreputable." Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary 2186 (1944). So the Lanham Act allows registration of marks when their messages accord with, but not when their messages defy, society's sense of decency or propriety. Put the pair of overlapping terms together and the statute, on its face, distinguishes between two opposed sets of ideas: those aligned with conventional moral standards and those hostile to them; those inducing societal nods of approval and those provoking offense and condemnation. The statute favors the former, and disfavors the latter. "Love rules"? "Always be good"? Registration follows. "Hate rules"? "Always be cruel"? Not according to the Lanham Act's "immoral or scandalous" bar.
The facial viewpoint bias in the law results in viewpoint-discriminatory application. Recall that the PTO itself describes the "immoral or scandalous" criterion using much the same language as in the dictionary definitions recited above. See supra, at 2298. The PTO, for example, asks whether the public would view the mark as "shocking to the sense of truth, decency, or propriety"; "calling out for condemnation"; "offensive"; or "disreputable." Brief for Petitioner 6 (internal quotation marks omitted). Using those guideposts, the PTO has refused to register marks communicating "immoral" or "scandalous" views about (among other things) drug use, religion, and terrorism. But all the while, it has approved registration of marks expressing more accepted views on the same topics. See generally Gilson & LaLonde, Trademarks Laid Bare, 101 Trademark Reporter 1476, 1510-1513, 1518-1522 (2011) ; Brief for Barton Beebe et al. as Amici Curiae 28-29.
Here are some samples. The PTO rejected marks conveying approval of drug use (YOU CAN'T SPELL HEALTHCARE WITHOUT THC for pain-relief medication, MARIJUANA COLA and KO KANE for beverages) because it is scandalous to "inappropriately glamoriz[e] drug abuse." PTO, Office Action of Aug. 28, 2010, Serial No. 85038867; see Office Action of Dec. 24, 2009, Serial No. 77833964; Office Action of Nov. 17, 2009, Serial No. 77671304. But at the same time, the PTO registered marks with such sayings as D.A.R.E. TO RESIST DRUGS AND VIOLENCE and SAY NO TO DRUGS-REALITY IS THE BEST TRIP IN LIFE. See PTO, Reg. No. 2975163 (July 26, 2005); Reg. No. 2966019 (July 12, 2005). Similarly, the PTO disapproved registration for the mark BONG HITS 4 JESUS because it "suggests that people should engage in an illegal activity [in connection with] worship" and because "Christians would be morally outraged by a statement that connects Jesus Christ with illegal drug use." Office Action of Mar. 15, 2008, Serial No. 77305946. And the PTO refused to register trademarks associating religious references with products (AGNUS DEI for safes and MADONNA for wine) because they would be "offensive to most individuals of the Christian faith" and "shocking to the sense of propriety." Ex parte Summit Brass & Bronze Works , 59 U.S.P.Q. 22, 23 (Dec. Com. Pat. 1943) ; In re Riverbank Canning Co. , 95 F.2d 327, 329 (CCPA 1938). But once again, the PTO approved marks-PRAISE THE LORD for a game and JESUS DIED FOR YOU on clothing-whose message suggested religious faith rather than blasphemy or irreverence. See Reg. No. 5265121 (Aug. 15, 2017); Reg. No. 3187985 (Dec. 19, 2006). Finally, the PTO rejected marks reflecting support for al-Qaeda (BABY AL QAEDA and AL-QAEDA on t-shirts) "because the bombing of civilians and other terrorist acts are shocking to the sense of decency and call out for condemnation." Office Action of Nov. 22, 2004, Serial No. 78444968; see Office Action of Feb. 23, 2005, Serial No. 78400213. Yet it approved registration of a mark with the words WAR ON TERROR MEMORIAL. Reg. No. 5495362 (Jun. 19, 2018). Of course, all these decisions are understandable. The rejected marks express opinions that are, at the least, offensive to many Americans. But as the Court made clear in Tam , a law disfavoring "ideas that offend" discriminates based on viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment. 582 U. S., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1751 (opinion of ALITO, J.); see id., at ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1762-1763 ; id., at ---- - ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1765-1766 (opinion of Kennedy, J.)
How, then, can the Government claim that the "immoral or scandalous" bar is viewpoint-neutral? The Government basically asks us to treat decisions like those described above as PTO examiners' mistakes. See Brief for Petitioner 46. Still more, the Government tells us to ignore how the Lanham Act's language, on its face, disfavors some ideas. In urging that course, the Government does not dispute that the statutory language-and words used to define it-have just that effect. At oral argument, the Government conceded: "[I]f you just looked at the words like 'shocking' and 'offensive' on their face and gave them their ordinary meanings[,] they could easily encompass material that was shocking [or offensive] because it expressed an outrageous point of view or a point of view that most members" of society reject. Tr. of Oral Arg. 6. But no matter, says the Government, because the statute is "susceptible of" a limiting construction that would remove this viewpoint bias. Id., at 7 (arguing that the Court should "attempt to construe [the] statute in a way that would render it constitutional"). The Government's idea, abstractly phrased, is to narrow the statutory bar to "marks that are offensive [or] shocking to a substantial segment of the public because of their mode of expression, independent of any views that they may express." Id., at 11 (emphasis added); see Brief for Petitioner 27-28. More concretely, the Government explains that this reinterpretation would mostly restrict the PTO to refusing marks that are "vulgar"-meaning "lewd," "sexually explicit or profane." Id., at 27, 30. Such a reconfigured bar, the Government says, would not turn on viewpoint, and so we could uphold it.
But we cannot accept the Government's proposal, because the statute says something markedly different. This Court, of course, may interpret "ambiguous statutory language" to "avoid serious constitutional doubts." FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. , 556 U.S. 502, 516, 129 S.Ct. 1800, 173 L.Ed.2d 738 (2009). But that canon of construction applies only when ambiguity exists. "We will not rewrite a law to conform it to constitutional requirements." United States v. Stevens , 559 U.S. 460, 481, 130 S.Ct. 1577, 176 L.Ed.2d 435 (2010) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). So even assuming the Government's reading would eliminate First Amendment problems, we may adopt it only if we can see it in the statutory language. And we cannot. The "immoral or scandalous" bar stretches far beyond the Government's proposed construction. The statute as written does not draw the line at lewd, sexually explicit, or profane marks. Nor does it refer only to marks whose "mode of expression," independent of viewpoint, is particularly offensive. Brief for Petitioner 28 (internal quotation marks omitted). It covers the universe of immoral or scandalous-or (to use some PTO synonyms) offensive or disreputable-material. Whether or not lewd or profane. Whether the scandal and immorality comes from mode or instead from viewpoint. To cut the statute off where the Government urges is not to interpret the statute Congress enacted, but to fashion a new one.
And once the "immoral or scandalous" bar is interpreted fairly, it must be invalidated. The Government just barely argues otherwise. In the last paragraph of its brief, the Government gestures toward the idea that the provision is salvageable by virtue of its constitutionally permissible applications (in the Government's view, its applications to lewd, sexually explicit, or profane marks). See id. , at 47. In other words, the Government invokes our First Amendment overbreadth doctrine, and asks us to uphold the statute against facial attack because its unconstitutional applications are not "substantial" relative to "the statute's plainly legitimate sweep." Stevens , 559 U.S. at 473, 130 S.Ct. 1577 (internal quotation marks omitted). But to begin with, this Court has never applied that kind of analysis to a viewpoint-discriminatory law. In Tam , for example, we did not pause to consider whether the disparagement clause might admit some permissible applications (say, to certain libelous speech) before striking it down. The Court's finding of viewpoint bias ended the matter. And similarly, it seems unlikely we would compare permissible and impermissible applications if Congress outright banned "offensive" (or to use some other examples, "divisive" or "subversive") speech. Once we have found that a law "aim[s] at the suppression of " views, why would it matter that Congress could have captured some of the same speech through a viewpoint-neutral statute? Tam , 582 U. S., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 1761 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). But in any event, the "immoral or scandalous" bar is substantially overbroad. There are a great many immoral and scandalous ideas in the world (even more than there are swearwords), and the Lanham Act covers them all. It therefore violates the First Amendment.
We accordingly affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
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.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
OPINION OF THE COURT
[562 U.S. 226]
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We consider whether a pre-emption provision enacted in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 NCVIA) bars state-law design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers.
I
A
For the last 66 years, vaccines have been subject to the same federal pre-market approval process as prescription drugs, and compensation for vaccine-related injuries has been left largely to the States. Under that regime, the elimination of communicable diseases through vaccination became “one of the greatest achievements” of public health in the 20th century. But in the 1970’s and 1980’s vaccines became, one might say, victims of their own success. They had been so effective in preventing infectious diseases that the public became much less alarmed at the threat of those diseases, and much more concerned with the risk of injury from the vaccines themselves.
[562 U.S. 227]
Much of the concern centered around vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP), which were blamed for children’s disabilities and developmental delays. This led to a massive increase in vaccine-related tort litigation. Whereas between 1978 and 1981 only nine products-liability suits were filed against DTP manufacturers, by the mid-1980’s the suits numbered more than 200 each year. This destabilized the DTP vaccine market, causing two of the three domestic manufacturers to withdraw; and the remaining manufacturer, Lederle Laboratories, estimated that its potential tort liability exceeded its annual sales by a factor of 200. Vaccine shortages arose when Lederle had production problems in 1984.
Despite the large number of suits, there were many complaints that obtaining compensation for legitimate vaccine-inflicted injuries was too costly and difficult. A significant number of parents were already declining vaccination for their children, and concerns about compensation threatened to depress vaccination rates even further. This was a source of concern to public health officials, since vaccines are effective in preventing outbreaks of disease only if a large percentage of the population is vaccinated.
[562 U.S. 228]
To stabilize the vaccine market and facilitate compensation, Congress enacted the NCVIAin 1986. The Act establishes a no-fault compensation program “designed to work faster and with greater ease than the civil tort system.” Shalala v. Whitecotton, 514 U.S. 268, 269, 115 S. Ct. 1477, 131 L. Ed. 2d 374 (1995). A person injured by a vaccine, or his legal guardian, may file a petition for compensation in the United States Court of Federal Claims, naming the Secretary of Health and Human Services as the respondent. A special master then makes an informal adjudication of the petition within (except for two limited exceptions) 240 days. The Court of Federal Claims must review objections to the special master’s decision and enter final judgment under a similarly tight statutory deadline. At that point, a claimant has two options: to accept the court’s judgment and forgo a traditional tort suit for damages, or to reject the judgment and seek tort relief from the vaccine manufacturer.
Fast, informal adjudication is made possible by the Act’s Vaccine Injury Table, which lists the vaccines covered under the Act; describes each vaccine’s compensable, adverse side effects; and indicates how soon after vaccination those side effects should first manifest themselves. Claimants who show that a listed injury first manifested itself at the appropriate time are prima facie entitled to compensation. No showing of causation is necessary; the Secretary bears the burden of disproving causation. A claimant may also recover for unlisted side effects, and for listed side effects that occur at times other than those specified in the Table, but
[562 U.S. 229]
for those the claimant must prove causation. Unlike in tort suits, claimants under the Act are not required to show that the administered vaccine was defectively manufactured, labeled, or designed.
Successful claimants receive compensation for medical, rehabilitation, counseling, special education, and vocational training expenses; diminished earning capacity; pain and suffering; and $250,000 for vaccine-related deaths. Attorney’s fees are provided, not only for successful cases, but even for unsuccessful claims that are not frivolous. These awards are paid out of a fund created by an excise tax on each vaccine dose.
The quid pro quo for this, designed to stabilize the vaccine market, was the provision of significant tort-liability protections for vaccine manufacturers. The Act requires claimants to seek relief through the compensation program before filing suit for more than $1,000. Manufacturers are generally immunized from liability for failure to warn if they have complied with all regulatory requirements (including but not limited to warning requirements) and have given the warning either to the claimant or the claimant’s physician. They are immunized from liability for punitive damages absent failure to comply with regulatory requirements, “fraud,” “intentional and wrongful withholding of information,” or other “criminal or illegal activity.” And most relevant to
[562 U.S. 230]
the present case, the Act expressly eliminates liability for a vaccine’s unavoidable, adverse side effects:
“No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”
B
The vaccine at issue here is a DTP vaccine manufactured by Lederle Laboratories. It first received federal approval in 1948 and received supplemental approvals in 1953 and 1970. Respondent Wyeth purchased Lederle in 1994 and stopped manufacturing the vaccine in 1998.
Hannah Bruesewitz was born on October 20, 1991. Her pediatrician administered doses of the DTP vaccine according to the Center for Disease Control’s recommended childhood immunization schedule. Within 24 hours of her April 1992 vaccination, Hannah started to experience seizures. She suffered over 100 seizures during the next month, and her doctors eventually diagnosed her with “residual seizure disorder” and “developmental delay.” Hannah, now a teenager, is still diagnosed with both conditions.
In April 1995, Hannah’s parents, Russell and Robalee Bruesewitz, filed a vaccine injury petition in the United States Court of Federal Claims, alleging that Hannah suffered from on-Table residual seizure disorder and encephalopathy injuries. A Special Master denied their claims on various rounds, though they were awarded 126,800 in attorney’s
[562 U.S. 231]
fees and costs. The Bruesewitzes elected to reject the unfavorable judgment, and in October 2005 filed this lawsuit in Pennsylvania state court. Their complaint alleged (as relevant here) that defective design of Lederle’s DTP vaccine caused Hannah’s disabilities, and that Lederle was subject to strict liability, and liability for negligent design under Pennsylvania common law.
Wyeth removed the suit to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which granted Wyeth summary judgment on the strict-liability and negligence design-defect claims, holding that the Pennsylvania law providing those causes of action was pre-empted by 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-22(b)(l). The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. We granted certiorari. 559 U.S. 991, 130 S. Ct. 1734, 176 L. Ed. 2d 211 (2010).
II
A
We set forth again the statutory text at issue:
“No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”
The “even though” clause clarifies the word that precedes it. It delineates the preventative measures that a vaccine manufacturer must have taken for a side effect to be considered “unavoidable” under the statute. Provided that there
[562 U.S. 232]
was proper manufacture and warning, any remaining side effects, including those resulting from design defects, are deemed to have been unavoidable. State-law design-defect claims are therefore preempted.
If a manufacturer could be held liable for failure to use a different design, the word “unavoidable” would do no work. A side effect of a vaccine could always have been avoidable by use of a differently designed vaccine not containing the harmful element. The language of the provision thus suggests that the design of the vaccine is a given, not subject to question in the tort action. What the statute establishes as a complete defense must be unavoidability (given safe manufacture and warning) with respect to the particular design. Which plainly implies that the design itself is not open to question.
A further textual indication leads to the same conclusion. Products-liability law establishes a classic and well known triumvirate of grounds for liability: defective manufacture, inadequate directions or warnings, and defective design. If all three were intended to be preserved, it would be strange to mention specifically only two, and leave the third to implication. It would have been much easier (and much more natural) to provide that manufacturers would be liable
[562 U.S. 233]
for “defective manufacture, defective directions or warning, and defective design.” It seems that the statute fails to mention design-defect liability “by deliberate choice, not inadvertence.” Barnhart v. Peabody Coal Co., 537 U.S. 149, 168, 123 S. Ct. 748, 154 L. Ed. 2d 653 (2003). Expressio unius, exclusio alterius.
B
The dissent’s principal textual argument is mistaken. We agree with its premise that “ ‘side effects that were unavoidable’ must refer to side effects caused by a vaccine’s design.” We do not comprehend, however, the second step of its reasoning, which is that the use of the conditional term “if’ in the introductory phrase “if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable” “plainly implies that some side effects stemming from a vaccine’s design are ‘unavoidable,’ while others are avoidable.” That is not so. The “if’ clause makes total sense whether the design to which “unavoidable” refers is (as the dissent believes) any feasible design (making the side effects of the design used for the vaccine at issue avoidable), or (as we believe) the particular design used for the vaccine at issue (making its side effects unavoidable). Under the latter view, the condition established by the “if’ clause is that the vaccine have been properly labeled and manufactured; and under the former, that it have been properly designed, labeled, and manufactured. Neither view renders the “if’ clause a nullity. Which of the two variants must be preferred is addressed by our textual analysis, and is in no way determined by the “if’ clause.
Petitioners’ and the dissent’s textual argument also rests upon the proposition that the word “unavoidable” in § 300aa-22(b)(l) is a term of art that incorporates comment k to Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A (1963-1964). The Restatement
[562 U.S. 234]
generally holds a manufacturer strictly liable for harm to person or property caused by “any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user.” Comment k exempts from this strict-liability rule “unavoidably unsafe products.” An unavoidably unsafe product is defined by a hodge-podge of criteria and a few examples, such as the Pasteur rabies vaccine and experimental pharmaceuticals. Despite this lack of clarity, petitioners seize upon one phrase in the comment k analysis, and assert that by 1986 a majority of courts had made this a sine qua non requirement for an “unavoidably unsafe product”: a case-specific showing that the product was “quite incapable of being made safe for [its] intended... use.”
We have no need to consider the finer points of comment k. Whatever consistent judicial gloss that comment may have been given in 1986, there is no reason to believe that § 300aa-22(b)(l) was invoking it. The comment creates a special category of “unavoidably unsafe products,” while the statute refers to “side effects that were unavoidable.” That the latter uses the adjective “unavoidable” and the former the adverb “unavoidably” does not establish that Congress
[562 U.S. 235]
had comment k in mind. “Unavoidable” is hardly a rarely used word. Even the cases petitioners cite as putting a definitive gloss on comment k use the precise phrase “unavoidably unsafe product”; none attaches special significance to the term “unavoidable” standing alone.
The textual problems with petitioners’ interpretation do not end there. The phrase “even though” in the clause “even though the vaccine was properly prepared and [labeled]” is meant to signal the unexpected: unavoidable side effects persist despite best manufacturing and labeling practices. But petitioners’ reading eliminates any opposition between the “even though” clause—called a concessive subordinate clause by grammarians—and the word “unavoidable.” Their reading makes pre-emption turn equally on unavoid-ability, proper preparation, and proper labeling. Thus, the dissent twice refers to the requirements of proper preparation and proper labeling as “two additional prerequisites” for pre-emption independent of un-avoidability. The primary textual justification for the dissent’s position depends
[562 U.S. 236]
on that independence. But linking independent ideas is the job of a coordinating junction like “and,” not a subordinating junction like “even though.”
Petitioners and the dissent contend that the interpretation we propose would render part of § 300aa-22(b)( 1) superfluous: Congress could have more tersely and more clearly preempted design-defect claims by barring liability “if... the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.” The intervening passage (“the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though”) is unnecessary. True enough. But the rule against giving a portion of text an interpretation which renders it superfluous does not prescribe that a passage which could have been more terse does not mean what it says. The rule applies only if verbosity and prolixity can be eliminated by giving the offending passage, or the remainder of the text, a competing interpretation. That is not the case here. To be sure, petitioners’ and the dissent’s interpretation gives independent meaning to the intervening passage (the supposed meaning of comment k); but it does so only at the expense of rendering the remainder of the provision superfluous. Since a vaccine is not “quite incapable of being made safer for [its] intended use” if manufacturing defects could have been eliminated or better warnings provided,
[562 U.S. 237]
the entire “even though” clause is a useless appendage. It would suffice to say “if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable”—full stop.
Ill
The structure of the NCVIA and of vaccine regulation in general reinforces what the text of § 300aa-22(b)(1) suggests. A vaccine’s license spells out the manufacturing method that must be followed and the directions and warnings that must accompany the product. Manufacturers ordinarily must obtain the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval before modifying either. Deviations from the license thus provide objective evidence of manufacturing defects or inadequate warnings. Further objective evidence comes from the FDA’s regulations—more than 90 of them—that pervasively regulate the manufacturing process, down to the requirements for plumbing and ventilation systems at each manufacturing facility. Material noncompliance with any one of them, or with any other FDA regulation, could cost the manufacturer its regulatory-compliance defense.
Design defects, in contrast, do not merit a single mention in the NCVIA or the FDA’s regulations. Indeed, the FDA has never even spelled out in regulations the criteria it uses to decide whether a vaccine is safe and effective for its intended use. And the decision is surely not an easy one. Drug manufacturers often could trade a little less efficacy
[562 U.S. 238]
for a little more safety, but the safest design is not always the best one. Striking the right balance between safety and efficacy is especially difficult with respect to vaccines, which affect public as well as individual health. Yet the Act, which in every other respect micromanages manufacturers, is silent on how to evaluate competing designs. Are manufacturers liable only for failing to employ an alternative design that the FDA has approved for distribution (an approval it takes years to obtain)? Or does it suffice that a vaccine design has been approved in other countries? Or could there be liability for failure to use a design that exists only in a lab? Neither the Act nor the FDA regulations provide an answer, leaving the universe of alternative designs to be limited only by an expert’s imagination.
Jurors, of course, often decide similar questions with little guidance, and we do not suggest that the absence of guidance alone suggests pre-emption. But the lack of guidance for design defects combined with the extensive guidance for the two grounds of liability specifically mentioned in the Act strongly suggests that design defects were not mentioned because they are not a basis for liability.
The mandates contained in the Act lead to the same conclusion. Design-defect torts, broadly speaking, have two beneficial effects: (1) prompting the development of improved designs, and (2) providing compensation for inflicted injuries. The NCVIA provides other means for achieving both effects. We have already discussed the Act’s generous compensation scheme. And the Act provides many means of improving vaccine design. It directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to promote “the development of childhood vaccines that result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions.” It establishes a National Vaccine Program, whose Director is “to achieve optimal prevention of human infectious diseases... and to achieve optimal prevention against
[562 U.S. 239]
adverse reactions.” The Program is to set priorities for federal vaccine research, and to coordinate federal vaccine safety and efficacy testing. The Act requires vaccine manufacturers and healthcare providers to report adverse side effects, and provides for monitoring of vaccine safety through a collaboration with eight managed-care organizations. And of course whenever the FDA concludes that a vaccine is unsafe, it may revoke the license.
These provisions for federal agency improvement of vaccine design, and for federally prescribed compensation, once again suggest that § 300aa-22(b)(l)’s silence regarding design-defect liability was not inadvertent. It instead reflects a sensible choice to leave complex epidemiological judgments about vaccine design to the FDA and the National Vaccine Program rather than juries.
And finally, the Act’s structural quid pro quo leads to the same conclusion: The vaccine manufacturers fund from their sales an informal, efficient compensation program for vaccine injuries; in exchange they avoid costly tort litigation and
[562 U.S. 240]
the occasional disproportionate jury verdict. But design-defect allegations are the most speculative and difficult type of products-liability claim to litigate. Taxing vaccine manufacturers’ product to fund the compensation program, while leaving their liability for design defect virtually unaltered, would hardly coax manufacturers back into the market.
The dissent believes the Act’s mandates are irrelevant because they do not spur innovation in precisely the same way as state-law tort systems. That is a novel suggestion. Although we previously have expressed doubt that Congress would quietly pre-empt products-liability claims without providing a federal substitute, see Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470, 486-488, 116 S. Ct. 2240, 135 L. Ed. 2d 700 (1996) (plurality opinion), we have never suggested we would be skeptical of pre-emption unless the congressional substitute operated like the tort system. We decline to adopt that stance today. The dissent’s belief that the FDA and the National Vaccine Program cannot alone spur adequate vaccine innovation is probably questionable, but surely beside the point.
IV
Since our interpretation of § 300aa-22(b)(l) is the only interpretation supported by the text and structure of the NCVIA, even those of us who believe legislative history is a legitimate tool of statutory interpretation have no need to resort to it. In any case, the dissent’s contention that it would contradict our conclusion is mistaken.
The dissent’s legislative history relies on the following syllogism: A1986 House Committee Report states that § 300aa-22(b)(l) “sets forth the principle contained in Comment k of Section 402A of the Restatement of Torts (Second);” in 1986 comment k was “commonly understood” to require a
[562 U.S. 241]
case-specific showing that “no feasible alternative design” existed; Congress therefore must have intended § 300aa-22(b)(l) to require that showing. The syllogism ignores unhelpful statements in the 1986 Report and relies upon a term of art that did not exist in 1986.
Immediately after the language quoted by the dissent, the 1986 Report notes the difficulty a jury would have in faithfully assessing whether a feasible alternative design exists when an innocent “young child, often badly injured or killed,” is the plaintiff. Eliminating that concern is why the 1986 Report’s authors “strongly believ[e] that Comment k is appropriate and necessary as the policy for civil actions seeking damages in tort.” The dissent’s interpretation of § 300aa-22(b)(l) and its version of “the principle in Comment K” adopted by the 1986 Report leave that concern unaddressed.
The dissent buries another unfavorable piece of legislative history. Because the 1986 Report believes that § 300aa-22(b)(l) should incorporate “the principle in Comment K” and because the Act provides a generous no-fault compensation scheme, the 1986 Report counsels injured parties who cannot prove a manufacturing or labeling defect to “pursue recompense in the compensation system, not the tort system.” That counsel echoes our interpretation of § 300aa-22(b)(1).
Not to worry, the dissent retorts, a Committee Report by a later Congress “authoritative [ly]” vindicates its interpretation.
[562 U.S. 242]
Post-enactment legislative history (a contradiction in terms) is not a legitimate tool of statutory interpretation. See Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 238, 119 S. Ct. 1215, 143 L. Ed. 2d 311 (1999); United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 281-282, 67 S. Ct. 677, 91 L. Ed. 884 (1947). Real (pre-enactment) legislative history is persuasive to some because it is thought to shed light on what legislators understood an ambiguous statutory text to mean when they voted to enact it into law. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U.S. 546, 568, 125 S. Ct. 2611, 162 L. Ed. 2d 502 (2005). But post-enactment legislative history by definition “could have had no effect on the congressional vote,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 605, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008).
It does not matter that § 300aa-22(b)(1) did not take effect until the later Congress passed the excise tax that funds the compensation scheme, and that the supposedly dispositive Committee Report is attached to that funding legislation. Those who voted on the relevant statutory language were not necessarily the same persons who crafted the statements in the later Committee Report; or if they were did not necessarily have the same views at that earlier time; and no one voting at that earlier time could possibly have been informed by those later statements. Permitting the legislative history of subsequent funding legislation to alter the meaning of a statute would set a dangerous precedent. Many provisions of federal law depend on appropriations or include sunset provisions; they cannot be made the device for unenacted statutory revision.
[562 U.S. 243]
That brings us to the second flaw in the dissent’s syllogism: Comment k did not have a “commonly understood meaning” in the mid-1980’s. Some courts thought it required a case-specific showing that a product was “unavoidably unsafe”; many others thought it categorically exempted certain types of products from strict liability. When “all (or nearly all) of the” relevant judicial decisions have given a term or concept a consistent judicial gloss, we presume Congress intended the term or concept to have that meaning when it incorporated it into a later-enacted statute. Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, 559 U.S. 633, 659, 130 S. Ct. 1784, 176 L. Ed. 2d 582 (2010) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The consistent gloss represents the public understanding of the term. We cannot make the same assumption when widespread disagreement exists among the lower courts. We must make do with giving the term its most plausible meaning using the traditional tools of statutory interpretation. That is what we have done today.
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act pre-empts all design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers brought by plaintiffs who seek compensation for injury or death caused by vaccine side effects. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kagan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
. 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-22(b)(1).
. See P. Hutt, R. Merrill, & L. Grossman, Pood and Drug Law 912-913, 1458 (3d ed. 2007).
. Centers for Disease Control, Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Impact of Vaccines Universally Recommended for Children, 48 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 243, 247 (Apr. 2, 1999).
. See Mortimer, Immunization Against Infectious Disease, 200 Science 902, 906 (1978).
. See National Vaccine Advisory Committee, A Comprehensive Review of Federal Vaccine Safety Programs and Public Health Activities 2-3 (Dec. 2008) (hereinafter NVAC), http:// www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/documents/vaccine-safety-review.pdf (as visited Feb. 18, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file).
. See Sing & Willian, Supplying Vaccines: An Overview of the Market and Regulatory Context, in Supplying Vaccines: An Economic Analysis of Critical Issues 45, 51-52 (M. Pauly, C. Robinson, S. Sepe, M. Sing, & M. Willian eds. 1996).
. See id., at 52.
. See Centers for Disease Control, Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Vaccine Shortage, 33 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 695-696 (Dec. 14, 1984).
. See Apolinsky & Van Detta, Rethinking Liability for Vaccine Injury, 19 Cornell J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 537, 550-551 (2010); T. Burke, Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights: The Battle Over Litigation in American Society 146 (2002).
. Mortimer, supra, at 906.
. See Hagan, Vaccine Compensation Schemes, 45 Pood Drug Cosm. L. J. 477, 479 (1990).
. See R. Merrill, Introduction to Epidemiology 65-68 (5th ed. 2010).
. See 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(a)(1).
. See § 300aa-12(d)(3).
. See § 300aa-12(e), (g).
. See § 300aa-21(a).
. See § 300aa-14(a); 42 CPR § 100.3 (2009) (current Vaccine Injury Table).
. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-11(c)(1), 300aa-13(a)(1)(A).
. See § 300aa-13(a)(1)(B).
. See § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(ii).
. See § 300aa-15(a).
. See § 300aa-15(e).
. See § 300aa-15(i)(2); 26 U.S.C. §§ 4131, 9510.
. See 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(a)(2).
. See § 300aa-22(b)(2), (c). The immunity does not apply if the plaintiff establishes by clear and convincing evidence that the manufacturer was negligent, or was guilty of fraud, intentional and wrongful withholding of information, or other unlawful activity. See §§ 300aa-22(b)(2), 300aa-23(d)(2).
. § 300aa-23(d)(2).
. § 300aa-22(b)(1).
. See Bruesewitz v. Secretary of Dept. of Health and Human Servs., No. 95-0266V, 2002 WL 31965744, *3 (Ct. Cl., Dec. 20, 2002).
. 561 F.3d 233, 236 (CA3 2009).
. See Bruesewitz, supra, at *1.
. See 561 F.3d, at 237. The complaint also made claims based upon failure to warn and defective manufacture. These are no longer at issue.
. See id., at 237-238.
. Id., at 235.
. 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-22(b)(1).
. The dissent advocates for another possibility: “[A] side effect is ‘unavoidable’... where there is no feasible alternative design that would eliminate the side effect of the vaccine without compromising its cost and utility.” Post, at 263, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 29 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.). The dissent makes no effort to ground that position in the text of § 300aa-22(b)(1). We doubt that Congress would introduce such an amorphous test by implication when it otherwise micromanages vaccine manufacturers. See infra, at 238, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 14. We have no idea how much more expensive an alternative design can be before it “compromis[es]” a vaccine’s cost or how much efficacy an alternative design can sacrifice to improve safety. Neither does the dissent. And neither will the judges who must rule on motions to dismiss, motions for summary judgment, and motions for judgment as a matter of law. Which means that the test would probably have no real-world effect.
. W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 695 (5th ed. 1984); Restatement (Third) of Torts § 2 (1999).
. Post, at 252, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 22.
. Ibid.
. See Brief for Petitioners 29.
. Restatement § 402A, at 347.
. Id., Comment k, at 353; petitioners cite, inter alia, Kearl v. Lederle Labs., 172 Cal. App. 3d 812, 828-830, 218 Cal. Rptr. 453, 463-464 (1985); Belle Bonfils Mem. Blood Bank v. Hansen, 665 P.2d 118, 122 (Colo. 1983).
Though it is not pertinent to our analysis, we point out that a large number of courts disagreed with that reading of comment A, and took it to say that manufacturers did not face strict liability for side effects of properly manufactured prescription drugs that were accompanied by adequate warnings. See, e.g., Brown v. Superior Court, 227 Cal. Rptr. 768, 772-775 (Cal. App. 1986) (officially depublished), aff'd 44 Cal. 3d 1049, 751 P.2d 470 (1988); McKee v. Moore, 648 P.2d 21, 23 (Okla. 1982); Stone v. Smith, Kline & French Labs., 447 So.2d 1301, 1303-1304 (Ala. 1984); Lindsay v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., 637 F.2d 87, 90-91 (CA2 1980) (applying N. Y. law); Wolfgruber v. Upjohn Co., 72 App. Div. 2d 59, 61, 423 N. Y. S. 2d 95, 96 (1979); Chambers v. G. D. Searle & Co., 441 F.Supp. 377, 380-381 (Md. 1975); Basko v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 416 F.2d 417, 425 (CA2 1969) (applying Conn. law).
. See, e.g., Johnson v. American Cyanamid Co., 239 Kan. 279, 285, 718 P.2d 1318, 1323 (1986); Feldman v. Lederle Labs., 97 N.J. 429, 440, 446-447, 479 A. 2d 374, 380, 383-384 (1984); Belle Bonfils Mem. Blood Bank, supra, at 121-123; Cassisi v. Maytag Co., 396 So.2d 1140, 1144, n. 4, 1146 (Fla. App. 1981); Racer v. Utterman, 629 S.W.2d 387, 393 (Mo. App. 1981).
. The dissent’s assertion that we treat “even though’’ as a synonym for “because’’ misses the subtle distinction between “because” and “despite.” See post, at 265, n. 14, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 30. “Even though” is a close cousin of the latter. See Webster’s New International Dictionary 709, 2631 (2d ed. 1957). The statement “the car accident was unavoidable despite his quick reflexes” indicates that quick reflexes could not avoid the accident, and leaves open two unstated possibilities: (1) that other, unstated means of avoiding the accident besides quick reflexes existed, but came up short as well; or (2) that quick reflexes were the only possible way to avoid the accident. Our interpretation of § 300aa-22(b)( 1) explains why we think Congress meant the latter in this context. (Incidentally, the statement “the car accident was unavoidable because of his quick reflexes” makes no sense.)
. See W. Follett, Modern American Usage: A Guide 61 (1966).
. Post, at 258, 265, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 26, 30.
. Post, at 251-253, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 21-23.
. The dissent responds that these “additional prerequisites” act “in a concessive, subordinating fashion,” post, at 265, n. 14, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 30 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). But that is no more true of the dissent’s conjunctive
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
An “agency-shop” arrangement permits a union, obliged to act on behalf of all employees in the bargaining unit, to charge nonunion workers their fair share of the costs of the representation. The purposes for which a union may spend the “agency fee” paid by nonmembers, however, are circumscribed by the First Amendment (when public employers are involved) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) or Railway Labor Act (RLA) (when private employers subject to their provisions are involved). In Teachers v. Hudson, 475 U. S. 292 (1986), we held that the First Amendment requires public-employee unions to accord workers who object to the agency fee “a reasonably prompt opportunity to challenge the amount of the fee before an impartial decision-maker.” Id., at 310.
Petitioner Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA or Union), a private-sector labor organization covered by the RLA, acknowledges that it is bound by Hudson. ALPA endeavored to comply with Hudson’s “impartial decisionmaker” requirement by referring all fee disputes to a neutral arbitrator. In the action now before us, nonunion pilots challenged the agency fee collected by the Union in 1992. ALPA urged that the challengers must exhaust the arbitration process before pursuing judicial remedies. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the pilots resisting the agency fee may proceed at once in federal court. We hold, in accord with the Court of Appeals, that employees need not submit fee disputes to arbitration when they have never agreed to do so.
I
ALPA represents, as exclusive bargaining agent, pilots employed by most United States commercial air carriers, including Delta Air Lines (Delta). In November 1991, ALPA and Delta amended their collective-bargaining agreement to include, inter alia, an “agency-shop” clause. That clause, similar to provisions in ALPA’s agreements with other carriers, required each pilot who was not an ALPA member to pay the Union a monthly “service charge as a contribution for the administration of [the collective-bargaining agreement] and the representation of such employee.” App. 31.
On December 12, 1991, five Delta pilots filed this action against ALPA and Delta in the District Court for the District of Columbia. Their complaint charged that the “agency-shop” clause was unlawful on its face. (Three of the original plaintiffs, plus 150 Delta pilots who subsequently intervened, are respondents here; the other two original plaintiffs were dismissed from the case for reasons unrelated to the issue we resolve. Delta was also dismissed from the case on grounds not pertinent here.) The pilots unsuccessfully moved for a preliminary injunction against implementation of the agency-shop arrangement, and ALPA began collecting agency fees on January 1,1992.
In 1992, ALPA charged its members monthly dues of 2.35 percent of each pilot’s earnings. The Union ultimately determined, in its final, audited “Statement of Germane and Nongermane Expenses” (SGNE) for 1992, that 19 percent of ALPA’s expenses for that year were not germane to collective bargaining. Accordingly, the Union adjusted fees charged nonmembers to equal 81 percent of the amount members paid.
On October 8/ 1992, some months after the Union had begun to collect agency fees, the pilots moved to amend their complaint to add a count challenging the manner in which ALPA calculated the fee. They alleged, inter alia, that ALPA had overstated the percentage of its expenditures genuinely attributable to “germane” activities. The District Court granted the motion to amend on August 2,1993. The pilots’ original facial, challenges to the agency-shop clause were later resolved in the Union’s favor on summary judgment (a matter the pilots did not contest on appeal). Thus, the challenge to the 1992 agency-fee calculation is the only claim before us.
Under ALPA’s “Policies and Procedures Applicable to Agency Fees,” pilots who object to the fee calculation may request arbitration under procedures the American Arbitration Association (AAA) devised to resolve such disputes. Id., at 69-70. One hundred seventy-four Delta pilots filed timely objections with the Union after receiving the 1992 SGNE. ALPA treated those objections as requests for arbitration and referred them to the AAA. On October 15, 1993, the AAA appointed an arbitrator to resolve the objections in a single, consolidated proceeding.
The objectors included 91 of the 153 pilots who are respondents here. (The other 62 respondents intervened in the lawsuit but were not parties to the arbitration.) Preferring to pursue then’ challenges to ALPA’s agency-fee calculation in the context of their ongoing federal-court action, the respondent-objectors asked the AAA to suspend the arbitration. The AAA referred that request to the arbitrator, who declined to defer to the federal-court litigation. Id., at 106. After the District Court denied a motion to enjoin the arbitration, id., at 111-114, respondents’ counsel entered a “conditional appearance” in the arbitral proceedings. The arbitrator held hearings in January, February, and March 1994. He ultimately sustained the Union’s agency-fee calculation in substantial part, although he concluded that “nongermane” expenses made up 21.49 percent of the union’s budget, not 19 percent as the Union had determined. App. to Pet. for Cert. 71a-115a, 158a-161a.
After the arbitrator issued his decision, ALPA moved for summary judgment in the federal-court action. Granting the motion, the District Court concluded that pilots seeking to challenge the Union’s agency-fee calculation must exhaust arbitral remedies before proceeding in court. Id., at 26a-Ela. Accordingly, the court held, the 62 respondents who did not join the arbitration were bound by the arbitrator’s decision. Id., at 32a. The other 91 respondents, the District Court ruled, qualified for dear-error review of the arbitrator’s factfindings and de novo review of all legal issues. Id., at 31a. Determining that the arbitrator had committed no error of law or clear error of fact, the court sustained his decision.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. 108 F. 3d 1415 (1997). That court found “no legal basis” for requiring objectors to arbitrate agency-fee challenges unless they had agreed to do so (as respondents had not). Id., at 1421 (emphasis deleted). It therefore concluded that “the arbitrator’s decision [was] no longer a part of the legal picture,” and for that reason the case “must be remanded.” Id., at 1422. We granted certiorari, 522 U. S. 991 (1997), limited to the question whether an objector must exhaust a union-provided arbitration process before bringing an agency-fee challenge in federal court, a matter on which the Courts of Appeals have reached differing conclusions.
II
A
Because Delta is a “common carrier by air engaged in interstate or foreign commerce,” 45 U. S. C. § 181, the RLA governs its bargaining relationship -with ALFA. Section 2, Eleventh, of the RLA allows employers and unions to conclude agency-shop agreements. The statutory authorization for such agreements aims to resolve the problem of “free riders — employees in the bargaining unit on whose behalf the union [is] obliged to perform its statutory functions, but who refus[e] to contribute to the cost thereof.” Ellis v. Railway Clerks, 466 U. S. 435, 447 (1984). Under agency-shop arrangements, nonmembers must pay their fair share of union expenditures "necessarily or reasonably incurred for the purpose of performing the duties of an exclusive representative of the employees in dealing with the employer on labor-management issues.” Id., at 448. To avoid constitutional questions that might arise were we to adopt a contrary interpretation of the RLA, however, we have held that costs unrelated to those representative duties may not be imposed on objecting employees. See id., at 448-455; see also Railway . Clerks v. Allen, 373 U. S. 113, 121 (1963) (§2, Eleventh, distinguishes between “the union’s political expenditures,” to which nonmembers may not be compelled to contribute, and expenditures “germane to collective bargaining,” to which they may); Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740, 768-769 (1961) (“§2, Eleventh is to be construed to deny the unions, over an employee’s objection, the power to use his exacted funds to support political causes which he opposes”); see also Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735, 762-763 (1988) (same limitations apply under NLRA).
A similar rule — based explicitly on the Constitution — applies to public-sector employment. In Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209, 232 (1977), we upheld the constitutionality of agency-shop agreements made by government employers with their workers’ exclusive bargaining representatives. As the Court explained, imposition of agency fees under the RLA “is constitutionally justified by the legislative assessment of the important contribution of the union shop to the system of labor relations established by Congress,” and “[t]he same important government interests . . . presumptively support” agency-shop arrangements in the public sector. Id., at 222, 225.
The agency fees assessed from nonmembers, we said in Abood, may be “used to finance expenditures by the Union for the purposes of collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.” Id., at 225-226. We cautioned, however, in view of the presence of state action, that objecting employees have a First Amendment right to “prevent the Union's spending a part of their required service fees to contribute to political candidates and to express political views unrelated to its duties as exclusive bargaining representative.” Id., at 234. In Leknert v. Ferris Faculty Assn., 500 U. S. 507, 519 (1991), we relied on both public-sector and RLA eases to hold that agency fees assessed by public-employee unions “must (1) be ‘germane’ to collective-bargaining activity; (2) be justified by the government’s vital policy interest in labor peace and avoiding ‘free riders’; and (3) not significantly add to the burdening of free speech that is inherent in the allowance of an agency or union shop.”
In Hudson, a public-sector ease, we held that the First Amendment required unions and employers to provide procedural protections for nonunion workers who object to the calculation of the agency fee. Three safeguards, we declared, are essential to “minimize the infringement” on nonmembers’ rights and provide workers with “a fair opportunity to identify the impact of [the agency-fee assessment] on [their] interests,” Hudson, 475 U. S., at 308: Employees must receive “sufficient information to gauge the propriety of the union’s fee,” id., at 306; the union must give objectors “a reasonably prompt opportunity to challenge the amount of the fee before an impartial decisionmaker,” id., at 310; and any amount of the objector’s fee “reasonably in dispute” must be held in escrow while the challenge is pending, ibid.
B
The Court of Appeals held that Hudson’s procedural requirements transfer fully to employment relations governed by the RLA, 108 F. 3d, at 1419, and the parties have not challenged that determination. We therefore turn directly to the question presented: When a union adopts an arbitration process to comply with Hudson’s “impartial decision-maker” requirement, must agency-fee objectors pursue and exhaust the .arbitral, remedy before challenging the union’s calculation in a federal-court action?
In his concurring opinion in Hudson, Justice White (joined by Chief Justice Burger) answered that question “yes.” He stated: “[I]f the union provides for arbitration and complies with the other requirements specified in our opinion, it should be entitled to insist that the arbitration procedure be exhausted before resorting to the courts.” 475 U. S., at 311. The Court’s opinion did not comment on that unelaborated assertion, however, so the issue remains live for. the decision we now reach. The Court of Appeals recognized that “Justice White raised a legitimate practical concern,” but found “no legal basis for forcing into arbitration a party who never agreed to put his dispute over federal law to such a process.” 108 F. 3d, at 1421 (emphasis in original). We agree, and decline to read Hudson as a decision that protects nonunion members at a cost — delayed access to federal court — they do not wish to pay.
ALPA urges extension of the discretionary exhaustion-of-remedies doctrine to agency-fee arbitration. See Brief for Petitioner 19 (citing McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U. S. 140, 144 (1992) (“[WJhere Congress has not clearly required exhaustion, sound judicial discretion governs.”)). But a principal purpose of that doctrine is not relevant here. “[Tjhe exhaustion doctrine recognizes the notion, grounded in deference to Congress’ delegation of authority to coordinate branches of Government, that agencies, not the courts, ought to have primary responsibility for the programs that Congress has charged them to administer.” Id., at 145. ALPA seeks exhaustion not of an administrative remedy established by Congress but of an arbitral remedy established by a private party. Ordinarily, "arbitration is a matter of contract and a party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which he has not agreed so to submit.” Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 363 U. S. 574, 582 (1960); see also First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U. S. 938, 942 (1995) (“a party who has not agreed to arbitrate will normally have a right to a court’s decision about the merits of its dispute”).
The Union, it is true, acted to comply with this Court’s decision in Hudson rather than out of its own unconstrained choice. But Hudson’s requirement of "a reasonably prompt decision by an impartial decisionmaker,” 475 U. S., at 307, aims to protect the interest of objectors by affording them access to a neutral forum in which their objections can be resolved swiftly; nothing in our decision purports to compel objectors to pursue that remedy. See ibid. (“The nonunion employee, whose First Amendment rights are affected by the agency shop itself and who bears the burden of objecting, is entitled to have his objections addressed in an expeditious, fair, and objective manner.”). Indeed, Hudson’s emphasis on the need for a speedy remedy weighs against exhaustion, even through an arbitration procedure intended to be expeditious, as an essential prerequisite to federal-court consideration of nonmember challenges. See McCarthy, 503 U. S., at 146 (“[A]dministrative remedies need not be pursued if the litigant’s interests in immediate judicial review outweigh the government’s interests in the efficiency or administrative autonomy that the exhaustion doctrine is designed to further.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We resist reading Hudson in a manner that might frustrate its very purpose, to advance the swift, fair, and final settlement of objectors’ rights.
Against these concerns, ALPA stresses the asserted efficiency gains of requiring objectors to proceed to arbitration first. The Union asserts: “It is difficult to conceive how a court could fairly try an agency-fee dispute ab initio, given that the plaintiffs who challenge an agency-fee calculation are not required to state any grounds whatsoever for their challenge.” Reply Brief 6-7. Arbitration, in ALPA’s view, will serve a useM, if not essential, role in defining the scope of the dispute. See Brief for Petitioner 21-23; Reply Brief 4-7.
ALPA overstates the difficulties of holding a federal-court hearing without a preparatory arbitration. We have held that “the nonunion employee has the burden of raising an objection, but that the union retains the burden of proof.” Hudson, 475 U. S., at 306. And when pursuing the union’s internal remedies, an objector may preserve the right to subsequent judicial relief without “indieat[ing] to the Union the specific expenditures to which he objects.” Abood, 431 U. S., at 241 (emphasis in original). In stating that the “nonmember’s ‘burden’ is simply the obligation to make his objection known,” Hudson, 475 U. S., at 306, n. 16, however, we did not hold that a federal-court plaintiff can file a generally phrased complaint, then sit back and require the union to prove the “germaneness” of its expenditures without a clue as to “which of its thousands of expenditures” the objectors oppose. Reply Brief 4. Agency-fee challengers, like all other civil litigants, must make their objections known with the degree of specificity appropriate at each stage of litigation their case reaches: motion to dismiss; motion for summary judgment; pretrial conference.
The very purpose of Hudson’s notice requirement is to provide employees sufficient information to enable them to identify the expenditures that, in their view, the union has improperly classified as germane. See 475 U. S., at 306-307. With the Hudson notice, plus any additional information developed through reasonable discovery, an objector can be expected to point to the expenditures or classes of expenditures he or she finds questionable. Although the union must establish that those expenditures were in fact germane, the shifted burden of proof provides no warrant for blocking dissenting employees from bringing their claims in federal court in the first instance, if that is their preference. The answer to ALPA’s efficiency concern lies in conscientious management of-the pretrial process to guard against abuse, not in a judicially imposed exhaustion requirement.
Moreover, the degree to which an exhaustion requirement would reduce the burden on the courts is uncertain. To the extent that the arbitrator does not sustain an objection to the union’s fee calculation, exhaustion would require the objector to traverse two layers of procedure rather than one. Furthermore, if the union’s arbitration process in fact operates to provide an inexpensive, swift, and sure remedy for agency-fee errors, dissenting employees may avail themselves of that process even if not required to do so. Cf. Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 513, n. 15 (1982) (under a “ 'free market’ system” of no required exhaustion, "litigants are free to pursue administrative remedies if they truly appear to be cheaper, more efficient, and more effective”).
The Union may, nonetheless, face the prospect of defending its fee calculation simultaneously in judicial and arbitral fora. We note that unions do not lack means to limit the expense and disruption occasioned by multiple fee challenges: objections may be consolidated for consideration in a single arbitration, for example, and agency-fee litigation may be consolidated in a single district court. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 1404, 1407. But genuine as the Union’s interest in avoiding multiple proceedings may be, that interest does not overwhelm objectors’ resistance to arbitration to which they did not consent, and their election to proceed immediately to court for adjudication of their federal rights. We hold that, unless they agree to the procedure, ageney-fee objectors may not be required to exhaust an arbitration remedy before bringing their claims in federal court.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is
Affirmed.
Compare Lancaster v. Air Line Pilots Assn. Int’l, 76 P. 3d 1509, 1522 (CA10 1996) (exhaustion of arbitral remedy required), with Knight v. Kenai Peninsula Borough School Dist., 131 F. 3d 807, 816 (CA9 1997) (exhaustion not required), and Bromley v. Michigan Ed. Assn.-NEA, 82 F. 3d 686, 694 (CA6 1996) (same).
The RLA, §2, Eleventh, as added by 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U. S. C. §152, Eleventh, provides in pertinent part:
"Notwithstanding any other provisions of this chapter, or of any other statute or law of the United States, or Territory thereof, or of any State, any carrier or carriers as defined in* this chapter and a labor organization or labor organizations duly designated and authorized to represent employees in accordance with the requirements of this chapter shall be permitted—
“(a) to make agreements, requiring, as a condition of continued employment, that within sixty days following the beginning of such employment, or the effective date of such agreements, whichever is the later, all employees shall become members of the labor organization representing their craft or class: Provided, That no such agreement shall require such condition of employment with respect to employees to whom membership is not available upon the same terms and conditions as are generally applicable to any other member or with respect to employees to whom membership was denied or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.”
See Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Assn., 500 U. S. 507, 516 (1991) (“[T]he RLA cases necessarily provide some guidance regarding what the First Amendment will countenance in the realm of union support of political activities through mandatory assessments.”); id., at 555 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (“good reason to treat” statutory agency-fee cases as reflecting First Amendment principles articulated in Abood). But cf. Price v. International Union, UAW, 927 F. 2d 88, 92 (CA2 1991) (Hudson’s “heightened procedural safeguards” do not apply to agency-fee cases involving private employers governed by the NLRA).
Amiens National Education Association (NEA) argues that the question before us is one not of exhaustion but of ripeness. Illegality depends on the spending of compelled agency fees for ideological purposes, NEA maintains, not simply the initial collection of those fees; hence, an objector has no basis for filing suit until the arbitrator has ruled and the disputed amounts are released from escrow. See Brief for National Education Association as Amicus Curiae 18-20. Petitioner, in its reply brief, endorses NEA’s argument. See Reply Brief 16-17. The contention, however, is inconsistent with Teachers v. Hudson, 475 U. S. 292 (1986). There, we rejected the union's position that "because a 100% escrow completely avoids the risk that dissenters' contributions could be used improperly, it eliminates any valid constitutional objection to the procedure and thereby provides an adequate remedy.” Id., at 809. We held that even if the entire agency fee remained in escrow throughout arbitration, objectors (who are deprived of the use of what may be their property pending the outcome of the dispute) had an independent, enforceable interest in the prompt and proper resolution of their objections.
Inevitably limiting the utility of exhaustion in relieving the courts of the task of adjudicating agency-fee disputes is the nonbinding character of Hudson arbitration, a characteristic on which the dissent centrally relies. See post, at 880, 881, 882, 883-885.
Our recognition of the right of objectors to proceed directly to court does not detract from district courts’ discretion to defer discovery or other proceedings pending the prompt conclusion of arbitration. See, e. g., Landis v. North American Co., 299 U. S. 248, 254-255 (1936) (“[T]he power to stay proceedings is incidental to the power inherent in every court to control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants. How this can best be done calls for the exercise of judgment, which must weigh competing interests and maintain an even balance.”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before the Court is whether a district court order denying a claim by a State or a state entity to Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court may be appealed under the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949). We conclude that it may.
I
Petitioner, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), is “an autonomous government instrumentality” which functions to “provide to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico an adequate drinking water, sanitary sewage service and any other service or facility proper or incidental thereto.” P. R. Laws Ann., Tit. 22, §§ 142,144 (1987). In 1985, PRASA entered into a consent decree with the federal Environmental Protection Agency under which it agreed to upgrade many of its wastewater treatment plants to ensure compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. PRASA subsequently contracted with respondent, a private engineering firm incorporated in Delaware, to assist it with this task. In 1990, PRASA withheld payments on the contract in light of alleged overcharging by respondent. Respondent brought a diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, alleging breach of contract and damage to its business reputation.
PRASA moved to dismiss on the grounds that it was an “arm of the State,” and that the Eleventh Amendment therefore prohibited the suit. The District Court found that petitioner did not qualify for immunity “because of its ability to raise funds for payment of its contractual obligations which do not affect the Commonwealth’s funds” and denied the motion. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-9. PRASA filed a timely notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and sought to stay proceedings while the appeal was pending. The court denied the stay and subsequently dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction, 945 F. 2d 10, 14 (1991), concluding that First Circuit precedent barred both States and their agencies from taking an immediate appeal on a claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity. Id., at 12 (discussing Libby v. Marshall, 833 F. 2d 402 (CA1 1987)).
In light of the conflict between the decision below and those of the other Courts of Appeals that have considered the issue, we granted certiorari. 503 U. S. 918 (1992).
H — I
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1291 provides for appeal from “final decisions of the district courts.” Appeal is thereby precluded “from any decision which is tentative, informal or incomplete,” as well as from any “fully consummated decisions, where they are but steps towards final judgment in which they will merge.” Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S., at 546. Nevertheless, a judgment that is not the complete and final judgment in a case will be immediately appealable if it
“fall[s] in that small class which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.” Ibid.
Thus, in Cohen itself, the Court held that appeal could be taken from a district court order denying the defendant’s motion to compel the plaintiffs in a shareholder derivative suit to post a bond. The Court found the order appealable because it “did not make any step toward final disposition of the merits of the case and [would] not be merged in final judgment” and because, after final judgment, it would “be too late effectively to review the present order, and the rights conferred by the [bond] statute, if it is applicable, will have been lost.” Ibid.
The Court has held that orders denying individual officials’ claims of absolute and qualified immunity are among those that fall within the ambit of Cohen. See Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731 (1982); Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511 (1985). Mitchell bears particularly on the present case. There, the Attorney General of the United States appealed from a District Court order denying his motion to dismiss on grounds of qualified immunity. The Court of Appeals held that the order was not appealable and remanded the case for trial. We reversed, holding that the order denying qualified immunity was a collateral order immediately appealable under Cohen. We found that, absent immediate appeal, the central benefits of qualified immunity — avoiding the costs and general consequences of subjecting public officials to the risks of discovery and trial — would be forfeited, much as the benefit of the bond requirement would have been forfeited in Cohen. “The entitlement is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.” Mitchell, supra, at 526 (emphasis in original).
Petitioner maintains, and we agree, that the same rationale ought to apply to claims of Eleventh Amendment immunity made by States and state entities possessing a claim to share in that immunity. Under the terms of the Amendment, “[t]he Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State . . . .” This withdrawal of jurisdiction effectively confers an immunity from suit. Thus, “this Court has consistently held that an unconsenting State is immune from suits brought in federal courts by her own citizens as well as by citizens of another State.” Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 662-663 (1974). Absent waiver, neither a State nor agencies acting under its control may “be subject to suit in federal court.” Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U. S. 468, 480 (1987) (plurality opinion); see also Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 66 (1989); Cory v. White, 457 U. S. 85, 90-91 (1982); Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U. S. 781 (1978) (per curiam); Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 280 (1977).
Once it is established that a State and its “arms” are, in effect, immune from suit in federal court, it follows that the elements of the Cohen collateral order doctrine are satisfied. “To come within the ‘small class’ of . . . Cohen, the order must [1] conclusively determine the disputed question, [2] resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and [3] be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 468 (1978) (footnote omitted). Denials of States’ and state entities’ claims to Eleventh Amendment immunity purport to be conclusive determinations that they have no right not to be sued in federal court. Moreover, a motion by a State or its agents to dismiss on Eleventh Amendment grounds involves a claim to a fundamental constitutional protection, cf. Lauro Lines s.r.l. v. Chasser, 490 U. S. 495, 502-503 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring), whose resolution generally will have no bearing on the merits of the underlying action. Finally, the value to the States of their Eleventh Amendment immunity, like the benefit conferred by qualified immunity to individual officials, is for the most part lost as litigation proceeds past motion practice.
Respondent, following the rationale of the First Circuit in this case and in Libby v. Marshall, 833 F. 2d 402 (1987), maintains that the Eleventh Amendment does not confer immunity from suit, but merely a defense to liability. Were this true, petitioner arguably would not be entitled to avail itself of the collateral order doctrine. See, e. g., Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U. S. 517, 526-527 (1988). Support for this narrow view of the Eleventh Amendment is drawn mainly from Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), under which suits seeking prospective, but not compensatory or other retrospective relief, may be brought against state officials in federal court challenging the constitutionality of official conduct enforcing state law.
The doctrine of Ex parte Young, which ensures that state officials do not employ the Eleventh Amendment as a means of avoiding compliance with federal law, is regarded as carving out a necessary exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity. See, e. g., Green v. Mansour, 474 U. S. 64, 68 (1985). Moreover, the exception is narrow: It applies only to prospective relief, does not permit judgments against state officers declaring that they violated federal law in the past, id., at 73, and has no application in suits against the States and their agencies, which are barred regardless of the relief sought, Cory v. White, supra. Rather than defining the nature of Eleventh Amendment immunity, Young and its progeny render the Amendment wholly inapplicable to a certain class of suits. Such suits are deemed to be against officials and not the States or their agencies, which retain their immunity against all suits in federal court.
More generally, respondent’s claim that the Eleventh Amendment confers only protection from liability misunderstands the role of the Amendment in our system of federalism: “The very object and purpose of the 11th Amendment were to prevent the indignity of subjecting a State to the coercive process of judicial tribunals at the instance of private parties.” In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 505 (1887). The Amendment is rooted in a recognition that the States, although a union, maintain certain attributes of sovereignty, including sovereign immunity. See Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1, 13 (1890). It thus accords the States the respect owed them as members of the federation. While application of the collateral order doctrine in this type of case is justified in part by a concern that States not be unduly burdened by litigation, its ultimate justification is the importance of ensuring that the States’ dignitary interests can be fully vindicated.
Respondent argues in the alternative that a distinction should be drawn between cases in which the determination of a State or state agency’s claim to Eleventh Amendment immunity is bound up with factual complexities whose resolution requires trial and cases in which it is not. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 30-32; cf. Dube v. State University of New York, 900 F. 2d 587, 594 (CA2 1990) (immediate appeal will lie where immunity can be found as a matter of law), cert. denied, 501 U. S. 1211 (1991). On this view, for example, an order denying a motion to dismiss a suit against a named State would be immediately appealable, whereas the same order, when issued in a suit which presents difficult factual questions as to whether an agency is an “arm of the State,” would not. We see little basis for drawing such a line. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S., at 527-529, and n. 10. In any event, it does not appear to us that the determination of PRASA’s status under the Eleventh Amendment implicates any extraordinary factual difficulty and the issue of its entitlement to immunity can be fully explored in the Court of Appeals on remand.
m
We hold that States and state entities that claim to be “arms of the State” may take advantage of the collateral order doctrine to appeal a district court order denying a claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
As the case comes to us, the law of the First Circuit — that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is treated as a State for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment, see Ramirez v. Puerto Rico Fire Serv., 715 F. 2d 694, 697 (1983)-is not challenged here, and we express no view on this matter. Because the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal on jurisdictional grounds, it did “not consider the merits of PRASA's Eleventh Amendment defense and [took] no view as to whether PRASA is actually entitled to the claimed immunity.” 945 F. 2d 10, 14, n. 6 (CA1 1991). We likewise express no view on the merits of the immunity claim.
See Dube v. State University of New York, 900 F. 2d 587, 594 (CA2 1990), cert. denied, 501 U. S. 1211 (1991); Coakley v. Welch, 877 F 2d 304, 306 (CA4), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 976 (1989); Chrissy F. v. Mississippi Dept. of Pub. Welfare, 925 F 2d 844, 848-849 (CA5 1991); Kroll v. Board of Trustees of University of Illinois, 934 F. 2d 904, 906 (CA7), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 941 (1991); Barnes v. Missouri, 960 F. 2d 63, 64 (CA8 1992) (per curiam); Durning v. Citibank, N. A., 950 F. 2d 1419, 1422 (CA9 1991); Schopler v. Bliss, 903 F 2d 1373, 1377 (CA11 1990) (per curiam).
The District Court also denied absolute immunity. This order was held appealable by the Court of Appeals and was affirmed, as it was by us. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S., at 520.
The result reached today was largely anticipated by Ex parte New York, 256 U. S. 490 (1921). There, private citizens brought an in rem libel action in Federal District Court against ships chartered and operated by New York State. New York moved to dismiss on the ground that the action was in the nature of an in personam proceeding and was thus barred by the Eleventh Amendment. When the District Court denied the motion, the State applied to the Court for a writ of prohibition. Although noting that the State’s interest could be pressed on appeal, id., at 497, the Court issued the extraordinary writ in order to vindicate fully the "fundamental” constitutional rule that a State may not be sued in federal court without its consent, id., at 497, 503.
For this reason, the First Circuit’s attempt to distinguish Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511 (1985), on the grounds that the States, as compared to individual officials, are better able to bear the burden of litigation, fails. See Libby v. Marshall, 833 F. 2d 402, 406 (1987). The Eleventh Amendment is concerned not only with the States’ ability to withstand suit, but with their privilege not to be sued.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Frankfurter
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which
Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice Rutledge join.
Our ruling in Watts v. Indiana, ante, p. 49, is decisive of the present case. It is also a capital case in which the petitioner claims that his conviction for first-degree murder resulted from the use of incriminatory-statements obtained under circumstances which should have barred their admission. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in affirming the conviction, rejected this claim. 358 Pa. 350, 58 A. 2d 61. We brought the case here to measure against the requirements of due process the circumstances giving rise to the claim. 334 U. S. 858. Again we take conflicts of testimony as they were resolved by the State’s adjudication.
For six months the Philadelphia police had been investigating the felonious death of one Frank Andres. At 10:30 in the morning of June 3, 1946, they arrested Aaron Turner, the petitioner, on suspicion of the homicide and took him to the office of the Homicide Division at the City Hall Building. The officers making the arrest had no warrant and did not tell the petitioner why he was being arrested. These officers began to question the petitioner as soon as they reached the City Hall police station. One of them examined the petitioner for three hours on that afternoon and again that night from eight to eleven o’clock. From time to time other officers joined in the interrogation. Petitioner persistently denied any knowledge of the murder.
The next morning, June 4, the petitioner was booked on the police records as being held for questioning. Later that day he was questioned for about four hours more. On June 5 he was interrogated for another four hours and on the 6th for day and night sessions totaling six hours. The questioning was conducted sometimes by one officer and at other times by several working together; it appears, in fact, that whenever one of the police officers interested in the investigation had any free time he would have the petitioner brought from his cell for questioning.
On June 7, the day when a confession was finally obtained, questioning began in the afternoon and continued for three hours. Later that day the officers who had been present during the afternoon returned with others to resume the examination of petitioner. Despite the fact that he was falsely told that other suspects had “opened up” on him, petitioner repeatedly denied guilt. But finally, at about eleven o’clock, petitioner stated that he had killed the person for whose murder he was later arraigned. At nine o’clock the following morning the same police officers started to reduce his statement to writing, interrupted this process to bring him for a preliminary hearing before a magistrate sitting in the same building, and returned to the transcript of his statement which was completed by about noon.
The petitioner was not permitted to see friends or relatives during the entire period of custody; he was not informed of his right to remain silent until after he had been under the pressure of a long process of interrogation and had actually yielded to it. With commendable candor the district attorney admitted that a hearing was withheld until interrogation had produced confession. The delay of five days thus accounted for was in violation of a Pennsylvania statute which requires that arrested persons be given a prompt preliminary hearing.
At the trial, petitioner objected to the introduction of his statement on the ground that it was the product of police conduct of a nature condemned by our previous cases. The trial judge overruled petitioner’s objection to the use of the confession but told the jury to disregard it if they found it to have been involuntary. He also told them that it was common sense “not [to] send them [suspects] to the magistrate before you have sufficient information to hold an alleged culprit for the Grand Jury.” He refused to charge that in considering the voluntariness of the confession the prolonged interrogation should be considered.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty and recommended the death penalty. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the conviction in an opinion stressing the probable guilt of the petitioner and assuming that the alternatives before it were either to approve the conduct of the police or to turn the petitioner “loose upon [society] after he has confessed his guilt.” 358 Pa. at 367.
Putting this case beside the considerations set forth in our opinion in Watts v. Indiana, ante, p. 49, leaves open no other possible conclusion than that petitioner’s confession was obtained under circumstances which made its use at the trial a denial of due process. We must, accordingly, reverse the judgment and remand the case.'
There remains, however, an additional complication. The police arrested two other men, Johnson and Lofton, who were suspected as co-principals with Turner in the Andres murder. These two also made confessions involving Turner as well as themselves. Turner signed their confessions and they were introduced against him at the trial. Since a new trial is called for, issues raised by these confessions call for notice.
Clearly the same considerations that bar admission of the confession by Turner made over his own name extend to his contemporaneous adoption of the Johnson and Lofton confessions. But these statements may be introduced not as his own confessions but as confessions by co-principals. In that event Pennsylvania may, as a matter of local evidentiary law, hold that the hearsay rule requires the exclusion of statements by co-principals not on trial. Assuming, however, that as a matter of local law these statements are admissible, there would then arise the question whether under the Fourteenth Amendment a coerced statement may be excluded on objection of one not coerced into making it. At this stage, however, this is a wholly hypothetical question which, as a constitutional issue, we ought not hypothetically to answer. We could not answer it, in any event, without knowledge that Johnson’s and Lofton’s confessions were also coerced, and the facts necessary to that determination are not before us.
Such other contentions as the use of statements made' at a magistrate’s hearing when the accused had no counsel may be disposed of by Pennsylvania cases, or for other reasons may fail to arise on retrial of the case. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Lenousky, 206 Pa. 277, 55 A. 977, cited with approval in Commonwealth v. Westwood, 324 Pa. 289, 188 A. 304.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black concurs in the judgment on the authority of Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143.
On the record before us and in view of the consideration given to the evidence by the state courts and the conclusion reached, The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Burton believe that the judgment should be affirmed.
[See ante, p. 57, for opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson, concurring in the result in No. 610, Watts v. Indiana, ante, p. 49, and dissenting in this case and in No. 76, Harris v. South Carolina, post, p. 68.]
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
When a taxpayer overpays his taxes, he is generally entitled to interest from the Government for the period between the payment and the ultimate refund. See 26 U.S.C. § 6611(a). That interest begins to run "from the date of overpayment." §§ 6611(b)(1), (b)(2). But the Code does not define "the date of overpayment."
In this case, after the Internal Revenue Service advised Ford Motor Company that it had underpaid its taxes from 1983 until 1989, Ford remitted a series of deposits to the IRS totaling $875 million. Those deposits stopped the accrual of interest that Ford would otherwise owe once the audits were completed and the amount of its underpayment was finally determined. See § 6601, Rev. Proc. 84-58, 1984-2 Cum. Bull. 501. Later, Ford requested that the IRS treat the deposits as advance payments of the additional tax that Ford owed. Eventually the parties determined that Ford had overpaid its taxes in the relevant years, thereby entitling Ford to a return of the overpayment as well as interest. But the parties disagreed about when the interest began to run under 26 U.S.C. § 6611(b)(1). Ford argued that "the date of overpayment" was the date that it first remitted the deposits to the IRS. Ibid. The Government countered that the date of overpayment was the date that Ford requested that the IRS treat the remittances as payments of tax. The difference between the parties' competing interpretations of § 6611(b) is worth some $445 million.
Ford sued the Government in Federal District Court, asserting jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(1). The Government did not contest the court's jurisdiction. See Brief in Opposition 3, n. 3. The District Court accepted the Government's construction of § 6611(b) and granted its motion for judgment on the pleadings. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, concluding that § 6611 is a waiver of sovereign immunity that must be construed strictly in favor of the Government. 508 Fed.Appx. 506 (2012).
Ford sought certiorari, arguing that the Sixth Circuit was wrong to give § 6611 a strict construction. In Ford's view, it is 28 U.S.C. § 1346-not § 6611-that waives the Government's immunity from this suit, and § 6611(b) is a substantive provision that should not be construed strictly. SeeGómez-Pérez v. Potter, 553 U.S. 474, 491, 128 S.Ct. 1931, 170 L.Ed.2d 887 (2008); United States v. White Mountain Apache Tribe, 537 U.S. 465, 472-473, 123 S.Ct. 1126, 155 L.Ed.2d 40 (2003). In its response to Ford's petition for certiorari, however, the Government contended for the first time that § 1346(a)(1) does not apply at all to this suit; it argues that the only basis for jurisdiction, and "the only general waiver of sovereign immunity that encompasses [Ford's] claim," is the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a). Brief in Opposition 3, n. 3. Although the Government acquiesced in jurisdiction in the lower courts, if the Government is now correct that the Tucker Act applies to this suit, jurisdiction over this case was proper only in the United States Court of Federal Claims. See § 1491(a).
This Court "is one of final review, 'not of first view.' " FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 529, 129 S.Ct. 1800, 173 L.Ed.2d 738 (2009) (quoting Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718, n. 7, 125 S.Ct. 2113, 161 L.Ed.2d 1020 (2005)). The Sixth Circuit should have the first opportunity to consider the Government's new contention with respect to jurisdiction in this case. Depending on that court's answer, it may also consider what impact, if any, the jurisdictional determination has on the merits issues, especially whether or not § 6611 is a waiver of sovereign immunity that should be construed strictly.
The petition for certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Sixth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The federal Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. § 921 et seq., has long prohibited possession of a firearm by any person convicted of a felony. In 1996, Congress extended the prohibition to include persons convicted of “a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” § 922(g)(9). The definition of “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” contained in § 921(a)(33)(A), is at issue in this case. Does that term cover a misdemeanor battery whenever the battered victim was in fact the offender’s spouse (or other relation specified in § 921(a)(33)(A))? Or, to trigger the possession ban, must the predicate misdemeanor identify as an element of the crime a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim? We hold that the domestic relationship, although it must be established beyond a reasonable doubt in a § 922(g)(9) firearms possession prosecution, need not be a defining element of the predicate offense.
I
In 2004, law enforcement officers in Marion County, West Virginia, came to the home of Randy Edward Hayes in response to a 911 call reporting domestic violence. Hayes consented to a search of his home, and the officers discovered a rifle. Further investigation revealed that Hayes had recently possessed several other firearms as well. Based on this evidence, a federal grand jury returned an indictment in 2005, charging Hayes, under §§ 922(g)(9) and 924(a)(2), with three counts of possessing firearms after having been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
The indictment identified Hayes’s predicate misdemeanor crime of domestic violence as a 1994 conviction for battery in violation of West Virginia law. The victim of that battery, the indictment alleged, was Hayes’s then-wife — a person who “shared a child in common” with Hayes and “who was cohabitating with ... him as a spouse.” App. 3.
Asserting that his 1994 West Virginia battery conviction did not qualify as a predicate offense under § 922(g)(9), Hayes moved to dismiss the indictment. Section 922(g)(9), Hayes maintained, applies only to persons previously convicted of an offense that has as an element a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim. The West Virginia statute under which he was convicted in 1994, Hayes observed, was a generic battery proscription, not a law designating a domestic relationship between offender and victim as an element of the offense. The United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia rejected Hayes’s argument and denied his motion to dismiss the indictment. 377 F. Supp. 2d 540, 541-542 (2005). Hayes then entered a conditional guilty plea and appealed.
In a 2-to-l decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. A § 922(g)(9) predicate offense, the Court of Appeals held, must “have as an element a domestic relationship between the offender and the victim.” 482 F. 3d 749, 751 (2007). In so ruling, the Fourth Circuit created a split between itself and the nine other Courts of Appeals that had previously published opinions deciding the same question. According to those courts, § 922(g)(9) does not require that the offense predicate to the defendant’s firearm possession conviction have as an element a domestic relationship between offender and victim. We granted certiorari, 552 U. S. 1279 (2008), to resolve this conflict.
II
Section 922(g)(9) makes it “unlawful for any person . . . who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence ... [to] possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition.” Section 921(a)(33)(A) defines “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” as follows:
“[T]he term 'misdemeanor crime of domestic violence’ means an offense that—
“(i) is a misdemeanor under Federal, State, or Tribal law; and
“(ii) has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, committed by a current or former spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is eohabitating with or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse, parent, or guardian, or by a person similarly situated to a spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim.” (Footnote omitted.)
This definition, all agree, imposes two requirements: First, a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” must have, “as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon.” Second, it must be “committed by” a person who has a specified domestic relationship with the victim. The question here is whether the language of § 921(a)(33)(A) calls for a further limitation: Must the statute describing the predicate offense include, as a discrete element, the existence of a domestic relationship between offender and victim? In line with the large majority of the Courts of Appeals, we conclude that § 921(a)(33)(A) does not require a predicate-offense statute of that specificity. Instead, in a § 922(g)(9) prosecution, it suffices for the Government to charge and prove a prior conviction that was, in fact, for “an offense . . . committed by” the defendant against a spouse or other domestic victim.
We note as an initial matter that § 921(a)(33)(A) uses the word “element” in the singular, which suggests that Congress intended to describe only one required element. Immediately following the word “element,” § 921(a)(33)(A)(ii) refers to the use of force (undoubtedly a required element) and thereafter to the relationship between aggressor and victim, e. g.,' a current or former spouse. The manner in which the offender acts, and the offender’s relationship with the victim, are “conceptually distinct attributes.” United States v. Meade, 175 F. 3d 215, 218 (CAI 1999). Had Congress meant to make the latter as well as the former an element of the predicate offense, it likely would have used the plural “elements,” as it has done in other offense-defining provisions. See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 3559(c)(2)(A) (“[T]he term ‘assault with intent to commit rape’ means an offense that has as its elements engaging in physical contact with another person or using or brandishing a weapon against another person with intent to commit aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse.”). Cf. Black’s Law Dictionary 559 (8th ed. 2004) (defining “element” as “[a] constituent part of a claim that must be proved for the claim to succeed <Burke failed to prove the element of proximate cause in prosecuting his negligence claim>”).
Treating the relationship between aggressor and victim as an element of the predicate offense is also awkward as a matter of syntax. It requires the reader to regard “the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon” as an expression modified by the relative clause “committed by.” In ordinary usage, however, we would not say that a person “commit[s]” a “use.” It is more natural to say that a person “commit[s]” an “offense.” See, e. g., United, States v. Belless, 338 F. 3d 1063, 1066 (CA9 2003) (“One can ‘commit’ a crime or an offense, but one does not ‘commit’ ‘force’ or ‘use.’”).
In reaching the conclusion that § 921(a)(33)(A) renders both the use of force and a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim necessary elements of a qualifying predicate offense, the Fourth Circuit majority relied on two textual arguments. First, the court noted that clause (ii) is separated from clause (i) by a line break and a semicolon; in contrast, the components of clause (ii) — force and domestic relationship — are joined in an unbroken word flow. See 482 F. 3d, at 753.
Had Congress placed the “committed by” phrase in its own clause, set off from clause (ii) by a semicolon or a line break, the lawmakers might have better conveyed that “committed by” modifies only “offense” and not “use” or “element.” Congress’ less-than-meticulous drafting, however, hardly shows that the legislators meant to exclude from § 922(g)(9)’s firearm possession prohibition domestic abusers convicted under generic assault Or battery provisions.
As structured, § 921(a)(33)(A) defines “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” by addressing in clause (i) the meaning of “misdemeanor” and, in turn, in clause (ii), “crime of domestic violence.” Because a “crime of domestic violence” involves both a use of force and a domestic relationship, joining these features together in clause (ii) would make sense even if Congress had no design to confine laws qualifying under § 921(a)(33)(A) to those designating as elements both use of force and domestic relationship between aggressor and victim. See id., at 761 (Williams, J., dissenting). See also United States v. Barnes, 295 F. 3d 1354, 1358-1360, 1361 (CADC 2002) (“The fact that the Congress somewhat awkwardly included the ‘committed by’ phrase in subpart (ii) (instead of adding a subpart (iii)) is not significant in view of the unnatural reading that would result if ‘committed by’ were construed to modify ‘use of force.’”).
A related statutory provision, 25 U. S. C. § 2803(3)(C), indicates that Congress did not ascribe substantive significance to the placement of line breaks and semicolons in 18 U. S. C. § 921 (a)(33)(A). In 2006, Congress amended § 921(a)(33)(A)(i) to include misdemeanors under “[t]ribal law” as predicate offenses. As a companion measure, Congress simultaneously enacted §2803(3)(C), which employs use-of-force and domestic-relationship language virtually identical to the language earlier placed in § 921(a)(33)(A)(i), except that § 2803(3)(C) uses no semicolon or line break.
Section 2803(3)(C) authorizes federal agents to “make an arrest without a warrant for an offense committed in Indian country if — ”
“the offense is a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence . . . and has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, committed by a current or former spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabitating with or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse, parent, or guardian, or by a person similarly situated to a spouse, parent or guardian of the victim . . . .”
At the time Congress enacted § 2803(3)(C), the Courts of Appeals uniformly agreed that § 921(a)(33)(A) did not limit predicate offenses to statutory texts specifying both a use of force and a domestic relationship as offense elements. Congress presumably knew how § 921(a)(33)(A) had been construed, and presumably intended §2803(3)(C) to bear the same meaning. See Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Dabit, 547 U. S. 71, 85-86 (2006) (“[W]hen ‘judicial interpretations have settled the meaning of an existing statutory provision, repetition of the same language in a new statute indicates, as a general matter, the intent to incorporate its . . . judicial interpretations as well.’” (quoting Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U. S. 624, 645 (1998))). Relying on spacing and punctuation to hem in § 921(a)(33)(A), while reading §2803(3)(C) to contain no similar limitation, would create a disjunction between these two provisions that Congress could not have intended.
As a second justification for its construction of § 921(a) (33)(A), the Court of Appeals invoked the “rule of the last antecedent,” under which “a limiting clause or phrase . . . should ordinarily be read as modifying only the noun or phrase that it immediately follows.” Barnhart v. Thomas, 540 U. S. 20, 26 (2003). The words “committed by” immediately follow the use-of-force language, the court observed, and therefore should be read to modify that phrase, not the earlier word “offense.” See 482 F. 3d, at 753-755. The rule of the last antecedent, however, “is not an absolute and can assuredly be overcome by other indicia of meaning.” Barnhart, 540 U. S., at 26.
Applying the rule of the last antecedent here would require us to accept two unlikely premises: that Congress employed the singular “element” to encompass two distinct concepts, and that it adopted the awkward construction “eommi[t] ” a “use. ” See supra, at 421-423. Moreover, as the dissent acknowledges, post, at 433, the last-antecedent rule would render the word “committed” superfluous: Congress could have conveyed the same Tmeaning by referring simply to the “use ... of [physical] force ... by a current or former spouse ....” See Tr. of Oral Arg. 29. “Committed” retains its operative meaning only if it is read to modify “offense.”
Most sensibly read, then, § 921(a)(33)(A) defines “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” as a misdemeanor offense that (1) “has, as an element, the use [of force],” and (2) is committed by a person who has a specified domestic relationship with the victim. To obtain a conviction in a § 922(g)(9) prosecution, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim of the predicate offense was the defendant’s current or former spouse or was related to the defendant in another specified way. But that relationship, while it must be established, need not be denominated an element of the predicate offense.
Ill
Practical considerations strongly support our reading of § 921(a)(33)(A)’s language. Existing felon-in-possession laws, Congress recognized, were not keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers, because “many people who engage in serious spousal or child abuse ultimately are not charged with or convicted of felonies.” 142 Cong. Rec. 22985 (1996) (statement of Sen. Lautenberg). By extending the federal firearm prohibition to persons convicted of “misdemeanor crime[s] of domestic violence,” proponents of §922(g)(9) sought to “close this dangerous loophole.” Id., at 22986.
Construing § 922(g)(9) to exclude the domestic abuser convicted under a generic use-of-force statute (one that does not designate a domestic relationship as an element of the offense) would frustrate Congress’ manifest purpose. Firearms and domestic strife are a potentially deadly combination nationwide. See, e. g., Brief for Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence et al. as Amici Curiae 8-15; Brief for National Network To End Domestic Violence et al. as Amici Curiae 2-8. Yet, as interpreted by the Fourth Circuit, § 922(g)(9) would have been “a dead letter” in some two-thirds of the States from the very moment of its enactment. 482 F. 3d, at 762 (Williams, J., dissenting).
As of 1996, only about one-third of the States had criminal statutes that specifically proscribed domestic violence. See Brief for United States 23, n. 8. Even in those States, domestic abusers were (and are) routinely prosecuted under generally applicable assault or battery laws. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 19. And no statute defining a distinct federal misdemeanor designated as an element of the offense a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim. Yet Congress defined “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” to include “misdemeanor[s] under Federal . . . law.” § 921(a)(33)(A)(i). Given the paucity of state and federal statutes targeting domestic violence, we find it highly improbable that Congress meant to extend § 922(g)(9)’s firearm possession ban only to the relatively few domestic abusers prosecuted under laws rendering a domestic relationship an element of the offense. See Barnes, 295 F. 3d, at 1364 (rejecting the view that “Congress remedied one disparity — between felony and misdemeanor domestic violence convictions — while at the same time creating a new disparity among (and sometimes, within) states”).
The measure that became §§ 922(g)(9) and 921(a)(33)(A), Hayes acknowledges, initially may have had a broadly remedial purpose, see Brief for Respondent 28-29, but the text of the proposal, he maintains, was revised and narrowed while the measure remained in the congressional hopper. The compromise reflected in the text that gained passage, Hayes argues, restricted the legislation to offenses specifically de-' nominating a domestic relationship as a defining element. The changes Hayes identifies, however, do not corroborate his argument.
Congress did revise the language of § 921(a)(33)(A) to spell out the use-of-force requirement. The proposed legislation initially described the predicate domestic-violence offense as a “crime of violence . . . committed by” a person who had a domestic relationship with the victim. 142 Cong. Rec. 5840. The final version replaced the unelaborated phrase “crime of violence” with the phrase “has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon.” This apparently last-minute insertion may help to explain some of the syntactical awkwardness of the enacted language, but it does not evince an intention to convert the “committed by” phrase into a required element of the predicate offense.
Indeed, in a floor statement discussing the revised version of § 922(g)(9), Senator Frank Lautenberg, the sponsor of the provision, observed that a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim often would not be a designated element of the predicate offense:
“[C]onvictions for domestic violence-related crimes often are for crimes, such as assault, that are not explicitly identified as related to domestic violence. Therefore, it will not always be possible for law enforcement authorities to determine from the face of someone’s criminal record whether a particular misdemeanor conviction involves domestic violence, as defined in the new law.” Id., at 26675.
The remarks of a single Senator are “not controlling,” Consumer Product Safety Common v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 118 (1980), but, as Hayes recognizes, the legislative record is otherwise “absolutely silent.” See Tr. of Oral Arg. 32, 35. It contains no suggestion that Congress intended to confine § 922(g)(9) to abusers who had violated statutes rendering the domestic relationship between aggressor and victim an element of the offense.
IV
The rule of lenity, Hayes contends, provides an additional reason to construe §§ 922(g)(9) and 921(a)(33)(A) to apply only to predicate offenses that specify a domestic relationship as an element of the crime. “[T]he touchstone of the rule of lenity is statutory ambiguity.” Bifulco v. United States, 447 U. S. 381, 387 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). We apply the rule “only when, after consulting traditional canons of statutory construction, we are left with an ambiguous statute.” United States v. Shabani, 513 U. S. 10, 17 (1994). Section 921(a)(33)(A)’s definition of “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” we acknowledge, is not a model of the careful drafter’s art. See Barnes, 295 F. 3d, at 1356. But neither is it “grievous[ly] ambigu[ous].” Huddleston v. United States, 415 U. S. 814, 831 (1974). The text, context, purpose, and what little there is of drafting history all point in the same direction: Congress defined “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” to include an offense “committed by” a person who had a specified domestic relationship with the victim, whether or not the misdemeanor statute itself designates the domestic relationship as an element of the crime.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas joins all but Part III of this opinion.
West Virginia's battery statute provides: “[A]ny person [who] unlawfully and intentionally makes physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with the person of another or unlawfully and intentionally causes physical harm to another person, . . . shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” W. Va. Code Ann. §61-2-9(e) (Lexis 2005).
The indictment stated, in relevant part:
“Defendant RANDY EDWARD HAYES’ February 24, 1994 Battery conviction . . . constituted a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence because:
“a. Battery is a misdemeanor under State law in West Virginia;
“b. Battery has, as an element, the use and attempted use of physical force;
“c. Defendant RANDY EDWARD HAYES committed the offense of Battery against the victim:
“i. who was his current spouse; and
“ii. who was a person with whom he shared a child in common; and “iii. who was cohabitating with and had cohabitated with him as a spouse.” App. 2-3 (bold typeface deleted).
See United States v. Heckenliable, 446 F. 3d 1048, 1049 (CA10 2006); United States v. Belless, 338 F. 3d 1063, 1067 (CA9 2003); White v. Department of Justice, 328 F. 3d 1361, 1364-1367 (CA Fed. 2003); United States v. Shelton, 325 F. 3d 553, 562 (CA5 2003); United States v. Kavoukian, 315 F. 3d 139, 142-144 (CA2 2002); United States v. Barnes, 295 F. 3d 1354, 1358-1361 (CADC 2002); United States v. Chavez, 204 F. 3d 1305, 1313-1314 (CA11 2000); United States v. Meade, 175 F. 3d 215, 218-221 (CA1 1999); United States v. Smith, 171 F. 3d 617, 619-621 (CA8 1999).
Hayes observes, see Brief for Respondent 24-25, that Congress has used the singular “element” in defining a “crime of violence” to require both an action (the use of force) and its object (the person of another). See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 16(a) (defining “crime of violence” as “an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another”). Although one might conceive of an action and its object as separate elements, it is unsurprising that Congress would have chosen to denominate “the use of force against another” as a single, undifferentiated element. In contrast, the two requirements set out in § 921(a)(33)(A)(ii) — the use of force and the existence of a specified relationship between aggressor and victim — are not readily conceptualized as a single element.
Invoking the Dictionary Act, Hayes contends that the singular “element” encompasses the plural “elements.” See Brief for Respondent 25. The Dictionary Act provides that, “unless the context indicates otherwise,” “words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things.” 1 U. S. C. § 1. On the rare occasions when we have relied on this rule, doing so was “necessary to carry out the evident intent of the statute.” First Nat. Bank in St. Louis v. Missouri, 263 U. S. 640, 657 (1924). As we explain infra, at 426-429, Hayes’s reading of 18 U. S. C. § 921(a)(33)(A) does not accord with Congress’ aim in extending the gun possession ban.
As the United States points out, the Court of Appeals “itself recognized the flexibility of the rule [of the last antecedent].” Brief for United States 20, n. 7. Under a strict application of the rule, the “committed by” phrase would modify only its immediate antecedent, i. e., “the threatened use of a deadly weapon,” and not the entire phrase “use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon.” The court rightly regarded such a reading as implausible. See 482 F. 3d 749, 755 (CA4 2007).
We find it not at all “surprising” — indeed, it seems to us “most natural” — to read § 921(a)(33)(A) to convey that a person convicted of battering a spouse or other domestic victim has committed a “crime of domestic violence,” whether or not the statute of conviction happens to contain a domestic-relationship element. Cf. post, at 431.
Additional States have enacted such statutes since 1996, but about one-half of the States still prosecute domestic violence exclusively under generally applicable criminal laws. See Brief for United States 23-24, and n. 9.
Generally, as in this case, it would entail no “‘elaborate factfinding process,’ ” post, at 436, to determine whether the victim of a violent assault was the perpetrator’s “current or former spouse” or bore one of the other domestic relationships specified in §.921(a)(33)(A)(ii) to the perpetrator.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 judgments are reversed. Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U. S. 454.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice White 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.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case concerns the scope of judicial review of the Attorney General’s failure to interpose a timely objection under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to a change in the voting laws of a jurisdiction subject to that Act.
I
The events leading up to this litigation date back to November 11, 1971, when South Carolina enacted Act 932 reapportioning the State Senate. South Carolina promptly submitted Act 932 to the Attorney General of the United States for preclearance review pursuant to § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V). That section forbids States subject to the Act to implement any change in “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” without first (i) obtaining a declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia that the proposed change “does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color,” or (ii) submitting the change to the Attorney General and receiving no objection within 60 days. While the Attorney General had Act 932 under review, several suits were filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina challenging that Act as violative of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and seeking to enjoin its enforcement until preclearance had been obtained under § 5. The cases were consolidated and a three-judge District Court was convened.
On March 6, 1972, the Attorney General interposed an objection to Act 932. Although the South Carolina District Court was aware of this objection — an objection that, standing alone, would have justified an injunction against enforcement of the Act — the court proceeded to address the constitutional validity of the reapportionment plan. That court rejected the Fifteenth Amendment claim for lack of evidence that Act 932 was racially motivated, but held that the Act violated the Fourteenth Amendment due to malapportionment. The court retained jurisdiction and allowed South Carolina 30 days to enact an acceptable substitute reapportionment plan. Twiggs v. West, Civ. No. 71-1106 (SC, Apr. 7, 1972).
On May 6, 1972, a new senate reapportionment plan was enacted into law as § 2 of Act 1205. This new plan was filed with the District Court, and it was submitted to the Attorney General on May 12 for preclearance review. On May 23 the District Court found the plan constitutional. By letter dated June 30, the Attorney General notified South Carolina that he would not interpose an objection to the new plan because he felt “constrained to defer to the . . . determination of the three-judge District Court” in Twiggs v. West, supra. App. 48. Thus, as of June 30, 1972, § 2 of Act 1205 had been declared constitutional by a three-judge District Court, and the Attorney General had declined to interpose an objection under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Not content with the Attorney General’s decision to defer to the judicial determination of the three-judge District Court, several of the named plaintiffs in the consolidated Twiggs action commenced another suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on August 10, 1972, in which they challenged the Attorney General’s failure to object to the new senate reapportionment plan. On May 16, 1973, that court ordered the Attorney General to make “a reasoned decision in accordance with his statutory responsibility.” Harper v. Kleindienst, 362 F. Supp. 742, 746 (1973). In response to this order, the Attorney General stated that in his view the plan violated the Fifteenth Amendment, but he reaffirmed his refusal to interpose an objection on the ground that he was constrained to defer to the ruling of the District Court in Twiggs v. West. App. to Brief for Appellants 4a. On July 19, 1973, the District of Columbia District Court directed the Attorney General to consider Act 1205 without regard to the decision in Twiggs v. West. The next day the Attorney General interposed an objection because he was “unable to conclude that Act No. 1205 does not have the effect of abridging voting rights on account of race.” App. 52.
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. It held that the Attorney General’s decision not to interpose an objection was reviewable under the circumstances of this case, and that § 5 requires him to make an independent determination on the merits of § 5 issues. Harper v. Levi, 171 U. S. App. D. C. 321, 520 F. 2d 53 (1975).
Armed with the decision of the Court of Appeals and the belated objection interposed by the Attorney General, two South Carolina voters filed the present suit in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina as a class action under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. See Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 557-563 (1969). The plaintiffs, appellants here, sought an injunction against implementation of § 2 of Act 1205 on the ground that the Attorney General had interposed an objection and the State had not subsequently obtained a favorable declaratory judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The three-judge District Court convened under § 5 dismissed the complaint. 425 F. Supp. 331 (1976). It held that the doctrine of collateral estoppel did not preclude it from considering South Carolina’s contention that, notwithstanding the decision in Harper v. Levi, supra, the requirements of § 5 were satisfied when the Attorney General failed to interpose an objection within 60 days after submission to him of Act 1205. The District Court also ruled that the Administrative Procedure Act did not authorize judicial review of the Attorney General’s initial determination to defer to the ruling of the three-judge District Court in Twiggs v. West. In light of these considerations, the District Court concluded that the failure of the Attorney General to interpose an objection within the applicable 60-day period left South Carolina free to implement the new senate reapportionment plan.
We noted probable jurisdiction to determine the review-ability of the Attorney General’s failure to interpose a timely objection under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. 429 U. S. 997 (1976). For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
II
The ultimate issue in this case concerns the implementation of South Carolina’s reapportionment plan for the State Senate. Since that plan has not been declared by the District Court for the District of Columbia to be without racially discriminatory purpose or effect, it can be implemented only if the Attorney General “has not interposed an objection” to the plan within the meaning of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. It is conceded that no objection was entered within the 60-day period. 425 F. Supp., at 333. But appellants insist that the Attorney General’s nunc pro tunc objection of July 20, 1973, is effective under the Act and thus bars implementation of the reapportionment plan. Since that objection was interposed pursuant to the District Court’s order in Harper v. Kleindienst, its validity depends on whether the Harper court had jurisdiction under the Administrative Procedure Act to review the Attorney General’s failure to object.
The Administrative Procedure Act stipulates that the provisions of that Act authorizing judicial review apply “except to the extent that — (1) statutes preclude judicial review; or (2) agency action is committed to agency discretion by law.” 5 U. S. C. § 701 (a). It is now well settled that “judicial review of a final agency action by an aggrieved person will not be cut off unless there is persuasive reason to believe that such was the purpose of Congress.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140 (1967). The reviewing court must determine whether “Congress has in express or implied terms precluded judicial review or committed the challenged action entirely to administrative discretion.” Barlow v. Collins, 397 U. S. 159, 165 (1970).
As no provision of the Voting Eights Act expressly precludes judicial review of the Attorney General’s actions under § 5, it is necessary to determine “whether nonreviewability can fairly be inferred.” 397 U. S., at 166. See Association of Data Processing Service Orgs. v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150, 157 (1970); Switchmen v. National Mediation Board, 320 U. S. 297 (1943). That inquiry must address the role played by the Attorney General within “the context of the entire legislative scheme.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, supra, at 141.
The nature of the § 5 remedy, which this Court has characterized as an “unusual” and “severe” procedure, Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 556 (1969), strongly suggests that Congress did not intend the Attorney General’s actions under that provision to be subject to judicial review. Section 5 requires covered jurisdictions to delay implementation of validly enacted state legislation until federal authorities have had an opportunity to determine whether that legislation conforms to the Constitution and to the provisions of the Voting Rights Act. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 334 (1966). Section 5 establishes two alternative methods by which covered jurisdictions can comply with this severe requirement of federal preclearance review. First, a covered jurisdiction may file a declaratory judgment action in the District Court for the District of Columbia and subsequently may implement the change in voting laws if that court declares that the change “does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V). Second, a covered jurisdiction may submit a change in voting laws to the Attorney General and subsequently may enforce the change if “the Attorney General has not interposed an objection within sixty days after such submission.” Ibid.
According to the terms of § 5, a covered jurisdiction is in compliance pursuant to the latter alternative once it has (i) filed a complete submission with the Attorney General, and (ii) received no objection from that office within 60 days. This second method of compliance under § 5 is unlike the first in that implementation of changes in voting laws is not conditioned on an affirmative statement by the Attorney General that the change is without discriminatory purpose or effect. To the contrary, compliance with § 5 is measured solely by the absence, for whatever reason, of a timely objection on the part of the Attorney General. And this Court has recognized that “[o]nce the State has successfully complied with the § 5 approval requirements, private parties may enjoin the enforcement of the new enactment only in traditional suits attacking its constitutionality; there is no further remedy provided by § 5.” Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, supra, at 549-550.
Although there is no legislative history bearing directly on the issue of reviewability of the Attorney General’s actions under § 5, the legislative materials do indicate a desire to provide a speedy alternative method of compliance to* covered States. Section 8 of the original bill provided for preclearance review only by means of a declaratory judgment action in the District Court for the District of Columbia. Hearings on S. 1564 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965) (hereafter Senate Hearings). Justified concerns arose that the time required to pursue such litigation would unduly delay the implementation of validly enacted, nondiscriminatory state legislation. Cognizant of the problem, Attorney General Katzenbach suggested that the declaratory judgment procedure “could be improved by applying it only to those laws which the Attorney General takes exception to within a given period of time.” Senate Hearings 237. The legislation was changed to incorporate this suggestion.
In light of the potential severity of the § 5 remedy, the statutory language, and the legislative history, we think it clear that Congress intended to provide covered jurisdictions with an expeditious alternative to declaratory judgment actions. The congressional intent is plain: The extraordinary remedy of postponing the implementation of validly enacted state legislation was to come to an end when the Attorney General failed to interpose a timely objection based on a complete submission. Although there was to be no bar to subsequent constitutional challenges to the implemented legislation, there also was to be “no dragging out” of the extraordinary federal remedy beyond the period specified in the statute. Switchmen v. National Mediation Board, 320 U. S., at 305. Since judicial review of the Attorney General's actions would unavoidably extend this period, it is necessarily precluded.
Our conclusions in this respect are reinforced by the fact that the Attorney General’s failure to object is not conclusive with respect to the constitutionality of the submitted state legislation. The statute expressly provides that neither “an affirmative indication by the Attorney General that no objection will be made, nor the Attorney General’s failure to object . . . shall bar a subsequent action to enjoin enforcement” of the newly enacted legislation or voting regulation. Cf. Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S. 560, 569-570 (1975). It is true that it was the perceived inadequacy of private suits under the Fifteenth Amendment that prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S., at 556 n. 21; South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 309. But it does not follow that Congress did not intend to preclude judicial review of Attorney General actions under § 5. The initial alternative requirement of submission to the Attorney General substantially reduces the likelihood that a discriminatory enactment will escape detection by federal authorities. Where the discriminatory character of an enactment is not detected upon review by the Attorney General, it can be challenged in traditional constitutional litigation. But it cannot be questioned in a suit seeking judicial review of the Attorney General's exercise of discretion under § 5, or his failure to object within the statutory period.
Ill
For these reasons, we hold that the objection interposed by the Attorney General to § 2 of Act 1205 on July 20, 1973, nunc pro tunc, is invalid. South Carolina is therefore free to implement its reapportionment plan for the State Senate.
Affirmed.
Act 932 provided for multimember districts, required each candidate to run for a single, numbered post, and specified that primary elections be decided by a majority vote. See Harper v. Levi, 171 U. S. App. D. C. 321, 325-326, 520 F. 2d 53, 57-58 (1975).
Section 5, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V), provides in pertinent part:
“Whenever a State or political subdivision with respect to which the prohibitions set forth in section 1973b (a) of this title based upon determinations made under the first sentence of section 1973b (b) of this title are in effect shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964, . . . such State or subdivision may institute an action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a declaratory judgment that such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b (f) (2) of this title, and unless and until the court enters such judgment no person shall be denied the right to vote for failure to comply with such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure: Provided, That such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure may be enforced without such proceeding if the qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure has been submitted by the chief legal officer or other appropriate official of such State or subdivision to the Attorney General and the Attorney General has not interposed an objection within sixty days after such submission, or upon good cause shown, to facilitate an expedited approval within sixty days after such submission, the Attorney General has affirmatively indicated that such objection will not be made. Neither an affirmative indication by the Attorney General that no objection will be made, nor the Attorney General’s failure to object, nor a declaratory judgment entered under this section shall bar a subsequent action to enjoin enforcement of such' qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure. In the event the Attorney General affirmatively indicates that no objection will be made within the sixty-day period following receipt of a submission, the Attorney General may reserve the right to reexamine the submission if additional information comes to his attention during the remainder of the sixty-day period which would otherwise require objection in accordance with this section. Any action under this section shall be heard and determined by a court of three judges in accordance with the provisions of section 2284 of Title 28 and any appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court.”
The constitutionality of this procedure was upheld in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301 (1966). It has been held applicable when a State or political subdivision adopts a legislative reapportionment plan. Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130 (1976); Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526 (1973); Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969).
See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, at 319-320; Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, supra, at 548-550; Hadnott v. Amos, 394 U. S. 358, 366, and n. 5 (1969); Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379, 380-382 (1971); Georgia v. United States, supra, at 529; City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, 361-362 (1975); Beer v. United States, supra, at 131-133; United Jewish Organizations v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144, 147-148 (1977) (plurality opinion).
The objection was entered within the 60-day statutory period since the submission on Act 932 was not considered to be complete until January 5, 1972. See Georgia v. United States, supra, at 539-541; n. 19, infra. The Attorney General interposed an objection because he had been “unable to conclude . . . that the combination of multi-member districts, numbered posts, and a majority (run-off) requirement would not occasion an abridgement of minority voting rights in South Carolina.” App. 27.
The District Court declined to rule on the claims under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act:
“Prior to final arguments, the Attorney General of the United States had refused to approve the Act under the terms of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The defendants stated, during argument, that they intended to contest that decision of the Attorney General in the District Court of the District of Columbia, which, by law, is the proper forum for review under the terms of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We shall accordingly not consider the claims of the plaintiff McCollum, under the Voting Rights Act, but shall confine our consideration to the claims of invalidity under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which admittedly are properly before this Court.” App. to Jurisdictional Statement 30a.
Section 2 reapportioned the State’s senatorial districts. It established two alternative reapportionments — Plan A and Plan B — and provided that if Plan A did not meet the constitutional guidelines as set forth by the District Court, Plan B would be put into effect. Act 1205 retained the provisions of Act 932 calling for multimember districts, numbered posts, and a majority vote in primaries. See Harper v. Levi, 171 U. S. App. D. C., at 326, 520 F. 2d, at 58.
Section 3 of Act 1205 extended the numbered-post requirement to existing multimember districts in the State’s House of Representatives, the other chamber of the South Carolina General Assembly.
This Court summarily affirmed the'decision of the District Court. Powell v. West, 413 U. S. 901 (1973).
This Court held in Connor v. Waller, 421 U. S. 656 (1975), that reapportionment legislation adopted by the legislature on its own authority in the course of litigation is not effective in a covered jurisdiction until after compliance with § 5’s preclearance review provisions. (Such legislation is to be distinguished from a “reapportionment scheme . . . submitted and adopted pursuant to court order,” for which preclearance is not required. East Carroll Parish School Bd. v. Marshall, 424 U. S. 636, 638 n. 6 (1976).) In light of the decision in Waller, the Attorney General has now abandoned his earlier policy of deference to district court decisions on constitutionality. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 10, 16.
While the Attorney General was considering Act 1205, South Carolina submitted for preclearance review Act 1204, which extended the numbered-post requirement to “all multi-member elective districts” in the State. See Harper v. Levi, supra, at 326, 520 F. 2d, at 58. On the same day that he declined to interpose an objection to § 2 of Act 1205, the Attorney General did interpose an objection to Act 1204 and to that portion of Act 1205 that required numbered posts for the State’s House of Representatives. See n. 6, supra. The District Court in Twiggs v. West had not considered any provisions relating to the House.
The Court of Appeals stressed that the Harper plaintiffs contended only that “the Attorney General improperly relinquished his responsibility to independently evaluate the submitted legislation . . . .” Since they were “not challenging findings by the Attorney General on issues of fact, or an ultimate decision as to whether the submitting authority has discharged its burden of proving lack of discriminatory purpose or effect,” the court found it unnecessary to decide whether such findings and decisions would be reviewable. 171 U. S. App. D. C., at 335, 520 F. 2d, at 67. See also n. 24, infra.
Appellants have not pressed the collateral-estoppel argument in this Court. See Brief for Appellants 17-20.
Although appellants at one point argued in the District Court that Act 1205 was a court-ordered plan outside the scope of § 5, see East Carroll Parish School Bd. v. Marshall, supra; n. 8, supra, the parties now agree that § 5 is applicable. Brief for Appellants 3 n. 1; Brief for Appellees 14, and n. 7. See also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14 n. 8.
Appellants suggest that it is unnecessary for this Court to reach the issue of reviewability since the single-judge District Court in Harper v. Kleindienst, 362 F. Supp. 742 (DC 1973), issued an interlocutory order on August 11, 1972, declaring that the Attorney General’s time to object had not expired and extending the time until the Attorney General acted or until further order of the District Court. Relying on United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 289-295 (1947), appellants contend that the Attorney General’s objection of July 20, 1973, is valid regardless of the District Court’s jurisdiction since it was entered pursuant to that court’s order preserving the status quo pending its determination of jurisdiction.
The Mine Workers case involved the power of a district court to hold a party in contempt for disobedience of an order directed to that party. Appellants’ reliance on that case is misplaced, for South Carolina was not a party to the Harper litigation and was not under a court order restraining enforcement of § 2 of Act 1205. Here the validity of the District Court’s interlocutory order in Harper v. Kleindienst eventually turns on the re-viewability of the Attorney General’s initial decision not to enter an objection to §2 of Act 1205. If Congress has precluded judicial review of the Attorney General’s actions under § 5, the Harper court’s interlocutory order cannot validate the Attorney General’s nunc pro tunc objection of July 20, 1973.
With several exceptions not relevant here, the Act defines an agency as “each authority of the Government of the United States, whether or not it is within or subject to review by another agency ...” 5 U. S. C. §701 (b)(1).
Accord, Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S. 560, 567 (1975); Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U. S. 402, 410 (1971); Tooahnippah v. Hickel, 397 U. S. 598, 606 (1970); Association of Data Processing Service Orgs. v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150, 156-157 (1970); Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159, 166 (1970).
Nor has this Court read § 5 to condition the interposition of an objection by the Attorney General on an affirmative finding that he has reason to believe that the change in voting laws has the prohibited purpose or effect. Compare Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S., at 540-541, with id., at 544-545 (White, J., dissenting), and id., at 545 (Powell, J., dissenting).
Our prior cases have so described the statutory scheme. See, e. g., City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S., at 362 (change in voting laws cannot be implemented unless “such change has either been approved by the Attorney General or that officer has failed to act within 60 days after submission to him”); Georgia v. United States, supra, at 529 (change in voting laws can be implemented upon “submitting the plan to the Attorney General of the United States and receiving no objection within 60 days”).
Compliance by means' of submission to the Attorney General was added to the bill, but neither the Committee Reports nor the debates discussed the addition. S. Rep. No. 162, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 711, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965). The legislative history is summarized in Harper v. Levi, 171 U. S. App. D. C., at 333, 520 F. 2d, at 65.
The Attorney General has promulgated regulations providing that the 60-day period shall commence from the time that the Department of Justice receives a submission satisfying certain enumerated requirements. 28 CFR § 51.3 (b)-(d) (1976). These regulations were reviewed and found valid by this Court in Georgia v. United States, supra. The Court noted that “[t]he judgment that the Attorney General must make is a difficult and complex one, and no one would argue that it should be made without adequate information.” 411 U. S., at 540. To deny the Attorney General the power to suspend the 60-day period until a complete submission was tendered would leave him no choice but to interpose an objection to incomplete submissions, a result which “would only add acrimony to the administration of § 5.” Id., at 541.
Nothing in our opinion in Georgia v. United States suggests that Congress did not intend to preclude judicial review of the Attorney General's failure to interpose an objection within 60 days of a complete submission. The factors relied on in that case are inapplicable once a complete submission has been pending before the Attorney General for 60 days. Indeed, subsequent judicial review of the Attorney General’s failure to interpose a timely objection to a complete submission would itself “add acrimony” by denying covered jurisdictions the statutorily prescribed “rapid method of rendering a new state election law enforceable.” Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S., at 549; see Georgia v. United States, supra, at 538.
Mr. Justice Marshall’s dissent voices concern over a perceived “unique[ness]” of today’s decision. Post, at 514, and n. 10. But the decision is unique only in the sense that every judicial holding with respect to implied preclusion of judicial review is unique; “the context of the entire legislative scheme,” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 141 (1967), differs from statute to statute. Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S. 560 (1975), the case cited by the dissent, illustrates the point. In that case, the Court did not confront anything analogous to the potential severity of the § 5 remedy at issue here. See supra, at 504. Moreover, the statute at issue in Dunlop provided that suit by the Secretary of Labor would be the exclusive post-election remedy. In the instant case, on the other hand, objection by the Attorney General is not the exclusive method of challenging changes in a State’s voting laws, since the Attorney General’s failure to object is not conclusive with respect to the constitutionality of submitted state legislation. See infra, this page.
Similarly, an objection on the part of the Attorney General is not conclusive with respect to the invalidity of the submitted state legislation under the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. After receiving an objection from the Attorney General, a covered jurisdiction retains the option of seeking a favorable declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia. See Beer v. United States, supra; City of Petersburg v. United States, 410 U. S. 962 (1973), summarily aff’g 354 F. Supp. 1021 (DC 1972).
Relying on the fact that § 4 of the Voting Rights Act expressly precludes judicial review of the Attorney General’s actions under that section, post, at 509-510, and n. 3, see Briscoe v. Bell, ante, p. 404, MR. Justice Marshall’s dissent would formulate a new mechanical rule of statutory construction: If one section of a statute expressly forbids judicial review, it would not be open for the courts to inquire whether Congress also intended to preclude review under other sections of the same statute. Application of such a rule of statutory construction would prevent a court from giving effe'ct to congressional intent that otherwise was clear from “the context of the entire legislative scheme.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, supra, at 141. The existence of an express preclusion of judicial review in one section of a statute is a factor relevant to congressional intent, but it is not conclusive with respect to reviewability under other sections of the statute. Here, we simply conclude that other factors — the harsh nature of the § 5 remedy, the statutory language, and the legislative materials — are sufficiently strong indications of congressional intent to override any contrary inference that might be drawn from the fact that Congress expressly precluded judicial review in a different section of the same statute.
Mr. Justice Marshall’s dissent opens with a “floodgates” argument: If there is no judicial review when the Attorney General misunderstands his legal duty, there also will be no judicial review when-at sometime in the future the Attorney General bargains acquiescence in a discriminatory change in a covered State’s voting laws in return for that State’s electoral votes. Post, at 508, and n. 1. That “floodgates” concern is equally applicable to Congress’ express preclusion of judicial review under § 4 of the Act, see n. 22, supra, a fact which suggests that Congress — like the courts— operates on the assumption that the Attorney General of the United States will perform faithfully his statutory responsibilities. In determining whether preclusion of judicial review can fairly be inferred from the context of the entire legislative scheme, we place no weight on the prospect that an Attorney General someday will trade electoral votes for preclearance under §5.
The United States suggests that there should be limited judicial reveiw only when the Attorney General improperly relinquishes his responsibility to evaluate independently the submitted legislation in light of the standards established by § 5. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 30-31. For the reasons stated in text, we think Congress intended to preclude all judicial review of the Attorney General’s exercise of discretion or failure to act. We note, however, that there is no evidence in this case that the Attorney General improperly “relinquished” his statutory responsibilities. The record is clear that the Attorney General reviewed the submitted legislation as well as the judicial determination in Twiggs v. West and decided not to interpose an objection to § 2 of Act 1205. That decision may have been erroneous, see n. 8, supra, but it nonetheless was a decision exercised pursuant to the Attorney General's § 5 responsibilities.
In light of this disposition of the case, we find it unnecessary to address the argument advanced by South Carolina that the single judge in Harper v. Kleindienst, 362 F. Supp. 742 (DC 1973), had no jurisdiction to determine questions arising under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. See Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S., at 560-563.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease concerns the amenability of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA or Association) to a private action under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The NCAA is an unincorporated association of approximately 1,200 members, including virtually all public and private universities and four-year colleges conducting major athletic programs in the United States; the Association serves to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of its members’ educational programs. Title IX proscribes sex discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a).
The complainant in this case, Renee M. Smith, sued the NCAA under Title IX alleging that the Association discriminated against her on the basis of her sex by denying her permission to play intercollegiate volleyball at federally assisted institutions. Reversing the District Court’s refusal to allow Smith to amend her fro se complaint, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the NCAA’s receipt of dues from federally funded member institutions would suffice to bring the Association within the scope of Title IX. We reject that determination as inconsistent with the governing statute, regulation, and Court decisions. Dues payments from recipients of federal funds, we hold, do not suffice to render the dues recipient subject to Title IX. We do not address alternative grounds, urged by respondent and the United States as amicus curiae, in support of Title IX’s application to the NCAA in this litigation, and leave resolution of those grounds to the courts below on remand.
f — i
Rules adopted by the NCAA govern the intercollegiate athletics programs of its member colleges and universities; “[b]y joining the NCAA, each member agrees to abide by and enforce [the Association’s] rules.” National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, 183 (1988); see 1993-1994 NCAA Manual, NCAA Const., Arts. 1.2(h), 1.3.2, p. 1. Among these rules is the Postbaeealaureate Bylaw, which allows a postgraduate student-athlete to participate in intercollegiate athletics only at the institution that awarded her undergraduate degree. See id., Bylaw 14.1.8.2, at 123.
Respondent Smith enrolled as an undergraduate at St. Bonaventure University, an NCAA member, in 1991. Smith joined the St. Bonaventure intercollegiate volleyball team in the fall of 1991 and remained on the team throughout the 1991-1992 and 1992-1993 athletie seasons. She elected not to play the following year.
Smith graduated from St. Bonaventure in 2% years. During the 1994-1995 athletic year, she was enrolled in a postgraduate program at Hofstra University; for the 1995-1996 athletie year, she enrolled in a different postgraduate program at the University of Pittsburgh. Smith sought to play intercollegiate volleyball during these athletic years, but the NCAA denied her eligibility on the basis of its postbacealau-reate restrictions. At Smith’s request, Hofstra and the University of Pittsburgh petitioned the NCAA to waive the restrictions. Each time, the NCAA refused to grant a waiver.
In August 1996, Smith filed this lawsuit pro se, alleging, among other things, that the NCAA’s refusal to waive the Postbaccalaureate Bylaw excluded her from participating in intercollegiate athletics at Hofstra and the University of Pittsburgh on the basis of her sex, in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 373, as amended, 20 U. S. C. § 1681 et seq. The complaint did not attack the Bylaw on its face, but instead alleged that the NCAA discriminates on the basis of sex by granting more waivers from eligibility restrictions to male than female postgraduate student-athletes. Complaint ¶ 26, Joint App. in Nos. 97-3346 and 97-3347 (CA3), p. 4 (hereinafter Joint App.); Amended Complaint ¶ 64, Joint App. 98.
Hie NCAA moved to dismiss Smith’s Title IX claim on the ground that the complaint failed to allege that the NCAA is a recipient of federal financial assistance. In opposition, Smith argued that the NCAA governs the federally funded intercollegiate athletics programs of its members, that these programs are educational, and that the NCAA benefited economically from its members’ receipt of federal funds. See Joint App. 55-56.
Concluding that the alleged connections between the NCAA and federal financial assistance to member institutions were “too far attenuated” to sustain a Title IX claim, the District Court dismissed the suit. 978 F. Supp. 213,219, 220 (WD Pa. 1997). Smith then moved the District Court for leave to amend her complaint to add Hofstra and the University of Pittsburgh as defendants, see Amended Complaint ¶ 63, Joint App. 97, and to allege that the NCAA “receives federal financial assistance through another recipient and operates an educational program or activity which receives or benefits from such assistance,” id., ¶ 65, Joint App. 98. The District Court denied the motion “as moot, the court having granted [the NCAA’s) motion to dismiss.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 36a.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the District Court’s refusal to grant leave to amend the complaint. 139 F. 3d 180,190 (1998). The Third Circuit agreed with the District Court that Smith’s original complaint failed to state a Title IX claim. Id., at 189. But Smith’s proposed amended complaint, the Court of Appeals said, “plainly alleges that the NCAA receives dues from member institutions, which receive federal funds.” Id., at 190. That allegation, the Third Circuit held, “would be sufficient to bring the NCAA within the scope of Title IX as a recipient of federal funds and would survive a motion to dismiss.” Ibid. Under the Third Circuit’s ruling, all Smith would need to prove on remand to proceed is that the NCAA receives members’ dues, a fact not in dispute.
The NCAA petitioned for this Court’s review, alleging that the Court of Appeals’ decision conflicted with Department of Transp. v. Paralyzed Veterans of America, 477 U. S. 597 (1986). Pet. for Cert. 7-15. We granted certiorari, 524 U. S. 982 (1998), to decide whether a private organization that does not receive federal financial assistance is subject to Title IX because it receives payments from entities that do.
r*H f — I
Section 901(a) of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,20 U. S. C. § 1681(a), provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Under the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (CRRA), 102 Stat. 28, 20 U. S. C. § 1687, a “program or activity” includes “all of the operations of... a college, university, or other postsecondary institution, or a public system of higher education . . . any part of which is extended Federal financial assistance.” § 1687(2)(A). The CRRA also provides institution-wide coverage for entities “principally engaged in the business of providing education” services, § 1687(8)(A)(ii), and for entities created by two or more covered entities, § 1687(4). Thus, if any part of the NCAA received federal assistance, all NCAA operations would be subject to Title IX.
We have twice before considered when an entity qualifies as a recipient of federal financial assistance. In Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U. S. 555, 563-570 (1984), we held that a college receives federal financial assistance when it enrolls students who receive federal funds earmarked for educational expenses. Finding “no hint” that Title IX distinguishes “between direct institutional assistance and aid received by a school through its students,” we concluded that Title IX “encompasses] all forms of federal aid to education, direct or indirect.” Id., at 564 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In Paralyzed Veterans, 477 U. S., at 603-612, we considered the scope of § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U. S. C. § 794, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in substantially the same terms that Title IX uses to prohibit sex discrimination. In that case, a group representing disabled veterans contended that the Department of Transportation had authority to enforce § 504 against commercial .air carriers by virtue of the Government’s extensive program of financial assistance to airports. We held that airlines are not recipients of federal funds received by airport operators for airport construction projects, even when the funds are used for projects especially beneficial to the airlines. Application of § 504 to all who benefited economically from federal assistance, we observed, would yield almost “limitless coverage.” 477 U. S., at 608. We concluded that “[t]he statute covers those who receive the aid, but does not extend as far as those who benefit from it.” Id., at 607.
The Court of Appeals determined “not [to] apply the Paralyzed Veterans Court’s definition of ‘recipient’ to Title IX,” 139 F. 3d, at 189, finding that definition inconsistent with 34 CFR § 106.2 (1997), a Title IX regulation issued by the Department of Education. The Third Circuit interpreted the Department’s regulation to define a “recipient” as “an entity ‘which operates an educational program or activity which receives or benefits’ from federal funds.” 139 F. 3d, at 189 (quoting § 106.2(h)). The court reasoned that § 106.2(h) extends Title IX to beneficiaries of federal funding as well as recipients. Applying the more limited rule of Paralyzed Veterans, the appeals court concluded, would “render the regulatory definition of ‘recipient’ under Title IX a nullity.” Ibid.
The Third Circuit’s reading of § 106.2(h) failed to give effect to the regulation in its entirety. Section 106.2(h) defines “recipient” to include any entity “to whom Federal financial assistance is extended directly or through another recipient and which operates an education program or activity which receives or benefits from such assistance.” The first part of this definition makes clear that Title IX coverage is not triggered when an entity merely benefits from federal funding. Thus, the regulation accords with the teaching of Grove City and Paralyzed Veterans: Entities that receive federal assistance, whether directly or through an intermediary, are recipients within the meaning of Title IX; entities that only benefit economically from federal assistance are not.
The Third Circuit’s conclusion that the NCAA would be subject to the requirements of Title IX if it received dues from its federally funded members is inconsistent with this precedent. Unlike the earmarked student aid in Grove City, there is no allegation that NCAA members paid their dues with federal funds earmarked for that purpose. At most, the Association’s receipt of dues demonstrates that it indirectly benefits from the federal assistance afforded its members. This showing, without more, is insufficient to trigger Title IX coverage.
While the Court of Appeals dispositively relied on the NCAA’s receipt of members’ dues, it also noted distinctions between Paralyzed Veterans and this ease: The NCAA is “created by and comprised of” schools that receive federal fluids, and the Association governs its members “with respect to athletic rules.” 139 F. 3d, at 188. In these respects, the Third Circuit observed, the relationship between the Association and its members is “qualitatively different from that between airlines and airport operators.” Id., at 189. Evident as these distinctions may be, they do not bear on the narrow question we decide today — whether an entity that receives dues from recipients of federal funds is for that reason a recipient itself.
Ill
Smith, joined by the United States as amicus curiae, presses two alternative theories for bringing the NCAA under the prescriptions of Title IX. First, she asserts that the NCAA directly and indirectly receives federal financial assistance through the National Youth Sports Program NCAA administers. See Brief for Respondent 35-37, 39-41. Second, Smith argues that when a recipient cedes controlling authority over a federally funded program to another entity, the controlling entity is covered by Title IX regardless whether it is itself a recipient. See id., at 41-46; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20-27.
As in Roberts v. Galen of Va., Inc., ante, at 253-254, and United States v. Bestfoods, 524 U. S. 51, 72-73 (1998), we do not decide in the first instance issues not decided below.
* * *
For the reasons stated, we conclude that the Court of Appeals erroneously held that dues payments from recipients of federal funds suffice to subject the NCAA to suit under Title IX. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the Third Circuit and remand the ease for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Postbaccalaureate Bylaw is an exception to the general NCAA rule restricting participation in intercollegiate athletics to students enrolled in a full-time program of studies leading to a baccalaureate degree. See 1993-1994 NCAA Manual, Bylaw 14.1.8.1, at 123. In full, the Post-baccalaureate Bylaw provides:
“A student-athlete who is enrolled in a graduate or professional school of the institution he or she previously attended as an undergraduate (regardless of whether the individual has received a United States baccalaureate degree or its equivalent), a student-athlete who is enrolled and seeking a second baccalaureate or equivalent degree at the same institution, or a student-athlete who has graduated and is continuing as a full-time student at the same institution while taking course work that would lead to the equivalent of another major or degree as defined and documented by the institution, may participate in intercollegiate athletics, provided the student has eligibility remaining and such participation occurs within the applicable five-year or 10-semester period set forth in 14.2.” Bylaw 14.1.8.2.
The complaint also stated a Sherman Act claim and a state contract law claim. The District Court dismissed the Sherman Act claim, 978 F. Supp. 213, 218 (WD Pa. 1997), and declined to retain supplemental jurisdiction over the state claim, id., at 220. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the Sherman Act claim, 139 F. 3d 180, 187 (CA3 1998), and this Court denied certiorari on that issue, see 524 U. S. 982 (1998).
The scope of several other federal antidiscrimination measures is defined in nearly identical terms. See §601 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §2000d (prohibiting race discrimination in "any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”); §504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U. S. C. § 794(a) (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability in “any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”); and §303 of the Age Discrimination Act of 1975,42 U. S. C. §6102 (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of age in "any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”).
Congress enacted the CRRA in response to Part III of our decision in Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U. S. 555, 570-574 (1984), which concluded that Title IX, as originally enacted, covered only the specific program receiving federal funding. See Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U. S. 60, 73 (1992) (noting that Congress endeavored, in the CRRA, “to correct what it considered to be an unacceptable decision on our part in Grove City”).
Smith suggests that Paralyzed Veterans does not control the question presented here because that case involved a Government enforcement action while this is a private suit. This argument hinges on Smith’s position that the private right of action available under 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a) is potentially broader than the Government’s enforcement authority provided by § 1682. We reject this position. There is no express authorization for private lawsuits in Title IX; in Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 717 (1979), we concluded that Congress had intended to authorize a private right of action even though it failed to do so expressly. We think it would be anomalous to assume that Congress intended the implied private right of action to proscribe conduct that Government enforcement may not check. See 20 U. S. C. § 1682 (authorizing federal administrative enforcement by terminating the federal funding of any noncomplying recipient, § 1682(1), or “by any other means authorized by law,” § 1682(2)).
Smith’s brief to the Third Circuit alluded to these theories. See Brief for Appellant in Nos. 97-3346 and 97-3347 (CA3), pp. 5, 22 (arguing that the NCAA receives federal financial assistance through the National Youth Sports Program it operates); ibid, (arguing that an organization that assumes control over a federally funded program is thereby subject to Title IX).
Two District Courts have found that the NCAA's relationship to the National Youth Sports Program creates an issue of fact regarding whether the NGAA is a recipient of federal financial assistance. See Bowers v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 9 F. Supp. 2d 460, 494 (NJ 1998) (denying NCAA’s motion for summary judgment in a Rehabilitation Act suit because “there are genuine questions of material fact as to whether the NCAA receives federal funds through the [National Youth Sports Program Fund]”); Cureton v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., No. Civ. A. 97-131, 1997 WL 634376, *2 (ED Pa., Oct. 9,1997) (refusing NCAA’s motion for summary judgment in a Title VI action). Also, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued two letter determinations that the NCAA is a recipient of federal assistance by virtue of the Department’s grant to the National Youth Sports Program Fund. See Brief for United States as Amiens Curiae 19-20. We, of course, are not positioned to make or currently review factfindings on any alternative theory urged by respondent.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant, a woman, has been convicted in Hillsborough County, Florida, of second degree murder of her husband. On this appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2) from the Florida Supreme Court’s affirmance of the judgment of conviction, 119 So. 2d 691, we noted probable jurisdiction, 364 U. S. 930, to consider appellant’s claim that her trial before an all-male jury violated rights assured by the Fourteenth Amendment. The claim is that such jury was the product of a state jury statute which works an unconstitutional exclusion of women from jury service.
The jury law primarily in question is Fla. Stat., 1959, §40.01 (1). This Act, which requires that grand and petit jurors be taken from “male and female” citizens of the State possessed of certain qualifications, contains the following proviso:
“provided, however, that the name of no female person shall be taken for jury service unless said person has registered with the clerk of the circuit court her desire to be placed on the jury list.”
Showing that since the enactment of the statute only a minimal number of women have so registered, appellant challenges the constitutionality of the statute both on its face and as applied in this case. For reasons now to follow we decide that both contentions must be rejected.
At the core of appellant’s argument is the claim that the nature of the crime of which she was convicted peculiarly demanded the inclusion of persons of her own sex on the jury. She was charged with killing her husband by assaulting him with a baseball bat. An information was filed against her under Fla. Stat., 1959, § 782.04, which punishes as murder in the second degree “any act imminently dangerous to another, and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual . . . As described by the Florida Supreme Court, the affair occurred in the context of a marital upheaval involving, among other things, the suspected infidelity of appellant’s husband, and culminating in the husband’s final rejection of his wife’s efforts at reconciliation. It is claimed, in substance, that women jurors would have been more understanding or compassionate than men in assessing the quality of appellant’s act and her defense of “temporary insanity.” No claim is made that the jury as constituted was otherwise afflicted by any elements of supposed unfairness. Cf. Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717.
Of course, these premises misconceive the scope of the right to an impartially selected jury assured by the Fourteenth Amendment. That right does not entitle one accused of crime to a jury tailored to the circumstances of the particular case, whether relating to the sex or other condition of the defendant, or to the nature of the charges to be tried. It requires only that the jury be indiscriminately drawn from among those eligible in the community for jury service, untrammelled by any arbitrary and systematic exclusions. See Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, 284-285, and the cases cited therein. The result of this appeal must therefore depend on whether such an exclusion of women from jury service has been shown.
I.
We address ourselves first to appellant’s challenge to the statute on its face.
Several observations should initially be made. We of course recognize that the Fourteenth Amendment reaches not only arbitrary class exclusions from jury service based on race or color, but also all other exclusions which “single out” any class of persons “for different treatment not based on some reasonable classification.” Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475, 478. We need not, however, accept appellant’s invitation to canvass in this case the continuing validity of this Court’s dictum in Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 310, to the effect that a State may constitutionally “confine” jury duty “to males.” This constitutional proposition has gone unquestioned for more than eighty years in the decisions of the Court, see Fay v. New York, supra, at 289-290, and had been reflected, until 1957, in congressional policy respecting jury service in the federal courts themselves. Even were it to be assumed that this question is still open to debate, the present case tenders narrower issues.
Manifestly, Florida’s § 40.01 (1) does not purport to exclude women from state jury service. Rather, the statute “gives to women the privilege to serve but does not impose service as a duty.” Fay v. New York, supra, at 277. It accords women an absolute exemption from jury service unless they expressly waive that privilege. This is not to say, however, that what in form may be only an exemption of a particular class of persons can in no circumstances be regarded as an exclusion of that class. Where, as here, an exemption of a class in the community is asserted to be in substance an exclusionary device, the relevant inquiry is whether the exemption itself is based on some reasonable classification and whether the manner in which it is exercisable rests on some rational foundation.
In the selection of jurors Florida has differentiated between men and women in two respects. It has given women an absolute exemption from' jury duty based solely on their sex, no similar exemption obtaining as to men. And it has provided for its effectuation in a manner less onerous than that governing exemptions exercisable by men: women are not to be put on the jury list unless they have voluntarily registered for such service; men, on the other hand, even if entitled to an exemption, are to be included on the list unless they have filed a written claim of exemption as provided by law. Fla. Stat., 1959, § 40.10.
In neither respect can we conclude that Florida’s statute is not “based on some reasonable classification,” and that it is thus infected with unconstitutionality. Despite the enlightened emancipation of women from the restrictions and protections of bygone years, and their entry into many parts of community life formerly considered to be reserved to men, woman is still regarded as the center of home and family life. We cannot say that it is constitutionally impermissible for a State, acting in pursuit of the general welfare, to conclude that a woman should be relieved from the civic duty of jury service unless she herself determines that such service is consistent with her own special responsibilities.
Florida is not alone in so concluding. Women are now eligible for jury service in all but three States of the Union. Of the forty-seven States where women are eligible, seventeen besides Florida, as well as the District of Columbia, have accorded women an absolute exemption based solely on their sex, exercisable in one form or another. In two of these States, as in Florida, the exemption is automatic, unless a woman volunteers for such service. It is true, of course, that Florida could have limited the exemption, as some other States have done, only to women who have family responsibilities. But we cannot regard it as irrational for a state legislature to consider preferable a broad exemption, whether born of the State’s historic public policy or of a determination that it would not be administratively feasible to decide in each individual instance whether the family responsibilities of a prospective female juror were serious enough to warrant an exemption.
Likewise we cannot say that Florida could not reasonably conclude that full effectuation of this exemption made it desirable to relieve women of the necessity of affirmatively claiming it, while at the same time requiring of men an assertion of the exemptions available to them. Moreover, from the standpoint of its own administrative concerns the State might well consider that it was “impractical to compel large numbers of women, who have an absolute exemption, to come to the clerk’s office for examination since they so generally assert their exemption.” Fay v. New York, supra, at 277; compare 28 U. S. C. § 1862; H. R. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. A156 (1947).
Appellant argues that whatever may have been the design of this Florida enactment, the statute in practical operation results in an exclusion of women from jury service, because women, like men, can be expected to be available for jury service only under compulsion. In this connection she points out that by 1957, when this trial took place, only some 220 women out of approximately 46,000 registered female voters in Hillsborough County— constituting about 40 per cent of the total voting population of that county — had volunteered for jury duty since the limitation of jury service to males, see Hall v. Florida, 136 Fla. 644, 662-665, 187 So. 392, 400-401, was removed by §40.01 (1) in 1949. Fla. Laws 1949, c. 25,126.
This argument, however, is surely beside the point. Given the reasonableness of the classification involved in §40.01 (1), the relative paucity of women jurors does not carry the constitutional consequence appellant would have it bear. “Circumstances or chance may well dictate that no persons in a certain class will serve on a particular jury or during some particular period.” Hernandez v. Texas, supra, at 482.
We cannot hold this statute as written offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment.
II.
Appellant’s attack on the statute as applied in this case fares no better.
In the year here relevant Fla. Stat., 1955, § 40.10 in conjunction with § 40.02 required the jury commissioners, with the aid of the local circuit court judges and clerk, to compile annually a jury list of 10,000 inhabitants qualified to be jurors. In 1957 the existing Hillsborough County list had become exhausted to the extent of some 3,000 jurors. The new list was constructed by taking over from the old list the remaining some 7,000 jurors, including 10 women, and adding some 3,000 new male jurors to build up the list to the requisite 10,000. At the time some 220 women had registered for jury duty in this county, including those taken over from the earlier list.
The representative of the circuit court clerk’s office, a woman, who actually made up the list testified as follows as to her reason for not adding others of the 220 “registered” women to the 1957 list: “Well, the reason I placed ten is I went back two or three, four years, and noticed how many women they had put on before and I put on approximately the same number.” She further testified: “Mr. Lockhart [one of the jury commissioners] told me at one time to go back approximately two or three years to get the names because they were recent women that had signed up, because in this book [the female juror register], there are no dates at the beginning of it, so we can’t — I don’t know exactly how far back they do go and so I just went back two or three years to get my names.” When read in light of Mr. Lockhart’s testimony, printed in the margin, it is apparent that the idea was to avoid listing women who though registered might be disqualified because of advanced age or for other reasons.
Appellant’s showing falls far short of giving this procedure a sinister complexion. It is true of course that the proportion of women on the jury list (10) to the total of those registered for such duty (some 220) was less than 5%, and not 27% as the trial court mistakenly said and the state appellate court may have thought. But when those listed are compared with the 30 or 35 women who had registered since 1952 (note 11, p. 66) the proportion rises to around 33%, hardly suggestive of an arbitrary, systematic exclusionary purpose. Equally unimpressive is appellant’s suggested “male” proportion which we are asked to contrast with the female percentage. The male proportion is derived by comparing the number of males contained on the jury list with the total number of male electors in the county. But surely the resulting proportion is meaningless when the record does not even reveal how many of such electors were qualified for jury service, how many had been granted exemptions (notes 3 and 4, p. 61), and how many on the list had been excused when first called. (Id.)
This case in no way resembles those involving race or color in which the circumstances shown were found by this Court to compel a conclusion of purposeful discriminatory exclusions from jury service. E. g., Hernandez v. Texas, supra; Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587; Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128; Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400; Eubanks v. Louisiana, 356 U. S. 584. There is present here neither the unfortunate atmosphere of ethnic or racial prejudices which underlay the situations depicted in those cases, nor the long course of discriminatory administrative practice which the statistical showing in each of them evinced.
In the circumstances here depicted, it indeed “taxes our credulity,” Hernandez v. Texas, supra, at 482, to attribute to these administrative officials a deliberate design to exclude the very class whose eligibility for jury service the state legislature, after many years of contrary policy, had declared only a few years before. (See p. 64, supra.) It is sufficiently evident from the record that the presence on the jury list of no more than ten or twelve women in the earlier years, and the failure to add in 1957 more women to those already on the list, are attributable not to any discriminatory motive, but to a purpose to put on the list only those women who might be expected to be qualified for service if actually called. Nor is there the slightest suggestion that the list was the product of any plan to place on it only women of a particular economic or other community or organizational group. Cf. Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217; Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 83-87. And see also Fay v. New York, supra, at 287.
Finally, the disproportion of women to men on the list independently carries no constitutional significance. In the administration of the jury laws proportional class representation is not a constitutionally required factor. See Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 403; Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282, 286-287; Fay v. New York, supra, at 290-291.
Finding no substantial evidence whatever in this record that Florida has arbitrarily undertaken to exclude women from jury service, a showing which it was incumbent on appellant to make, Hernandez v. Texas, supra, at 479-480; Fay v. New York, supra, at 285, we must sustain the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida. Cf. Akins v. Texas, supra.
Affirmed.
Jurors must be: “persons over the age of twenty-one years, who are citizens of this state, and who have resided in the state for one year and in their respective counties for six months, and who are duly qualified electors of their respective counties . . .
From the First Judiciary Act of 1789, § 29, 1 Stat. 73, 88, to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 71 Stat. 634, 638, 28 U. S. C. § 1861— a period of 168 years — the inclusion or exclusion of women on federal juries depended upon whether they were eligible for jury service under the law of the State where the federal tribunal sat. See Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187, 191-192; Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 64-65. By the Civil Rights Act of 1957 Congress made eligible for jury service “Any citizen of the United States," possessed of specified qualifications, 28 U. S. C. § 1861, thereby for the first time making qualifications for federal jury service wholly independent of those prescribed by state law. The effect of that statute was to make women eligible for federal jury service even though ineligible under state law. See United States v. Wilson, 158 F. Supp. 442, aff’d, 255 F. 2d 686. There is no indication that such congressional action was impelled by constitutional considerations. Cf. Fay v. New York, supra, at 290.
Men may be' exempt because of age, bodily infirmity, or because they are engaged in certain occupations. Fla. Stat., 1959, §40.08.
Under Fla. Stat., 1959, § 40.12, every person claiming an exemption, other than as provided with respect to women in §40.01 (1), must file, annually, before December 31 with the clerk of the circuit court an affidavit of exemption and the grounds on which such claim is based. The affidavit is forwarded to the jury commissioners, who, if the affidavit is found sufficient, then omit the affiant from the jury list for the succeeding calendar year. In case exemption is denied, the claim to it may be renewed in any court in which the affiant is summoned as a juror during that year. The exemption for such year is lost, however, by failure to file .the required affidavit before the end of the preceding year.
Alabama, Ala. Code, 1940 (Recompiled Vol. 1958), Tit. 30, §21; Mississippi, Miss. Code Ann., 1942 (Recompiled Vol. 1956), § 1762; South Carolina, S. C. Code, 1952, § 38-52.
Alaska, Alaska Comp. Laws Ann., 1949, § 55-7-24 Eighth; Arkansas, Ark. Stat., 1947, § 39-112; District of Columbia, D. C. Code, 1961, Tit. 11, § 1418; Georgia, Ga. Code Ann., 1933 (Supp. 1958), § 59-124; Idaho, Idaho Code, 1948, §2-411 and (Supp. 1961) §2-304; Kansas, Kan. Gen. Stat., 1949, §43-116, §43-117; Louisiana, La. Rev. Stat., 1950, § 15:172.1; Minnesota, Minn. Stat. Ann., 1947, § 593.04; (Supp. 1960) § 628.49; Missouri, Mo. Const., Art. I, § 22 (b); Nevada, Nev. Rev. Stat., 1957, § 6.020 (3); New Hampshire, N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann., 1955, § 500:1; New York, McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, Judiciary Law (Supp. 1961), §507 (7); North Dakota, N. D. Cent. Code, 1960, §27-09-04; Rhode Island, R. I. Gen. Laws, 1956, §9-9-11; Tennessee, Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, §22-101, §22-108; Virginia, Va. Code, 1950 (Replacement Vol. 1957, Supp. 1960), §8-178 (30); Washington, Wash. Rev. Code, 1951, §2.36.080; Wisconsin, Wis. Stat. Ann., 1957, §6.015 (2).
In twenty-one States women, generally speaking, are eligible for jury service on the same basis and considerations as men: Arizona, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann., 1956, §21-202, §21-336; California, Calif. Code Civ. Proc., 1954, § 198, § 200, § 201; Colorado, Colo. Rev. Stat., 1953, §78-1-1 (2), §78-1-3, §78-1-7; Delaware, Del. Code Ann., 1953, Tit. 10, §4504; Hawaii, Hawaii Const., Art. I, §12; Hawaii Rev. Laws, 1955, §221-3, §221-4; Illinois, Smith-Hurd’s Ill. Ann. Stat., 1935 (Supp. 1960), c. 78, §4; Indiana, Burns’ Ind. Ann. Stat., 1933 (Replacement Vol. 1946; Supp. 1961), §4-3317; Iowa, Iowa Code Ann., 1950, §607.2, §607.3; Kentucky, Ky. Rev. Stat., 1960, §29.035; Maine, Me. Rev. Stat., 1954, c. 116, §7; Maryland, Michie’s Md. Ann. Code, 1957, Art. 51, § 3 and (Supp. 1961) Art. 51, § 8 (women still have an absolute exemption in four counties); Michigan, Mich. Stat. Ann., 1938 (Supp. 1959), §27.263, §27.264; Montana, Mont. Rev. Code Ann., 1947, § 93-1304, § 93-1305; New Jersey, N. J. Stat. Ann., 1952 (Supp. 1960), §2A:69-1, §2A:69-2; New Mexico, N. M. Stat. Ann., 1953, § 19-1-2, § 19-1-31; Ohio, Page’s Ohio Rev. Code Ann., 1954, §2313.12, §2313.16; Oregon, Ore. Rev. Stat., 1959, § 10.040, § 10.050; Pennsylvania, Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., 1930, Tit. 17, §1279, §1280; South Dakota, S. D. Code, 1939 (Supp. 1960), §32.1001, §32.1002; Vermont, Vt. Stat. Ann., 1958, Tit. 12, §1410; West Virginia, W. Va. Code, 1955 (Supp. 1960), § 5262.
Louisiana, La. Rev. Stat., 1950, § 15:172.1; New Hampshire, N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann., 1955, § 500:1.
In eight States women may be excused if they have family responsibilities which would make jury service an undue hardship: Connecticut, Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev., 1958, c. 884, § 51-218; Massachusetts, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., 1959, c. 234, § 1, § 1A; Nebraska, Neb. Rev. Stat., 1943 (Reissue Vol. 1956), §25-1601.01, §25-1601.02; North Carolina, N. C. Gen. Stat., 1943 (Recompiled Vol. 1953; Supp. 1959), § 9-19; Oklahoma, Okla. Stat. Ann., 1951 (Supp. 1960), Tit. 38, §28; Texas, Vernon’s Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., 1926 (Supp. 1960), Art. 2135; Utah, Utah Code Ann., 1953, §78-46-10 (14); Wyoming, Wyo. Comp. Stat., 1945 (Supp. 1957), § 12-104.
28 U. S. C. § 1862 exempts from federal jury duty those in active service in -the armed forces, members of federal or lbcal police and fire departments, and certain actively engaged federal, state and local public officials. The House Report on the bill states:
“This section [§ 1862] makes provision for specific exemption of classes of citizens usually excused from jury service in the interest of the public health, safety, or welfare. The inclusion in the jury list of persons so exempted usually serves only to waste the time of the court.”
114,247, of which some 68,000 were men.
Mr. Lockhart testified:
“Q. All right. Now, getting back to March 8, 1957, how many eligible female women were registered in that book?
“A. Well, I don’t know how many were qualified, but they have the names on there of about 220.
“Q. Approximately 220?
“A. As I say, from 1952, on, since I went back on the second time, there has only been about 35 that has registered with the Clerk of the Circuit Court.
“Q. All right, sir. Now, were there any eligible female names left off of this jury list which you’ve prepared?
“A. There probably were.
“Q. On March 8, 1957?
“A. From the last four years, we have been averaging about ten to twelve on each list.
“Q. All right. Why is that, Mr. Lockhart?
“A. Because since 1952, there has only been about 30, 35 that’s qualified to, I mean, went down and registered for jury duty. You don’t have much to choose from.
“Q. Well, now, how do you select women’s names from that registration book?
“A. Well, we just have to take the names on there, that's all.
“Q. Well, you’ve used some system with reference to that book, do you not?
“A. Well, we try to check them through. They did before this last year. I tried to check them through the City Directory. You’ll find that a good many of the women folks now are over 65. In fact, one of them is approximately eighty.
“Q. What I am trying to get at, Mr. Lockhart, is this. If there were only ten women’s names, as you testified, went into the present jury list and there were at the time about 220 eligible women who had registered for jury service, why the difference between ten and 220 which were apparently eligible?
“A. Well, they have been put over a spread of years.
“Q. Well, how do you do that?
“A. Well, every year, there is a new jury list and we put on ten or twelve every jury list. In fact, along seven or eight years ago, it was pretty hard to see whether — the status changed so rapidly, it was pretty hard to know whether they would be qualified or not.
“Q. Would I he correct, then, in saying that you omitted approximately 210 eligible women’s names when you compiled this list?
“A. I wouldn’t say they were eligible because we didn’t check them. We don’t check every name on the registration books.
“Q. I’m talking about this registration book in the Clerk of the Circuit Court’s office, Mr. Lockhart, where the women are required to come there and register for jury duty ?
“A. You can say it’s 220 names on that book. There is.
“Q. All right. If there are 220 eligible women on that book—
“A. I don’t know if they are eligible or not.
“Q. What I want to know, then, is why you picked just ten out of that 220 to go into this jury list ?
“A. Well, we picked — we have average, for the last four years, ten to twelve on each list.
“Q. Mr. Lockhart, in making up this list, jury list, from which the present panel was drawn, did you attempt to comply with Florida Statute, Section 40.01, sub-section (1), in making up that list?
“A. Would you mind reading it to me?
“Q. Well, that’s the Statute, Mr. Lockhart, governing the qualifications for jurors and I will read it, if you like. [§40.01 read.] Now, what I am asking, Mr. Lockhart, is, did you purport to comply with that statute when you prepared this jury list?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. All right. Did you put in this list on March 8, 1957, any women or female’s names who were registered voters but who had not registered with the Clerk of the Circuit Court?
“A. If it was there, we didn’t intend to. We checked the registration. The law requires that to be on registration.
“Q. In other words, you would say that you did not?
“A. Yes. That’s right. I doubt what, with that small number of names. They were checked with the registration office.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a native of Switzerland, was admitted to citizenship by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on July 21, 1949. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that petitioner was debarred from citizenship because he had claimed exemption from military service as a neutral alien during World War II. Important questions concerning the effect of treaty and statute upon the privilege of aliens to acquire citizenship, are involved, and we granted certiorari.
Petitioner first entered the United States in 1937. After a trip to Switzerland in 1940 for service in the Swiss Army, in which he held a commission, he returned to this country and married a United States citizen. He and his wife have three children, all born here.
Article II of the Treaty of 1850 between the United States and Switzerland provides that
“The citizens of one of the two countries, residing or established in the other, shall be free from personal military service . . .
Petitioner registered under Selective Service in 1940 and was classified III-A, based on dependency. When, on January 11, 1944, his Local Board in New York City reclassified him I-A, available for service, he sought the aid of the Legation of Switzerland in securing his deferment in accordance with the Treaty of 1850. At that time § 3 (a) of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, as amended, provided for the exemption of neutral aliens from military service, with the proviso that one who claimed exemption should thereafter be debarred from becoming a citizen of the United States. Petitioner, however, advised the Local Board that he had taken steps with the Swiss Legation “to be released unconditionally” from service under the Treaty.
Upon receiving petitioner’s request for assistance, the Swiss Legation in Washington requested the Department of State that he be given an “unconditional release” from liability for service, “in conformity with” the Treaty. The Department referred the request to the Selective Service System, which replied that the Local Board had been instructed to inform petitioner that he might obtain a Revised Form 301 from the Swiss Legation to be used in claiming exemption. Selective Service Headquarters in Washington did so instruct the Director of Selective Service for New York City. On February 18,1944, the Swiss Legation wrote petitioner that it had requested the Department of State to exempt him “in accordance with the provisions of Art. II, of the Treaty . . . .” The letter continued:
“We are forwarding to you, herewith, two copies of DSS Form 301, revised, which kindly execute and file immediately with your Local Board. This action on your part is necessary in order to complete the exemption procedure; your Local Board, in accordance with Selective Service regulations, as amended, will then classify you in Class IV-C.
“Please note that, through filing of DSS Form 301, revised, you will not waive your right to apply for American citizenship papers. The final decision regarding your naturalization will remain solely with the competent Naturalization Courts."
The Legation’s emphasis in referring to “Form 301, revised” is not without significance. The pertinent regulations promulgated by the President provided that to claim exemption an alien should file with his Local Board Form 301, which became known as DSS 301, “Application by Alien for Relief from Military Service.” Above the signature line on this form there appeared the statement, in obvious reference to the proviso of § 3 (a): “I understand that the making of this application to be relieved from such liability will debar me from becoming a citizen of the United States.” But shortly after § 3 (a) of the Act was amended to the content with which we here deal, the Swiss Legation had protested to the Department of State that it was inconsistent with the treaty rights of Swiss citizens. And the Department had hastened to assure the Legation that the Government had no intention of abrogating treaty rights or privileges of Swiss nationals. The State Department, in conjunction with Selective Service Headquarters and the Swiss Legation, had then negotiated agreement upon a Revised Form 301 which omitted the waiver quoted above and stated simply: “I hereby apply for relief from liability for training and service in the land or naval forces of the United States.” A footnote of the revised form quoted pertinent parts of § 3 (a).
It was under these circumstances that petitioner signed a Revised Form 301 on February 26, 1944, and was classified IY-C by his Local Board. The Court of Appeals has accepted, as do we, the finding of the District Court that petitioner signed the application for exemption believing that he was not thereby precluded from citizenship, and that had he known claiming exemption would debar him from citizenship, he would not have claimed it, but would have elected to serve in the armed forces.
Is petitioner debarred from citizenship by reason of the claimed exemption?
The Treaty of 1850 with Switzerland was in full force in 1940 when the Selective Training and Service Act was passed. Standing alone, the Treaty provided for exemption of Swiss citizens from military service of the United States, and if that were all, petitioner would have been entitled to unqualified exemption. Section 3 (a) of the Act, while recognizing the immunity of citizens of neutral countries from service in our armed forces, imposed the condition that neutral aliens residing here who claimed such immunity would be debarred from citizenship. That the statute unquestionably imposed a condition on exemption not found in the Treaty does not mean they are inconsistent. Not doubting that a treaty may be modified by a subsequent act of Congress, it is not necessary to invoke such authority here, for we find in this congressionally imposed limitation on citizenship nothing inconsistent with the purposes and subject matter of the Treaty. The Treaty makes no provision respecting citizenship. On the contrary, it expressly provides that the privileges guaranteed by each country to resident citizens of the other “shall not extend to the exercise of political rights.” The qualifications for and limitations on the acquisition of United States citizenship are a political matter which the Treaty did not presume to cover.
Thus, as a matter of law, the statute imposed a valid condition on the claim of a neutral alien for exemption; petitioner had a choice of exemption and no citizenship, or no exemption and citizenship.
But as we have already indicated, before petitioner signed the application for exemption, he had asserted a right to exemption without debarment from citizenship. In response to the claims of petitioner and others, and in apparent acquiescence, our Department of State had arranged for a revised procedure in claiming exemption. The express waiver of citizenship had been deleted. Petitioner had sought information and guidance from the highest authority to which he could turn, and was advised to sign Revised Form 301. He was led to believe that he would not thereby lose his rights to citizenship. If he had known otherwise he would not have claimed exemption. In justifiable reliance on this advice he signed the papers sent to him by the Legation.
We do not overlook the fact that the Revised Form 301 contained a footnote reference to the statutory provision, and that the Legation wrote petitioner, “you will not waive your right to apply for American citizenship papers.” The footnote might have given pause to a trained lawyer. A lawyer might have speculated on the possible innuen-does in the use of the phrase “right to apply,” as opposed to “right to obtain.” But these are minor distractions in a total setting which understandably lulled this petitioner into misconception of the legal consequences of applying for exemption.
Nor did petitioner sign one thing and claim another, as in Savorgnan v. United States, 338 U. S. 491. Since the Revised Form 301 contained no waiver, what he signed was entirely consistent with what he believed and claimed.
There is no need to evalulate these circumstances on the basis of any estoppel of the Government or the power of the Swiss Legation to bind the United States by its advice to petitioner. Petitioner did not knowingly and intentionally waive his rights to citizenship. In fact, because of the misleading circumstances of this case, he never had an opportunity to make an intelligent election between the diametrically opposed courses required as a matter of strict law. Considering all the circumstances of the case, we think that to bar petitioner, nothing less than an intelligent waiver is required by elementary fairness. Johnson v. United States, 318 U. S. 189, 197. To hold otherwise would be to entrap petitioner.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Frankfurter agree with the Court’s decision and opinion that Moser did not waive his rights of citizenship. Questions regarding the scope of the Treaty of 1850 and the bearing of the Selective Service Act of 1940 on the Treaty are therefore not reached and should not be considered.
85 F. Supp. 683.
182 F. 2d 734.
340 U. S. 910.
11 Stat. 587, 589.
Section 3 (a) of the Act, 54 Stat. 885, as amended, 55 Stat. 845, 50 U. S. C. App. § 303 (a), provided in part:
“Except as otherwise provided in this Act, every male citizen of the United States, and every other male person residing in the United States . . . shall be liable for training and service in the land or naval forces of the United States: Provided, That any citizen or subject of a neutral country shall be relieved from liability for training and service under this Act if, prior to his induction into the land or naval forces, he has made application to be relieved from such liability in the manner prescribed by and in accordance with rules and regulations prescribed by the President, but any person who makes such application shall thereafter be debarred from becoming a citizen of the United States
32 CFR, 1943 Cum. Supp., § 622.43.
See 55 Stat. 845; note 5, supra.
4 Moore International Law Digest 52-53, 61.
Clark v. Allen, 331 U. S. 503, 508-509; Pigeon River Co. v. Cox, 291 U. S. 138, 160; Head Money Cases, 112 U. S. 580, 597-599. Cf. Cook v. United States, 228 U. S. 102, 120.
11 Stat. 587,588.
U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 4; United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, 615; United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644, 649; Zartarian v. Billings, 204 U. S. 170, 175.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Section 33 of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA or Act), 44 Stat. 1424, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 933, gives the “person entitled to compensation” two avenues of recovery: Such a person may seek to recover damages from the third parties ultimately at fault for any injuries and still recover compensation under the Act from the covered worker’s employer as long as the worker’s employer gives its approval before the person settles with any of the third party tortfeasors. The question we decide today is whether an injured worker’s spouse, who may be eligible to receive death benefits under the Act after the worker dies, is a “person entitled to compensation” when the spouse enters into a settlement agreement with a third party before the worker’s death. We also consider whether the Director of the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) is a proper respondent in proceedings before the courts of appeals.
I
Jefferson Yates worked for Ingalls as a shipfitter at its Pascagoula shipyards in Mississippi between 1953 and 1967 and was exposed to asbestos in his workplace during this time. In March 1981, Mr. Yates was diagnosed as suffering from asbestosis, chronic bronchitis, and possible malignancy in his lungs. Less than a month later, he filed a claim for disability benefits under § 8 of the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 908, asserting that his present condition resulted from his exposure to asbestos while employed by Ingalls. Ingalls admitted the compensability of this claim and eventually entered into a formal settlement with Mr. Yates in satisfaction of its liability under the Act. Dis-
Mr. Yates, in the trict Court against the 23 manufacturers and suppliers of asbestos whose products were allegedly present at the Pas-cagoula shipyards during the period in which Mr. Yates contracted asbestosis. Before his death in 1986, Mr. Yates entered into settlement agreements with 8 of the 23 defendants (predeath settlements). Each defendant required Maggie Yates, Mr. Yates’ wife, to join in the settlement and to release her present right to sue for loss of consortium, even though she was not a party to the litigation. Six of the eight defendants also required Mrs. Yates to release any cause of action for wrongful death that might accrue to her after her husband died. None of the third party settlements was approved by Ingalls.
After her husband’s lated resulted from asbestos exposure that occurred “in the course and scope of [his] employment,” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-59, Mrs. Yates filed a claim for death benefits as Mr. Yates’ widow under § 9 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 909. Ingalls contested the claim on the ground that Mrs. Yates had been a “person entitled to compensation” under the Act when she entered into the predeath settlements. Ingalls argued that by failing to obtain its approval of those settlements she forfeited, under § 33(g)(1), her eligibility for death benefits. In response, Mrs. Yates argued that she was not a “person entitled to compensation” when she entered into those settlement agreements because her husband was still alive at that time. The deputy commissioner referred the matter to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).
The ALJ ruled in favor of Mrs. Yates. Yates v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc., 26 BRBS 174 (1992). The ALJ recognized that Mrs. Yates was no more than a “potential widow” when she entered into the settlement agreements. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-67. Reasoning that the prerequisites for the recovery of death benefits could not be established prior to the worker’s death, he found that the “spouse of an injured employee has no cause of action [under the Act] until the injured employee dies from his work-related injury.” Id., at A-68. Because Mrs. Yates had no cause of action for death benefits prior to her husband’s death, the ALJ concluded that she was not a “person entitled to compensation” obligated to seek the employer’s approval of any settlements signed at that time.
Ingalls appealed to the Benefits Review Board. Yates v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc., 28 BRBS 137 (1994). The Director, OWCP, appeared as a respondent in support of Mrs. Yates. The Board affirmed, largely in reliance upon our decision in Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U. S. 469 (1992), in which we held that an injured worker was a “person entitled to compensation” for the purpose of disability benefits under § 8 of the Act at “the moment his right to recovery vested,” id., at 477, which in that case was when the worker suffered his permanent injury. The Board reasoned that Cowart’s “vesting” rationale applied to death as well as disability benefits, and observed that Mrs. Yates’ “right to death benefits under the Act could not have vested before she became a widow.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-35 (emphasis in original). Although it might appear at the time of settlement that Mrs. Yates would likely become a “person entitled to compensation” under the Act, before her husband’s death any one of several events might occur that would prevent her from recovering any death benefits under the Act — she might predecease her husband, she might divorce her husband, or her husband might die from causes independent of his work-related injury. For these reasons, the Board held that Mrs. Yates was not a “person entitled to compensation” at the time she entered into the predeath settlements, but acknowledged that its ruling was at odds with the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Cretan v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 1 F. 3d 843 (1993), cert, denied, 512 U. S. 1219 (1994).
cert, Ingalls again appealed, this time to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 65 F. 3d 460 (1995). Although Ingalls renewed its § 33(g) argument, the Court of Appeals rejected it for the reasons advanced by the Board. Ingalls also moved to strike the brief of the Director and to disallow the Director’s further participation in the appeal on the ground that the Director lacked standing. The Court of Appeals dismissed this argument in a footnote, citing its prior decision in Ingalls Shipbuilding Div., Litton Systems, Inc. v. White, 681 F. 2d 275, 280-284 (CA5 1982), overruled on other grounds, Newpark Shipbuilding & Repair, Inc. v. Roundtree, 723 F. 2d 399, 406-407 (CA5) (en banc), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 818 (1984), in which the court held that “the Director has standing to participate as a respondent in the appeal of a [Benefits Review Board] decision [before the Court of Appeals].” 65 F. 3d, at 463, n. 2. The court distinguished our decision in Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 514 U. S. 122 (1995), as relevant- only to the question of the Director’s standing as a petitioner to the Court of Appeals, and not as a respondent. both
The Courts of Appeals are in disagreement over both questions addressed. The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Ninth Circuits are divided on the meaning of the phrase “person entitled to compensation.” Compare 65 F. 3d, at 464 (potential widow is not a “person entitled to compensation”), with Cretan, supra, at 847 (potential widow is a “person entitled to compensation”). The Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits, and for the District of Columbia, are split over whether the Director may participate in proceedings before the Courts of Appeals as a respondent. Compare Parker v. Director, OWCP, 75 F. 3d 929, 935 (CA4 1996) (Director may not appear), cert. denied, post, p. 812, with Shahady v. Atlas Tile & Marble Co., 673 F. 2d 479, 483-484 (CADC 1982) (Director is a proper respondent as a person “adversely affected or aggrieved” by the decision below); Goldsmith v. Director, OWCP, 838 F. 2d 1079, 1080 (CA9 1988) (same); White, supra, at 281-282 (Director may appear pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15(a)).
We granted certiorari to resolve these splits, 517 U. S. 1186 (1996).
II
We begin our inquiry into the meaning of the phrase “person entitled to compensation” in § 33(g), as we must, with an examination of the language of the statute. Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 108 (1990) (“In determining the scope of a statute, we look first to its language, giving the words used their ordinary meaning”) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Section 33(g)(1) states in pertinent part:
“If the person entitled to compensation... enters into a settlement with a third person... for an amount less than the compensation to which the person... would be entitled under this chapter, the employer shall be liable for compensation as determined under subsection (f) of this section only if written approval of the settlement is obtained from the employer and the employer’s carrier, before the settlement is executed, and by the person entitled to compensation....” 33 U. S. C. § 933(g)(1) (emphasis added).
The plain language of this subsection reveals two salient points. First, the use of the present tense (i. e., “enters”) indicates that the “person entitled to compensation” must be so entitled at the time of settlement. Second, the ordinary meaning of the word “entitle” indicates that the “person entitled to compensation” must at the very least be qualified to receive compensation. Black’s Law Dictionary 532 (6th ed. 1990) (defining "entitle” as “To qualify for; to furnish with proper grounds for seeking or claiming”). v.
We reached the same conclusion in Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U. S. 469 (1992). There, Cowart, an injured worker, settled with a third party without obtaining the consent of his employer or his employer’s insurance carrier. Cowart thereafter filed a claim for disability benefits under the Act, which his employer contested. The employer argued that Cowart had been a “person entitled to compensation” under the Act at the time of his settlement, and that his failure to obtain his employer’s approval of the settlement barred any further recovery of benefits under the Act. In response, Cowart asserted that he had not been a “person entitled to compensation” when he entered into the settlement because that phrase referred only “to injured workers who are either already receiving compensation payments from their employer, or in whose favor an award of compensation has been entered.” Id., at 475.
The Court held that Cowart was barred by § 33(g) 5. receiving further compensation under the Act. We recognized that the relevant time for examining whether a person is “entitled to compensation” is the time of settlement. Ibid. (“The question is whether Cowart, at the time of... settlement, was a ‘person entitled to compensation’ under the terms of § 33(g)(1) of the LHWCA”). We then addressed the definition of the term “person entitled to compensation.” We said:
“Both in legal and general usage, the normal meaning of entitlement includes a right or benefit for which a person qualifies, and it does not depend upon whether the right has been acknowledged or adjudicated. It means only that the person satisfies the prerequisites attached to the right.” Id., at 477.
We concluded that Cowart had satisfied the prerequisites for obtaining the permanent disability benefits at issue in that case when he was injured, so that he was a “person entitled to compensation” and required to obtain his employer’s approval at the time he entered into the settlement agreement. Ibid.
With Cowart and the plain language of § 33(g) in mind, the relevant inquiry in this case is whether Mrs. Yates satisfied the prerequisites for obtaining death benefits under the Act at the time she signed the releases contained in the predeath settlements. Section 9 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 909(b), governs the distribution of death benefits, and provides that a “widow or widower” is entitled to such benefits “[i]f the [employee’s] injury causes death.” See also §902(11) (defining “death” as a basis for a right to compensation as “death resulting from an injury”); § 902(2) (defining “injury” as “accidental injury or death arising out of and in the course of employment”). The Act defines a “widow or widower” as “the decedent’s wife or husband living with or dependent for support upon him or her at the time of his or her death; or living apart for justifiable cause or by reason of his or her desertion at such time.” § 902(16).
Taken together, these statutes indicate that a surviving spouse qualifies for death benefits only if: (i) the survivor’s deceased worker-spouse dies from a work-related injury; (ii) the survivor is married to the worker-spouse at the time of the worker-spouse’s death; and (iii) the survivor is either living with the worker-spouse, dependent upon the worker-spouse, or living apart from the worker-spouse because of desertion or other justifiable cause at the time of the worker-spouse’s death. Cf. Thompson v. Lawson, 347 U. S. 334, 336 (1954) (looking to status of spouse at time of death to determine whether spouse is a “widow” or “widower” for purposes of LHWCA). It is impossible to ascertain whether these prerequisites have been met at any time prior to the death of the injured worker. Accord, Cortner v. Chevron Int’l Oil Co., 22 BRBS 218, 220 (1989) (“It is not until death occurs that the right to benefits arises and the potential beneficiaries are identified”); 51 Fed. Reg. 4270, 4276 (1986) (“Since a claim for survivor benefits does not arise until the employee’s death, there is no claim [against the employer] that can be settled [before then]”). We therefore reject the argument that a person seeking death benefits under the Act can satisfy the prerequisites for those benefits at any earlier time — e. g., when the worker is initially injured or when the worker enters into a predeath settlement. See also 20 CFR § 702.241(g) (1996) (no one can enter a settlement agreement with the employer regarding death benefits before the worker dies). Because Mrs. Yates’ husband was alive at the time she released her potential wrongful death actions, she was not a “person entitled to compensation” at that time and was therefore not obligated to seek Ingalls’ approval to preserve her entitlement to statutory death benefits.
Ingalls contends that dates a contrary conclusion. Ingalls’ analysis focuses on the presence of the phrase “would be entitled”:
“If the person entitled to compensation... enters into a settlement with a third person... for an amount less than the compensation to which the person... would be entitled under this [Act], the employer shall be liable [only if approval is obtained].” 33 U. S. C. § 933(g)(1) (emphasis added).
Because this subsection examines the compensation to which the person “would be entitled” under the Act, argues Ingalls, it “encompasses a broad forward looking concept” that effectively brings any “person who would be entitled to compensation” within its purview. Brief for Petitioners 15. As support, Ingalls draws upon the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cretan v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 1 F. 3d 843 (1993). On facts almost identical to those presented here, the Court of Appeals held that the injured worker’s spouse was a “person entitled to compensation” for death benefits prior to her husband's death. The court found “lit-tie sense in a distinction that turns on whether the death for which settlement is made has yet to occur.” Id., at 847.
Ingalls essentially takes issue with our conclusion that the proper time to evaluate whether a person is “entitled to compensation” is the time of settlement. Ingalls’ position is at odds with our precedent, see Cowart, 505 U. S., at 475, and with the plain language of this statute, supra, at 255. The phrase “would be entitled” in subsection (g)(1) simply frames the inquiry into whether the approval requirement applies at all. If the person entitled to compensation enters into a settlement for an amount less than that to which the person “would be entitled” under the Act, then the employer’s approval must be obtained. If the settlement is for an amount greater than or equal to the amount to which the person “would be entitled,” then the employer’s approval need not be obtained. 505 U. S., at 482. Ingalls’ reading would assign an additional and unnecessary purpose to the phrase. Under Ingalls’ suggested reading, a worker’s spouse who signs a predeath settlement is considered a “person entitled to compensation” even though, in the time between the settlement and the worker’s death, the worker’s spouse might become ineligible for those death benefits (e.g., by predeceasing or divorcing the worker). In this context, the worker’s spouse would not actually be entitled to death benefits, but would nonetheless be considered the “person entitled” to such benefits. This reading cannot be supported by the statutory language.
Ingalls also contends that we should depart from a plain reading of the statutory language because strict adherence to it is at odds with the policies underlying the Act. More specifically, Ingalls avers that our reading of § 33(g) will effectively abrogate the employer’s right to offset its liability for death benefits by any amounts received by the surviving spouse in predeath settlements. Section 33(f) allows an employer to reduce its compensation obligations under the Act by the net amount of damages that the “person entitled to compensation” recovers from third parties. 33 § 933(f) (“If the person entitled to compensation institutes proceedings... the employer shall be required to pay as compensation under this chapter a sum equal to the excess of the amount which the Secretary determines is payable on account of such injury or death over the net amount recovered against such third person”). If, as Ingalls asserts, the phrase “person entitled to compensation” means the same thing under § 33(f) as it does under § 33(g), see Cowart, supra, at 479, then our holding today means that an employer would not be permitted to reduce the spouse’s death benefits by any amounts the spouse receives from predeath settlements. Such a spouse would be able to recover once from the third party and again from the worker’s employer under the Act after the worker’s death. In effect, a spouse in this situation — unlike a spouse who entered into settlements the day after the worker dies — would receive double recovery for her injuries. This double recovery, Ingalls contends, contravenes one of the central tenets of the Act set forth in § 3(e), 33 U. S. C. § 903(e), of the Act: “[A]ny amounts paid to an employee for the same injury, disability, or death for which benefits are claimed under this chapter pursuant to any other workers’ compensation law or section 688 of title 46, Appendix (relating to recovery for injury to or death of seamen), shall be credited against any liability imposed by this chapter.” See also Cowart, supra, at 483 (noting that the Act “ensures against fraudulent double recovery by the employee”); 2A A. Larson, Workers’ Compensation Law § 71.21 (1996) (“[T]he policy of avoiding double recovery is a strong one...”). In Ingalls’ view, our reading of the statute gives a “potential widow... greater benefits and protections than that afforded to covered employees who settle their third party claims.” Brief for Petitioners 22-23.
This entire argument, however, presupposes definition we today give to “person entitled to compensation” under § 33(g) applies without qualification to § 33(f) as well. This is a question we have yet to decide, and is one we leave for another day. If, for the sake of argument, we assumed that Ingalls’ proposition were correct, our conclusion on the question presented in this case would not change. We agree that the Act generally reflects a policy of avoiding double recovery. See 33 U. S. C. § 903(e). But § 903(e) is of fairly recent vintage, Pub. L. 98-426, 98 Stat. 1640; E. P. Paup Co. v. Director, OWCP, 999 F. 2d 1341, 1350 (CA9 1993) (“Prior to [enactment of] section 903(e), the credit doctrine allowed offset of benefits against LHWCA awards only if prior benefits were awarded under the LHWCA”) (emphasis added), and its reach is not all inclusive. See, e. g., Todd Shipyards Corp. v. Director, OWCP, 848 F. 2d 125 (CA9 1998) (allowing double recovery of veterans disability benefits and LHWCA benefits); Brown v. Forest Oil Corp., 29 F. 3d 966, 971 (CA5 1994) (“Although admittedly the LHWCA has a general policy to avoid double recoveries, we have also noted that limitations on employee recovery are not favored absent statutory authority”) (footnote omitted). Because the prohibition against double recovery is not absolute, we do not find the possibility of such recovery in this context to be so absurd or glaringly unjust as to warrant a departure from the plain language of the statute. See United States v. Rodgers, 466 U. S. 475, 484 (1984) (plain language controls unless it leads to results that are “ ‘absurd or glaringly unjust’ ”). Furthermore, as Ingalls acknowledges, see Reply Brief for Petitioners 13, subrogation under the Act is not an employer’s exclusive remedy against third parties responsible for employees’ injuries; an employer in Ingalls’ position would remain free to seek indemnification against a third party through a tort action in state or federal court. Pallas Shipping Agency, Ltd. v. Duris, 461 U. S. 529, 538 (1983); Federal Marine Terminals, Inc. v. Burnside Shipping Co., 394 U. S. 404, 412-414 (1969). Accordingly, we hold that before an injured worker’s death, the worker’s spouse is not a “person entitled to compensation” for death benefits within the meaning of LHWCA § 33(g), and does not forfeit the right to collect death benefits under the Act for failure to obtain the worker’s employer’s approval of settlements entered into before the worker’s death.
Ill
Ingalls also challenges the “standing” of the Director, OWCP, to appear before the courts of appeals as a respondent in cases in which there are already two adverse litigants. To assess this claim, familiarity with the Act’s appeals process, as well as with the Director’s role within that process, is helpful. file
A person seeking compensation under the Act must file a timely claim with the local deputy commissioner. 33 U. S. C. § 913(a) (1-year limitation period). The commissioner notifies the employer of the claim, § 919(b), at which time the employer might: (i) agree to pay the amount of benefits fixed by the Act, 20 CFR § 702.231 et seq. (1996) (procedures for payment of noncontroverted claims); (ii) enter into a formal settlement with the person seeking compensation for a (presumably) lesser amount, subject to the approval of the deputy commissioner or an ALJ, 33 U. S. C. § 908(i); 20 CFR § 702.241 et seq-. (1996); or (iii) give notice that it is denying liability for, or controverting, the claim, §702.251. If the employer controverts the claim, the deputy commissioner is empowered to attempt to resolve the parties’ dispute informally. §702.311 et seq. Should informal discussions prove unsuccessful, the commissioner refers the matter to an ALJ and a formal hearing is held. 33 U. S. C. §§919(c)-(d); 20 CFR § 702.316 (1996). “[A]ny party in interest” may appeal the ALJ’s decision to the Benefits Review Board. 33 U. S. C. § 921(b)(3). An appeal from the Board’s decision to the courts of appeals may be initiated by “[a]ny person adversely affected or aggrieved by a final order of the Board.” § 921(c); see also 20 CFR § 802.410(a) (1996).
The Director, OWCP, plays a significant role in this process. In addition to being charged with the LHWCA’s administration, § 701.202 (transferring to the Director “all functions of the Department of Labor with respect to the administration of benefits programs under the [LHWCA]”), and enforcement, § 802.410(b) (noting that Director is “responsible for the administration and enforcement of the [LHWCA]”); see also Newport News, 514 U. S., at 134 (noting Director’s “duty of uniform administration and enforcement”), the Director has also been authorized by the Secretary of Labor to appear as a litigant before the relevant adjudicative branches of the Department of Labor, the ALJ, and the Benefits Review Board. 20 CFR § 702.333(b) (1996) (“The Solicitor of Labor or his designee may appear and participate in any formal hearing [before an ALJ] held pursuant to these regulations on behalf of the Director as an interested party”); § 802.202(a) (“Any party... may appear before and/or submit written argument to the [Benefits Review] Board”); § 801.2(a)(10) (defining “party” to include “the Secretary or his designee”); § 802.201(a) (“The Director, OWCP,... shall [under certain circumstances] be considered a party adversely affected” for purposes of initiating appeal to Board).
The Director may also appear before the courts of appeals, although the limits of the Director’s authority to do so are less clear. Section 21(e) of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 921(c), provides in relevant part that
“[a]ny person adversely affected or aggrieved by a final order of the Board may obtain a review of that order in the United States court of appeals for the circuit in which the injury occurred....”
In Newport News, we held that “the phrase ‘person adversely affected or aggrieved’ does not refer to an agency acting in its governmental capacity,” 514 U. S., at 130, so that the Director was therefore not permitted to appeal from a decision of the Benefits Review Board when the Board’s decision did no more than “impai[r] [the Director’s] ability to achieve the Act’s purposes and to perform the administrative duties the Act prescribes,” id., at 126. We expressed no view on the question whether the Director can appear before the court of appeals, not as a petitioner seeking review, but as a respondent. Id., at 127, n. 2.
Any impediment to the Director’s appearance as a respondent in this case is not of constitutional origin. As we stated in Newport News, although the Director had no statutory authorization to petition the Court of Appeals, “Congress could have conferred standing upon the Director without infringing Article III of the Constitution.” Id., at 133. In light of this observation, Article III surely poses no bar to the Director’s participation as a respondent in those courts. Cf. Diamond v. Charles, 476 U. S. 54, 68-69 (1986) (reserving question whether persons seeking to intervene “must satisfy not only the requirements of [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure] 24(a)(2), but also the requirements of Art. III”).
Whether the Director has statutory authority to appear as a respondent before the courts of appeals is not as easily resolved. The Act itself does not speak to the issue. Section 21(c) of the Act, by its very terms, defines only who “may obtain a review of [a final order of the Board],” 33 U. S. C. § 921(c); it does not purport to delineate who may appear in those proceedings once a proper party initiates them. Thus, we must reject Ingalls’ argument that § 21(c) requires the Director to demonstrate an “advers[e] [e]ffect or aggriev[ement]” in order to appear as a respondent.
Section 21a of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 921a, similarly provides no authorization. While §21a states that “[attorneys appointed by the Secretary shall represent the Secretary, the deputy commissioner, or the Board in any court proceedings under section 921 of this title or other provisions of this chapter,” it says nothing about when the Secretary may be a party to those proceedings in the first place. See also 20 CFR § 802.410(b) (1996) (“The Director, OWCP,... shall be deemed to be the proper party on behalf of the Secretary of Labor in all review proceedings conducted pursuant to section 21(c) of the LHWCA”). Nor need we infer the Director’s right to appear as a respondent in order for §21a to have meaning. Although Newport News curtailed the Secretary’s right to appear as a petitioner before the courts of appeals in most circumstances, that decision did not foreclose an appearance as a petitioner in all situations. See, e. g., Newport News, supra, at 128, n. 3 (leaving open the possibility that the Director may be a “person adversely affected or aggrieved” when appealing a Board ruling adverse to the § 944 fund).
Left with no guidance from the Act itself, we turn to the general rule that governs all appeals from administrative agencies to the courts of appeals, Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15(a). That Rule, in pertinent part, states:
“Review of an order of an administrative agency, board, commission, or officer (hereinafter, the term ‘agency’ will include agency, board, commission, or officer) must be obtained by filing with the clerk of a court of appeals... [the appropriate form indicated by law].... In each case the agency must be named respondent.” (Emphasis added.)
We believe that it is this Rule that confers upon the Director the right to appear as a respondent before the courts of appeals. Rule 15(a) clearly applies to appeals from the Benefits Review Board: The LHWCA authorizes appellate review of the “final order of the [Benefits Review] Board,” 33 U. S. C. § 921(c), and Rule 15(a) applies to “[r]eview of an order of an administrative agency [or] board.” We decline to read Rule 15(a) more narrowly, as the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the District of Columbia have done. Those courts have held that Rule 15(a) applies only where “a single private party is contesting the action of an agency, which agency must appear and defend on the merits to insure the proper adversarial clash requisite to a ‘case or controversy.’ ” McCord v. Benefits Review Board, 514 F. 2d 198, 200 (CADC 1975). Where “there is sufficient adversity between [the employer and the claimant] to insure proper litigation,” ibid., they reason, “the Director’s presence as a party is not necessary” and would in fact run afoul of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 1(b) by “‘extending]... the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals.’” Parker, 75 F. 3d, at 934 (citing McCord, swpra, at 200); see also Fed. Rule App. Proc. 1(b) (“These rules shall not be construed to extend or limit the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals as established by law”). re-
We reject this quire us to tack the words “when necessary to preserve adversity” onto, the otherwise unqualified language in Rule 15(a) that “the agency must be named respondent.” Where there is already a case or controversy between parties properly before a court, as there is in this case between Ingalls and Mrs. Yates who properly appear pursuant to 33 U. S. C. § 921(c), that court’s jurisdiction is not extended by the inclusion of an additional party whose presence is also consistent with Article III, see supra, at 264. See Pittston Stevedoring Corp. v. Dellaventura, 544 F. 2d 35, 43, n. 5 (CA2 1976) (“The existence of sufficient adversity between private parties has not been thought to preclude the Government’s right to be a party in many other sorts of review of federal administrative action”), aff’d on other grounds sub nom. Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U. S. 249 (1977). Justice Scalia is concerned that Rule 1(b) might be violated in the converse situation — i. e., when the Director is the sole respondent whose presence is “necessary to preserve adversity.” See post, at 274. Although the Director’s participation in that case would not extend the courts’ jurisdiction beyond the perimeter of Article III, see Newport News, 514 U. S., at 133 (no Article III impediment to the Director’s participation), it is possible that such participation might exceed the court’s statutory authority to hear the case. While this transgression of statutory authority is not a question we decide today, it nevertheless raises a concern relevant to our interpretation of Rule 15(a). We do not find this concern controlling, however, when, as in this case, the Director is not in fact the sole respondent.
Having concluded that Rule 15(a) applies, the question becomes which “agency” must be named as a respondent. When an agency has a unitary structure — i. e., where a single entity wears the hats of adjudicator and litigator/ enforcer — the application of Rule 15(a) is straightforward. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), for instance, has adjudicative duties, 47 U. S. C. §§ 154(j), 155(c), as well as enforcement duties that require it to appear as a litigant, §402. It is therefore proper to name the FCC as the respondent “agency” in proceedings before the courts of appeals under Rule 15(a). Indeed, it is necessary to do so, since the FCC is the only “agency” that could be named. See also 29 U. S. C. § 160(f) (National Labor Relations Board adjudicates unfair labor practice claims and litigates before the courts of appeals); 16 U. S. C. §§ 825f, 825g (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigates, en
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion to dismiss is granted and the appeal is dismissed. Treating the papers whereon the appeal was taken as a petition for a writ of certiorari, before judgment, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (1), to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the petition is granted. The judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is affirmed. Turner v. City of Memphis, 369 U. S. 350; Watson v. City of Memphis, 373 U. S. 526.
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice White are of the opinion that this case is not appealable to this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1253 but is appealable to the Court of Appeals under 28 U. S. C. § 1291, and that this Court should dismiss the appeal for the Court of Appeals to consider and decide the appeal of this case now properly pending before it. See Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U. S. 31.
See Griffin v. Prince Edward County Bd., 375 U. S. 391, and eases cited.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Respondent Shirley Jones brought suit in California Superior Court claiming that she had been libeled in an article written and edited by petitioners in Florida. The article was published in a national magazine with a large circulation in California. Petitioners were served with process by mail in Florida and caused special appearances to be entered on their behalf, moving to quash the service of process for lack of personal jurisdiction. The Superior Court granted the motion on the ground that First Amendment concerns weighed against an assertion of jurisdiction otherwise proper under the Due Process Clause. The California Court of Appeal reversed, rejecting the suggestion that First Amendment considerations enter into the jurisdictional analysis. We now affirm.
Respondent lives and works in California. She and her husband brought this suit against the National Enquirer, Inc., its local distributing company, and petitioners for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional harm. The Enquirer is a Florida corporation with its principal place of business in Florida. It publishes a national weekly newspaper with a total circulation of over 5 million. About 600,000 of those copies, almost twice the level of the next highest State, are sold in California. Respondent’s and her husband’s claims were based on an article that appeared in the Enquirer’s October 9, 1979, issue. Both the Enquirer and the distributing company answered the complaint and made no objection to the jurisdiction of the California court.
Petitioner South is a reporter employed by the Enquirer. He is a resident of Florida, though he frequently travels to California on business. South wrote the first draft of the challenged article, and his byline appeared on it. He did most of his research in Florida, relying on phone calls to sources in California for the information contained in the article. Shortly before publication, South called respondent’s home and read to her husband a draft of the article so as to elicit his comments upon it. Aside from his frequent trips and phone calls, South has no other relevant contacts with California.
Petitioner Calder is also a Florida resident. He has been to California only twice — once, on a pleasure trip, prior to the publication of the article and once after to testify in an unrelated trial. Calder is president and editor of the Enquirer. He “oversee[s] just about every function of the Enquirer.” App. 24. He reviewed and approved the initial evaluation of the subject of the article and edited it in its final form. He also declined to print a retraction requested by respondent. Calder has no other relevant contacts with California.
In considering petitioners’ motion to quash service of process, the Superior Court surmised that the actions of petitioners in Florida, causing injury to respondent in California, would ordinarily be sufficient to support an assertion of jurisdiction over them in California. But the court felt that special solicitude was necessary because of the potential “chilling effect” on reporters and editors which would result from requiring them to appear in remote jurisdictions to answer for the content of articles upon which they worked. The court also noted that respondent’s rights could be “fully satisfied” in her suit against the publisher without requiring petitioners to appear as parties. The Superior Court, therefore, granted the motion.
The California Court of Appeal reversed. 138 Cal. App. 3d 128, 187 Cal. Rptr. 825 (1982). The court agreed that neither petitioner’s contacts with California would be sufficient for an assertion of jurisdiction on a cause of action unrelated to those contacts. See Perkins v. Benguet Mining Co., 342 U. S. 437 (1952) (permitting general jurisdiction where defendant’s contacts with the forum were “continuous and systematic”). But the court concluded that a valid basis for jurisdiction existed on the theory that petitioners intended to, and did, cause tortious injury to respondent in California. The fact that the actions causing the effects in California were performed outside the State did not prevent the State from asserting jurisdiction over a cause of action arising out of those effects. The court rejected the Superior Court’s conclusion that First Amendment considerations must be weighed in the scale against jurisdiction.
A timely petition for hearing was denied by the Supreme Court of California. App. 122. On petitioners’ appeal to this Court, probable jurisdiction was postponed. 460 U. S. 1080 (1983). We conclude that jurisdiction by appeal does not he. Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U. S. 84, 90, and n. 4 (1978). Treating the jurisdictional statement as a petition for writ of certiorari, as we are authorized to do, 28 U. S. C. §2103, we hereby grant the petition.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution permits personal jurisdiction over a defendant in any State with which the defendant has “certain minimum contacts . . . such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.’ Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463.” International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310, 316 (1945). In judging minimum contacts, a court properly focuses on “the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.” Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 186, 204 (1977). See also Rush v. Savchuk, 444 U. S. 320, 332 (1980). The plaintiff’s lack of “contacts” will not defeat otherwise proper jurisdiction, see Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., ante, at 779-781, but they may be so manifold as to permit jurisdiction when it would not exist in their absence. Here, the plaintiff is the focus of the activities of the defendants out of which the suit arises. See McGee v. International Life Ins. Co., 355 U. S. 220 (1957).
The allegedly libelous story concerned the California activities of a California resident. It impugned the professionalism of an entertainer whose television career was centered in California. The article was drawn from California sources, and the brunt of the harm, in terms both of respondent’s emotional distress and the injury to her professional reputation, was suffered in California. In sum, California is the focal point both of the story and of the harm suffered. Jurisdiction over petitioners is therefore proper in California based on the “effects” of their Florida conduct in California. World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 286, 297-298 (1980); Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws §37 (1971).
Petitioners argue that they are not responsible for the circulation of the article in California. A reporter and an editor, they claim, have no direct economic stake in their employer’s sales in a distant State. Nor are ordinary employees able to control their employer’s marketing activity. The mere fact that they can “foresee” that the article will be circulated and have an effect in California is not sufficient for an assertion of jurisdiction. World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, supra, at 295; Rush v. Savchuk, supra, at 328-329. They do not “in effect appoint the [article their] agent for service of process.” World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, supra, at 296. Petitioners liken themselves to a welder employed in Florida who works on a boiler which subsequently explodes in California. Cases which hold that jurisdiction will be proper over the manufacturer, Buckeye Boiler Co. v. Superior Court, 71 Cal. 2d 893, 458 P. 2d 57 (1969); Gray v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 22 Ill. 2d 432, 176 N. E. 2d 761 (1961), should not be applied to the welder who has no control over and derives no direct benefit from his employer’s sales in that distant State.
Petitioners’ analogy does not wash. Whatever the status of their hypothetical welder, petitioners are not charged with mere untargeted negligence. Rather, their intentional, and allegedly tortious, actions were expressly aimed at California. Petitioner South wrote and petitioner Calder edited an article that they knew would have a potentially devastating impact upon respondent. And they knew that the brunt of that injury would be felt by respondent in the State in which she lives and works and in which the National Enquirer has its largest circulation. Under the circumstances, petitioners must “reasonably anticipate being haled into court there” to answer for the truth of the statements made in their article. World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, supra, at 297; Kulko v. California Superior Court, supra, at 97-98; Shaffer v. Heitner, supra, at 216. An individual injured in California need not go to Florida to seek redress from persons who, though remaining in Florida, knowingly cause the injury in California.
Petitioners are correct that their contacts with California are not to be judged according to their employer’s activities there. On the other hand, their status as employees does not somehow insulate them from jurisdiction. Each defendant’s contacts with the forum State must be assessed individually. See Rush v. Savchuk, supra, at 332 (“The requirements of International Shoe . . . must be met as to each defendant over whom a state court exercises jurisdiction”). In this case, petitioners are primary participants in an alleged wrongdoing intentionally directed at a California resident, and jurisdiction over them is proper on that basis.
We also reject the suggestion that First Amendment concerns enter into the jurisdictional analysis. The infusion of such considerations would needlessly complicate an already imprecise inquiry. Estin v. Estin, 334 U. S. 541, 545 (1948). Morever, the potential chill on protected First Amendment activity stemming from libel and defamation actions is already taken into account in the constitutional limitations on the substantive law governing such suits. See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974). To reintroduce those concerns at the jurisdictional stage would be a form of double counting. We have already declined in other contexts to grant special procedural protections to defendants in libel and defamation actions in addition to the constitutional protections embodied in the substantive laws. See, e. g., Herbert v. Lando, 441 U. S. 153 (1979) (no First Amendment privilege bars inquiry into editorial process). See also Hutchinson v. Proxmire, 443 U. S. 111, 120, n. 9 (1979) (implying that no special rules apply for summary judgment).
We hold that jurisdiction over petitioners in California is proper because of their intentional conduct in Florida calculated to cause injury to respondent in California. The judgment of the California Court of Appeal is
Affirmed.
Respondent’s husband subsequently filed a voluntary dismissal of his complaint.
A geographic analysis of the total paid circulation for the September 18, 1979, issue of the Enquirer showed total sales, national and international, of 5,292,200. Sales in California were 604,431. The State with the next highest total was New York, with 316,911. App. 39-41.
South stated that during a 4-year period he visited California more than 20 times. Id., at 32. A friend estimated that he came to California from 6 to 12 times each year. Id,., at 66.
The Superior Court found that South made at least one trip to California in connection with the article. South hotly disputes this finding, claiming that an uncontroverted affidavit shows that he never visited California to research the article. Since we do not rely for our holding on the alleged visit, see n. 6, infra, we find it unnecessary to consider the contention.
California’s “long-arm” statute permits an assertion of jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant whenever permitted by the State and Federal Constitutions. California Civ. Proc. Code Ann. §410.10 (West 1973) provides: “A court of this state may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United States.”
The Court of Appeal further suggested that petitioner South’s investigative activities, including one visit and numerous phone calls to California, formed an independent basis for an assertion of jurisdiction over him in this action. In light of our approval of the “effects” test employed by the California court, we find it unnecessary to reach this alternative ground.
Kulko involved an assertion of jurisdiction under the same California statute at issue here. The Court held that the case was improperly brought to the Court as an appeal, since no state statute was “drawn in question ... on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States,” 28 U. S. C. § 1257(2). Petitioners attempt to distinguish Kulko on the ground that the defendant in that case argued only that the Due Process Clause precluded the exercise of in per-sonam jurisdiction over him, whereas petitioners argued below that the California statute as applied to them would be unconstitutional. We are unpersuaded by this shift in emphasis. The jurisdictional statute construed by the California Court of Appeal provides that the State’s jurisdiction is as broad as the Constitution permits. See n. 5, supra. As in Kulko, the opinion below does not purport to determine the constitutionality of the California jurisdictional statute. Rather, the question decided was whether the Constitution itself would permit the assertion of jurisdiction. Under the circumstances, we find an appeal improper regardless of the terminology in which the petitioners couch their jurisdictional defense.
Although there has not yet been a trial on the merits in this case, the judgment of the California appellate court “is plainly final on the federal issue and is not subject to further review in the state courts.” Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 485 (1975). Accordingly, as in several past cases presenting jurisdictional issues in this posture, “we conclude that the judgment below is final within the meaning of [28 U. S. C.] § 1257.” Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 186, 195-196, n. 12 (1977). See also Rush v. Savchuk, 444 U. S. 320 (1980); World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 286 (1980); Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U. S. 84 (1978).
The article alleged that respondent drank so heavily as to prevent her from fulfilling her professional obligations.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
[562 U.S. 42]
We granted certiorari, post, p. 960, 131 S. Ct. 459, 178 L. Ed. 2d 286 (2010), on the questions “whether tribal sovereign immunity from suit, to the extent it should continue to be recognized, bars taxing authorities from foreclosing to collect lawfully imposed property taxes” and “whether the ancient Oneida reservation in New York was disestablished or diminished.” Pet. for Cert. i. Counsel for respondent Oneida Indian Nation advised the Court through a letter on November 30, 2010, that the Nation had, on November 29, 2010, passed a tribal declaration and ordinance waiving “its sovereign immunity to enforcement of real property taxation through foreclosure by state, county and local governments within and throughout the United States.” Oneida Indian Nation, Ordinance No. 0-10-1 (2010). Petitioners Madison and Oneida Counties responded in a December 1, 2010 letter, questioning the validity, scope, and permanence of that waiver; the Nation addressed those concerns in a December 2, 2010 letter.
[562 U.S. 43]
We vacate the judgment and remand the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That court should address, in the first instance, whether to revisit its ruling on sovereign immunity in light of this new factual development, and—if necessary—proceed to address other questions in the case consistent with its sovereign immunity ruling. See Kiyemba v. Obama, 559 U.S. 131, 130 S. Ct. 1235, 175 L. Ed. 2d 1070 (2010) (per curiam).
Petitioners are awarded costs in this Court pursuant to this Court’s Rule 43.2.
It is so ordered.
Justice Sotomayor 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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A Texas city denied a special use permit for the operation of a group home for the mentally retarded, acting pursuant to a municipal zoning ordinance requiring permits for such homes. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that mental retardation is a “quasi-suspect” classification and that the ordinance violated the Equal Protection Clause because it did not substantially further an important governmental purpose. We hold that a lesser standard of scrutiny is appropriate, but conclude that under that standard the ordinance is invalid as applied in this case.
h — I
In July 1980, respondent Jan Hannah purchased a building at 201 Featherston Street in the city of Cleburne, Texas, with the intention of leasing it to Cleburne Living Center, Inc. (CLC), for the operation of a group home for the mentally retarded. It was anticipated that the home would house 13 retarded men and women, who would be under the constant supervision of CLC staff members. The house had four bedrooms and two baths, with a half bath to be added. CLC planned to comply with all applicable state and federal regulations.
The city informed CLC that a special use permit would be required for the operation of a group home at the site, and CLC accordingly submitted a permit application. In response to a subsequent inquiry from CLC, the city explained that under the zoning regulations applicable to the site, a special use permit, renewable annually, was required for the construction of “[hjospitals for the insane or feeble-minded, or alcoholic [sic] or drug addicts, or penal or correctional institutions.” The city had determined that the proposed group home should be classified as a “hospital for the feeble-minded.” After holding a public hearing on CLC’s application, the City Council voted 3 to 1 to deny a special use permit.
CLC then filed suit in Federal District Court against the city and a number of its officials, alleging, inter alia, that the zoning ordinance was invalid on its face and as applied because it discriminated against the mentally retarded in violation of the equal protection rights of CLC and its potential residents. The District Court found that “[i]f the potential residents of the Featherston Street home were not mentally retarded, but the home was the same in all other respects, its use would be permitted under the city’s zoning ordinance,” and that the City Council’s decision “was motivated primarily by the fact that the residents of the home would be persons who are mentally retarded.” App. 93, 94. Even so, the District Court held the ordinance and its application constitutional. Concluding that no fundamental right was implicated and that mental retardation was neither a suspect nor a quasi-suspect classification, the court employed the minimum level of judicial scrutiny applicable to equal protection claims. The court deemed the ordinance, as written and applied, to be rationally related to the city’s legitimate interests in “the legal responsibility of CLC and its residents, . . . the safety and fears of residents in the adjoining neighborhood,” and the number of people to be housed in the home. Id., at 103.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, determining that mental retardation was a quasi-suspect classification and that it should assess the validity of the ordinance under intermediate-level scrutiny. 726 F. 2d 191 (1984). Because mental retardation was in fact relevant to many legislative actions, strict scrutiny was not appropriate. But in light of the history of “unfair and often grotesque mistreatment” of the retarded, discrimination against them was “likely to reflect deep-seated prejudice.” Id., at 197. In addition, the mentally retarded lacked political power, and their condition was immutable. The court considered heightened scrutiny to be particularly appropriate in this case, because the city’s ordinance withheld a benefit which, although not fundamental, was very important to the mentally retarded. Without group homes, the court stated, the retarded could never hope to integrate themselves into the community. Applying the test that it considered appropriate, the court held that the ordinance was invalid on its face because it did not substantially further any important governmental interests. The Court of Appeals went on to hold that the ordinance was also invalid as applied. Rehearing en banc was denied with six judges dissenting in an opinion urging en banc consideration of the panel’s adoption of a heightened standard of review. We granted certiorari, 469 U. S. 1016 (1984).
1 — I t — i
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment commands that no State shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” which is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 216 (1982). Section 5 of the Amendment empowers Congress to enforce this mandate, but absent controlling congressional direction, the courts have themselves devised standards for determining the validity of state legislation or other official action that is challenged as denying equal protection. The general rule is that legislation is presumed to be valid and will be sustained if the classification drawn by the statute is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Schweiker v. Wilson, 450 U. S. 221, 230 (1981); United States Railroad Retirement Board v. Fritz, 449 U. S. 166, 174-175 (1980); Vance v. Bradley, 440 U. S. 93, 97 (1979); New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297, 303 (1976). When social or economic legislation is at issue, the Equal Protection Clause allows the States wide latitude, United States Railroad Retirement Board v. Fritz, supra, at 174; New Orleans v. Dukes, supra, at 303, and the Constitution presumes that even improvident decisions will eventually be rectified by the democratic processes.
The general rule gives way, however, when a statute classifies by race, alienage, or national origin. These factors are so seldom relevant to the achievement of any legitimate state interest that laws grounded in such considerations are deemed to reflect prejudice and antipathy — a view that those in the burdened class are not as worthy or deserving as others. For these reasons and because such discrimination is unlikely to be soon rectified by legislative means, these laws are subjected to strict scrutiny and will be sustained only if they are suitably tailored to serve a compelling state interest. McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 192 (1964); Graham v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 365 (1971). Similar oversight by the courts is due when state laws impinge on personal rights protected by the Constitution. Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U. S. 621 (1969); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969); Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535 (1942).
Legislative classifications based on gender also call for a heightened standard of review. That factor generally provides no sensible ground for differential treatment. “[W]hat differentiates sex from such nonsuspect statuses as intelligence or physical disability ... is that the sex characteristic frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society.” Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, 686 (1973) (plurality opinion). Rather than resting on meaningful considerations, statutes distributing benefits and burdens between the sexes in different ways very likely reflect outmoded notions of the relative capabilities of men and women. A gender classification fails unless it is substantially related to a sufficiently important governmental interest. Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, 458 U. S. 718 (1982); Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190 (1976). Because illegitimacy is beyond the individual’s control and bears “no relation to the individual’s ability to participate in and contribute to society,” Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495, 505 (1976), official discriminations resting on that characteristic are also subject to somewhat heightened review. Those restrictions “will survive equal protection scrutiny to the extent they are substantially related to a legitimate state interest.” Mills v. Habluetzel, 456 U. S. 91, 99 (1982).
We have declined, however, to extend heightened review to differential treatment based on age:
“While the treatment of the aged in this Nation has not been wholly free of discrimination, such persons, unlike, say, those who have been discriminated against on the basis of race or national origin, have not experienced a ‘history of purposeful unequal treatment’ or been subjected to unique disabilities on the basis of stereotyped characteristics not truly indicative of their abilities.” Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U. S. 307, 313 (1976).
The lesson of Murgia is that where individuals in the group affected by a law have distinguishing characteristics relevant to interests the State has the authority to implement, the courts have been very reluctant, as they should be in our federal system and with our respect for the separation of powers, to closely scrutinize legislative choices as to whether, how, and to what extent those interests should be pursued. In such cases, the Equal Protection Clause requires only a rational means to serve a legitimate end.
I — I hH h-H
Against this background, we conclude for several reasons that the Court of Appeals erred in holding mental retardation a quasi-suspect classification calling for a more exacting standard of judicial review than is normally accorded economic and social legislation. First, it is undeniable, and it is not argued otherwise here, that those who are mentally retarded have a reduced ability to cope with and function in the everyday world. Nor are they all cut from the same pattern: as the testimony in this record indicates, they range from those whose disability is not immediately evident to those who must be constantly cared for. They are thus different, immutably so, in relevant respects, and the States’ interest in dealing with and providing for them is plainly a legitimate one. How this large and diversified group is to be treated under the law is a difficult and often a technical matter, very much a task for legislators guided by qualified professionals and not by the perhaps ill-informed opinions of the judiciary. Heightened scrutiny inevitably involves substantive judgments about legislative decisions, and we doubt that the predicate for such judicial oversight is present where the classification deals with mental retardation.
Second, the distinctive 'legislative response, both national and state, to the plight of those who are mentally retarded demonstrates not only that they have unique problems, but also that the lawmakers have been addressing their difficulties in a manner that belies a continuing antipathy or prejudice and a corresponding need for more intrusive oversight by the judiciary. Thus, the Federal Government has not only outlawed discrimination against the mentally retarded in federally funded programs, see § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U. S. C. § 794, but it has also provided the retarded with the right to receive “appropriate treatment, services, and habilitation” in a setting that is “least restrictive of [their] personal liberty.” Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. §§6010(1), (2). In addition, the Government has conditioned federal education funds on a State’s assurance that retarded children will enjoy an education that, “to the maximum extent appropriate,” is integrated with that of nonmentally retarded children. Education of the Handicapped Act, 20 U. S. C. § 1412(5)(B). The Government has also facilitated the hiring of the mentally retarded into the federal civil service by exempting them from the requirement of competitive examination. See 5 CFR §213.3102(t) (1984). The State of Texas has similarly enacted legislation that acknowledges the special status of the mentally retarded by conferring certain rights upon them, such as “the right to live in the least restrictive setting appropriate to [their] individual needs and abilities,” including “the right to live ... in a group home.” Mentally Retarded Persons Act of 1977, Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann., Art. 5547-300, §7 (Vernon Supp. 1985).
Such legislation thus singling out the retarded for special treatment reflects the real and undeniable differences between the retarded and others. That a civilized and decent society expects and approves such legislation indicates that governmental consideration of those differences in the vast majority of situations is not only legitimate but also desirable. It may be, as CLC contends, that legislation designed to benefit, rather than disadvantage, the retarded would generally withstand examination under a test of heightened scrutiny. See Brief for Respondents 38-41. The relevant inquiry, however, is whether heightened scrutiny is constitutionally mandated in the first instance. Even assuming that many of these laws could be shown to be substantially related to an important governmental purpose, merely requiring the legislature to justify its efforts in these terms may lead it to refrain from acting at all. Much recent legislation intended to benefit the retarded also assumes the need for measures that might be perceived to disadvantage them. The Education of the Handicapped Act, for example, requires an “appropriate” education, not one that is equal in all respects to the education of nonretarded children; clearly, admission to a class that exceeded the abilities of a retarded child would not be appropriate. Similarly, the Developmental Disabilities Assistance Act and the Texas Act give the retarded the right to live only in the “least restrictive setting” appropriate to their abilities, implicitly assuming the need for at least some restrictions that would not be imposed on others. Especially given the wide variation in the abilities and needs of the retarded themselves, governmental bodies must have a certain amount of flexibility and freedom from judicial oversight in shaping and limiting their remedial efforts.
Third, the legislative response, which could hardly have occurred and survived without public support, negates any claim that the mentally retarded are politically powerless in the sense that they have no ability to attract the attention of the lawmakers. Any minority can be said to be powerless to assert direct control over the legislature, but if that were a criterion for higher level scrutiny by the courts, much economic and social legislation would now be suspect.
Fourth, if the large and amorphous class of the mentally retarded were deemed quasi-suspect for the reasons given by the Court of Appeals, it would be difficult to find a principled way to distinguish a variety of other groups who have perhaps immutable disabilities setting them off from others, who cannot themselves mandate the desired legislative responses, and who can claim some degree of prejudice from at least part of the public at large. One need mention in this respect only the aging, the disabled, the mentally ill, and the infirm. We are reluctant to set out on that course, and we decline to do so.
Doubtless, there have been and there will continue to be instances of discrimination against the retarded that are in fact invidious, and that are properly subject to judicial correction under constitutional norms. But the appropriate method of reaching such instances is not to create a new quasi-suspect classification and subject all governmental action based on that classification to more searching evaluation. Rather, we should look to the likelihood that governmental action premised on a particular classification is valid as a general matter, not merely to the specifics of the case before us. Because mental retardation is a characteristic that the government may legitimately take into account in a wide range of decisions, and because both State and Federal Governments have recently committed themselves to assisting the retarded, we will not presume that any given legislative action, even one that disadvantages retarded individuals, is rooted in considerations that the Constitution will not tolerate.
Our refusal to recognize the retarded as a quasi-suspect class does not leave them entirely unprotected from invidious discrimination. To withstand equal protection review, legislation that distinguishes between the mentally retarded and others must be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. This standard, we believe, affords government the latitude necessary both to pursue policies designed to assist the retarded in realizing their full potential, and to freely and efficiently engage in activities that burden the retarded in what is essentially an incidental manner. The State may not rely on a classification whose relationship to an asserted goal is so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational. See Zobel v. Williams, 457 U. S. 55, 61-63 (1982); United States Dept. of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 535 (1973). Furthermore, some objectives — such as “a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group,” id,., at 534 — are not legitimate state interests. See also Zobel, supra, at 63. Beyond that, the mentally retarded, like others, have and retain their substantive constitutional rights in addition to the right to be treated equally by the law.
IV
We turn to the issue of the validity of the zoning ordinance insofar as it requires a special use permit for homes for the mentally retarded. We inquire first whether requiring a special use permit for the Featherston home in the circumstances here deprives respondents of the equal protection of the laws. If it does, there will be no occasion to decide whether the special use permit provision is facially invalid where the mentally retarded are involved, or to put it another way, whether the city may never insist on a special use permit for a home for the mentally retarded in an R-3 zone. This is the preferred course of adjudication since it enables courts to avoid making unnecessarily broad constitutional judgments. Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 501-502 (1985); United States v. Grace, 461 U. S. 171 (1983); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415 (1963).
The constitutional issue is clearly posed. The city does not require a special use permit in an R-3 zone for apartment houses, multiple dwellings, boarding and lodging houses, fraternity or sorority houses, dormitories, apartment hotels, hospitals, sanitariums, nursing homes for convalescents or the aged (other than for the insane or feebleminded or alcoholics or drug addicts), private clubs or fraternal orders, and other specified uses. It does, however, insist on a special permit for the Featherston home, and it does so, as the District Court found, because it would be a facility for the mentally retarded. May the city require the permit for this facility when other care and multiple-dwelling facilities are freely permitted?
It is true, as already pointed out, that the mentally retarded as a group are indeed different from others not sharing their misfortune, and in this respect they may be different from those who would occupy other facilities that would be permitted in an R-3 zone without a special permit. But this difference is largely irrelevant unless the Featherston home and those who would occupy it would threaten legitimate interests of the city in a way that other permitted uses such as boarding houses and hospitals would not. Because in our view the record does not reveal any rational basis for believing that the Featherston home would pose any special threat to the city’s legitimate interests, we affirm the judgment below insofar as it holds the ordinance invalid as applied in this case.
The District Court found that the City Council’s insistence on the permit rested on several factors. First, the Council was concerned with the negative attitude of the majority of property owners located within 200 feet of the Featherston facility, as well as with the fears of elderly residents of the neighborhood. But mere negative attitudes, or fear, unsubstantiated by factors which are properly cognizable in a zoning proceeding, are not permissible bases for treating a home for the mentally retarded differently from apartment houses, multiple dwellings, and the like. It is plain that the electorate as a whole, whether by referendum or otherwise, could not order city action violative of the Equal Protection Clause, Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado, 377 U. S. 713, 736-737 (1964), and the city may not avoid the strictures of that Clause by deferring to the wishes or objections of some fraction of the body politic. “Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect.” Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U. S. 429, 433 (1984).
Second, the Council had two objections to the location of the facility. It was concerned that the facility was across the street from a junior high school, and it feared that the students might harass the occupants of the Featherston home. But the school itself is attended by about 30 mentally retarded students, and denying a permit based on such vague, undifferentiated fears is again permitting some portion of the community to validate what would otherwise be an equal protection violation. The other objection to the home’s location was that it was located on “a five hundred year flood plain.” This concern with the possibility of a flood, however, can hardly be based on a distinction between the Featherston home and, for example, nursing homes, homes for convalescents or the aged, or sanitariums or hospitals, any of which could be located on the Featherston site without obtaining a special use permit. The same may be said of another concern of the Council — doubts about the legal responsibility for actions which the mentally retarded might take. If there is no concern about legal responsibility with respect to other uses that would be.permitted in the area, such as boarding and fraternity houses, it is difficult to believe that the groups of mildly or moderately mentally retarded individuals who would live at 201 Featherston would present any different or special hazard.
Fourth, the Council was concerned with the size of the home and the number of people that would occupy it. The District Court found, and the Court of Appeals repeated, that “[i]f the potential residents of the Featherston Street home were not mentally retarded, but the home was the same in all other respects, its use would be permitted under the city’s zoning ordinance.” App. 93; 726 F. 2d, at 200. Given this finding, there would be no restrictions on the number of people who could occupy this home as a boarding house, nursing home, family dwelling, fraternity house, or dormitory. The question is whether it is rational to treat the mentally retarded differently. It is true that they suffer disability not shared by others; but why this difference warrants a density regulation that others need not observe is not at all apparent. At least this record does not clarify how, in this connection, the characteristics of the intended occupants of the Featherston home rationally justify denying to those occupants what would be permitted to groups occupying the same site for different purposes. Those who would live in the Featherston home are the type of individuals who, with supporting staff, satisfy federal and state standards for group housing in the community; and there is no dispute that the home would meet the federal square-footage-per-resident requirement for facilities of this type. See 42 CFR § 442.447 (1984). In the words of the Court of Appeals, “[t]he City never justifies its apparent view that other people can live under such ‘crowded’ conditions when mentally retarded persons cannot.” 726 F. 2d, at 202.
In the courts below the city also urged that the ordinance is aimed at avoiding concentration of population and at lessening congestion of the streets. These concerns obviously fail to explain why apartment houses, fraternity and sorority houses, hospitals and the like, may freely locate in the area without a permit. So, too, the expressed worry about fire hazards, the serenity of the neighborhood, and the avoidance of danger to other residents fail rationally to justify singling out a home such as 201 Featherston for the special use permit, yet imposing no such restrictions on the many other uses freely permitted in the neighborhood.
The short of it is that requiring the permit in this case appears to us to rest on an irrational prejudice against the mentally retarded, including those who would occupy the-Featherston facility and who would live under the closely supervised and highly regulated conditions expressly provided for by state and federal law.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed insofar as it invalidates the zoning ordinance as applied to the Featherston home. The judgment is otherwise vacated, and the case is remanded.
It is so ordered.
Cleburne Living Center, Inc., is now known as Community Living Concepts, Inc. Hannah is the vice president and part owner of CLC. For convenience, both Hannah and CLC will be referred to as “CLC. ” A third respondent is Advocacy, Inc., a nonprofit corporation that provides legal services to developmentally disabled persons.
It was anticipated that the home would be operated as a private Level I Intermediate Care Facility for the Mentally Retarded, or ICF-MR, under a program providing for joint federal-state reimbursement for residential services for mentally retarded clients. See 42 U. S. C. § 1396d(a)(15); Tex. Human Resources Code Ann. § 32.001 et seq. (1980 and Supp. 1985). ICF-MR’s are covered by extensive regulations and guidelines established by the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the Texas Departments of Human Resources, Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and Health. See App. 92. See also 42 CFR §442.1 et seq. (1984); 40 Tex. Adm. Code §27.101 et seq. (1981).
The site of the home is in an area zoned “R-3,” an “Apartment House District.” App. 51. Section 8 of the Cleburne zoning ordinance, in pertinent part, allows the following uses in an R-3 district:
“1. Any use permitted in District R-2.
“2. Apartment houses, or multiple dwellings.
“3. Boarding and lodging houses.
“4. Fraternity or sorority houses and dormitories.
“5. Apartment hotels.
“6. Hospitals, sanitariums, nursing homes or homes for convalescents or aged, other than for the insane or feeble-minded or alcoholics or drug addicts.”
“7. Private clubs or fraternal orders, except those whose chief activity is carried on as a business.
“8. Philanthropic or eleemosynary institutions, other than penal institutions.
“9. Accessory uses customarily incident to any of the above uses . . . .”
Id., at 60-61 (emphasis added).
Section 16 of the ordinance specifies the uses for which a special use permit is required. These include “[h]ospitals for the insane or feeble-minded, or alcoholic [sic] or drug addicts, or penal or correctional institutions.” Id., at 63. Section 16 provides that a permit for such a use may be issued by “the Governing Body, after public hearing, and after recommendation of the Planning Commission.” All special use permits are limited to one year, and each applicant is required “to obtain the signatures of the property owners within two hundred (200) feet of the property to be used.” Ibid.
The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission had earlier held a hearing and voted to deny the permit. Id., at 91.
The District Court also rejected CLC’s other claims, including the argument that the city had violated due process by improperly delegating its zoning powers to the owners of adjoining property. App. 105. Cf. Washington ex rel. Seattle Title Trust Co. v. Roberge, 278 U. S. 116 (1928). The Court of Appeals did not address this argument, and it has not been raised by the parties in this Court.
The District Court had found:
“Group homes currently are the principal community living alternatives for persons who are mentally retarded. The availability of such a home in communities is an essential ingredient of normal living patterns for persons who are mentally retarded, and each factor that makes such group homes harder to establish operates to exclude persons who are mentally retarded from the community.” App. 94.
The city relied on a recently passed state regulation limiting group homes to 6 residents in support of its argument that the CLC home would be overcrowded with 13. But, the Court of Appeals observed, the city had failed to justify its apparent view that any other group of 13 people could live under these allegedly “crowded” conditions, nor had it explained why 6 would be acceptable but 13 not.
CLC concedes that it could not qualify for certification under the new Texas regulation. Tr. of Oral Rearg. 31. The Court of Appeals stated that the new regulation applied only to applications made after May 1, 1982, and therefore did not apply to the CLC home. 726 F. 2d, at 202. The regulation itself contains no grandfather clause, see App. 78-81, and the District Court made no specific finding on this point. See id,., at 96. However, the State has asserted in an amici brief filed in this Court that “ ‘the six bed rule’ would not pose an obstacle to the proposed Featherston Street group home at issue in this case.” Brief for State of Texas et al. as Amici Curiae 15, n. 7. If the six-bed requirement were to apply to the home, there is a serious possibility that CLC would no longer be interested in injunctive relief. David Southern, an officer of CLC, testified that “to break even on a facility of this type, you have to have at least ten or eleven residents.” App. 32. However, because CLC requested damages as well as an injunction, see id,., at 15, the case would not be moot.
After oral argument, the city brought to our attention the recent enactment of a Texas statute, effective September 1, 1985, providing that “family homes” are permitted uses in “all residential zones or districts in this state.” The statute defines a “family home” as a community-based residence housing no more than six disabled persons, including the mentally retarded, along with two supervisory personnel. The statute does not appear to affect the city’s actions with regard to group homes that plan to house more than six residents. The enactment of this legislation therefore does not affect our disposition of this case.
Macon Assn. for Retarded Citizens v. Macon-Bibb County Planning and Zoning Comm’n, 252 Ga. 484, 314 S. E. 2d 218 (1984), dism’d for want of a substantial federal question, 469 U. S. 802 (1984), has no controlling effect on this case. Macon Assn, for Retarded Citizens involved an ordinance that had the effect of excluding a group home for the retarded only because it restricted dwelling units to those occupied by a single family, defined as no more than four unrelated persons. In Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U. S. 1 (1974), we upheld the constitutionality of a similar ordinance, and the Georgia Supreme Court in Macon Assn, specifically held that the ordinance did not discriminate against the retarded. 252 Ga., at 487, 314 S. E. 2d, at 221.
Mentally retarded individuals fall into four distinct categories. The vast majority — approximately 89% — are classified as “mildly” retarded, meaning that their IQ is between 50 and 70. Approximately 6% are “moderately” retarded, with IQs between 35 and 50. The remaining two categories are “severe” (IQs of 20 to 35) and “profound” (IQs below 20). These last two categories together account for about 5% of the mentally retarded population. App. 39 (testimony of Dr. Philip Roos).
Mental retardation is not defined by reference to intelligence or IQ alone, however. The American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) has defined mental retardation as “ ‘significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period. ’ ” Brief for AAMD et al. as Amici Curiae 3 (quoting AAMD, Classification in Mental Retardation 1 (H. Grossman ed. 1983)). “Deficits in adaptive behavior” are limitations on general ability to meet the standards of maturation, learning, personal independence, and social responsibility expected for an individual’s age level and cultural group. Brief for AAMD et al. as Amici Curiae 4, n. 1. Mental retardation is caused by a variety of factors, some genetic, some environmental, and some unknown. Id., at 4.
As Dean Ely has observed:
“Surely one has to feel sorry for a person disabled by something he or she can’t do anything about, but I’m not aware of any reason to suppose that eleeted officials are unusually unlikely to share that feeling. Moreover, classifications based on physical disability and intelligence are typically accepted as legitimate, even by judges and commentators who assert that immutability is relevant. The explanation, when one is given, is that those characteristics (unlike the one the commentator is trying to render suspect) are often relevant to legitimate purposes. At that point there’s not much left of the immutability theory, is there?” J. Ely, Democracy and Distrust 150 (1980) (footnote omitted). See also id., at 154-155.
CLC originally sought relief under the Act, but voluntarily dismissed this pendent state claim when the District Court indicated that its presence might make abstention appropriate. The Act had never been construed by the Texas courts. App. 12, 14, 84-87.
A number of States have passed legislation prohibiting zoning that excludes the retarded. See, e. g., Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 1566 et seq. (West 1979 and Supp. 1985); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8-3e (Supp. 1985); N. D. Cent. Code § 25-16-14(2) (Supp. 1983); R. I. Gen. Laws. §45-24-22 (1980). See also Md. Health Code Ann. § 7-102 (Supp. 1984).
The Act, which specifically included the mentally retarded in its definition of handicapped, see 20 U. S. C. § 1401(1), also recognizes the great variations within the classification of retarded children. The Act requires that school authorities devise an “individualized educational program,” § 1401(19), that is “tailored to the unique needs of the handicapped child.” Hendrick Hudson District Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U. S. 176, 181 (1982).
The Developmental Disabilities Assistance Act also withholds public funds from any program that does not prohibit the use of physical restraint “unless absolutely necessary.” 42 U. S. C. § 6010(3).
It goes without saying that there is nothing before us with respect to the validity of requiring a special use permit for the other uses listed in the ordinance. See n. 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: | 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.
Petitioner was convicted of shooting with intent to kill or wound and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Over petitioner’s objection that it was obtained in violation of § 605 of the Federal Communications Act, 48 Stat. 1103, 47 U. S. C. § 605, the prosecution introduced in evidence a telegram allegedly sent by petitioner to an accomplice. The Supreme Court of Alaska affirmed, holding that it did not need to decide whether § 605 had actually been violated since the evidence was in any event admissible in state trials under Schwartz v. Texas, 344 U. S. 199.
In Lee v. Florida, 392 U. S. 378, we overruled Schwartz v. Texas and held that evidence violative of § 605 is not admissible in state criminal trials. The decision of the Alaska Supreme Court cannot stand, therefore, if Lee is to be applied retroactively. We hold, however, that the exclusionary rule of Lee is to be given prospective application, and, accordingly, we affirm.
Prospective application of Lee is supported by all of the considerations outlined in Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293, 297. The purpose of Lee was in no sense to “enhance the reliability of the fact-finding process at trial.” Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719, 729. Like Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, Lee was designed to enforce the federal law. Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 639. And evidence seized in violation of the federal statute is no less relevant and reliable than that seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Moreover, the States have justifiably relied upon the explicit holding of Schwartz that such evidence was admissible.
Retroactive application of Lee would overturn every state conviction obtained in good-faith reliance on Schwartz. Since this result is not required by the principle upon which Lee was decided, or necessary to accomplish its purpose, we hold that the exclusionary rule is to be applied only to trials in which the evidence is sought to be introduced after the date of our decision in Lee.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Alaska is affirmed.
These considerations were more recently applied in DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U. S. 631, 633, in which we concluded that the right to a jury trial in state criminal prosecutions under Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, and Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194, was prospective only.
Lee v. Florida, 392 U. S., at 386-387:
“We conclude, as we concluded in Elkins and in Mapp, that nothing short of mandatory exclusion of the illegal evidence will compel respect for the federal law ‘in the only effectively available way— by removing the incentive to disregard it.’ Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S., at 217.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 285 of the Patent Act provides: "The court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party." 35 U.S.C. § 285. In Brooks Furniture Mfg., Inc. v. Dutailier Int'l, Inc., 393 F.3d 1378 (2005), the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit interpreted § 285 as authorizing fee awards only in two circumstances. It held that "[a] case may be deemed exceptional" under § 285 "when there has been some material inappropriate conduct," or when it is both "brought in subjective bad faith" and "objectively baseless." Id., at 1381. We granted certiorari to determine whether an appellate court should accord deference to a district court's determination that litigation is "objectively baseless."
On the basis of our opinion in Octane Fitness, LLC v. Icon Health & Fitness, Inc., ---- U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1749, 188 L.Ed.2d 816, 2014 WL 1672251 (2014) argued together with this case and also issued today, we hold that an appellate court should review all aspects of a district court's § 285 determination for abuse of discretion.
I
Allcare Health Management System, Inc., owns U.S. Patent No. 5,301,105 ('105 patent), which covers "utilization review" in " 'managed health care systems.' " 1687 F.3d 1300, 1306 (C.A.Fed.2012). Highmark Inc., a health insurance company, sued Allcare seeking a declaratory judgment that the ' 105 patent was invalid and unenforceable and that, to the extent it was valid, Highmark's actions were not infringing it. Allcare counterclaimed for patent infringement. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment, and the District Court entered a final judgment of noninfringement in favor of Highmark. The Federal Circuit affirmed. 329 Fed.Appx. 280 (2009) ( per curiam ).
Highmark then moved for fees under § 285. The District Court granted Highmark's motion. 706 F.Supp.2d 713 (N.D.Tex.2010). The court reasoned that Allcare had engaged in a pattern of "vexatious" and "deceitful" conduct throughout the litigation. Id., at 737. Specifically, it found that Allcare had "pursued this suit as part of a bigger plan to identify companies potentially infringing the '105 patent under the guise of an informational survey, and then to force those companies to purchase a license of the '105 patent under threat of litigation." Id., at 736-737 . And it found that Allcare had "maintained infringement claims [against Highmark] well after such claims had been shown by its own experts to be without merit" and had "asserted defenses it and its attorneys knew to be frivolous." Id., at 737. In a subsequent opinion, the District Court fixed the amount of the award at $4,694,727.40 in attorney's fees and $209,626.56 in expenses, in addition to $375,400.05 in expert fees. 2010 WL 6432945, *7 (N.D.Tex., Nov. 5, 2010).
The Federal Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. 687 F.3d 1300. It affirmed the District Court's exceptional-case determination with respect to the allegations that Highmark's system infringed one claim of the '105 patent, id., at 1311-1313, but reversed the determination with respect to another claim of the patent, id., at 1313-1315. In reversing the exceptional-case determination as to one claim, the court reviewed it de novo. The court held that because the question whether litigation is "objectively baseless" under Brooks Furniture " 'is a question of law based on underlying mixed questions of law and fact,' " an objective-baselessness determination is reviewed on appeal " ' de novo ' " and "without deference." 687 F.3d, at 1309; see also ibid., n. 1. It then determined, contrary to the judgment of the District Court, that "Allcare's argument" as to claim construction "was not 'so unreasonable that no reasonable litigant could believe it would succeed.' " Id., at 1315. The court further found that none of Allcare's conduct warranted an award of fees under the litigation-misconduct prong of Brooks Furniture. 687 F.3d, at 1315-1319.
Judge Mayer dissented in part, disagreeing with the view "that no deference is owed to a district court's finding that the infringement claims asserted by a litigant at trial were objectively unreasonable." Id., at 1319. He would have held that "reasonableness is a finding of fact which may be set aside only for clear error." Ibid. The Federal Circuit denied rehearing en banc, over the dissent of five judges. 701 F.3d 1351 (2012). The dissenting judges criticized the court's decision to adopt a de novo standard of review for the "objectively baseless" determination as an impermissible invasion of the province of the district court. Id., at 1357.
We granted certiorari, 570 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 48, 186 L.Ed.2d 962 (2013), and now vacate and remand.
II
Our opinion in Octane Fitness, LLC v. Icon Health & Fitness, Inc., rejects the Brooks Furniture framework as unduly rigid and inconsistent with the text of § 285. It holds, instead, that the word "exceptional" in § 285 should be interpreted in accordance with its ordinary meaning. --- U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1755 - 1756, 2014 WL 1672251 *5. An "exceptional" case, it explains, "is simply one that stands out from others with respect to the substantive strength of a party's litigating position (considering both the governing law and the facts of the case) or the unreasonable manner in which the case was litigated." --- U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1756, 2014 WL 1672251, *5. And it instructs that "[d]istrict courts may determine whether a case is 'exceptional' in the case-by-case exercise of their discretion, considering the totality of the circumstances." --- U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 1748, 2014 WL 1672251, *5. Our holding in Octane settles this case: Because § 285 commits the determination whether a case is "exceptional" to the discretion of the district court, that decision is to be reviewed on appeal for abuse of discretion.
Traditionally, decisions on "questions of law" are "reviewable de novo," decisions on "questions of fact" are "reviewable for clear error," and decisions on "matters of discretion" are "reviewable for 'abuse of discretion.' " Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 558, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988). For reasons we explain in Octane, the determination whether a case is "exceptional" under § 285 is a matter of discretion. And as in our prior cases involving similar determinations, the exceptional-case determination is to be reviewed only for abuse of discretion. 2 See Pierce, 487 U.S., at 559, 108 S.Ct. 2541 (determinations whether a litigating position is "substantially justified" for purposes of fee-shifting under the Equal Access to Justice Act are to be reviewed for abuse of discretion); Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 405, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990) (sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 are to be reviewed for abuse of discretion).
As in Pierce, the text of the statute "emphasizes the fact that the determination is for the district court," which "suggests some deference to the district court upon appeal," 487 U.S., at 559, 108 S.Ct. 2541. As in Pierce, "as a matter of the sound administration of justice," the district court "is better positioned" to decide whether a case is exceptional, id., at 559-560, 108 S.Ct. 2541, because it lives with the case over a prolonged period of time. And as in Pierce, the question is "multifarious and novel," not susceptible to "useful generalization" of the sort that de novo review provides, and "likely to profit from the experience that an abuse-of-discretion rule will permit to develop," id., at 562, 108 S.Ct. 2541.
We therefore hold that an appellate court should apply an abuse-of-discretion standard in reviewing all aspects of a district court's § 285 determination. Although questions of law may in some cases be relevant to the § 285 inquiry, that inquiry generally is, at heart, "rooted in factual determinations," Cooter, 496 U.S., at 401, 110 S.Ct. 2447.
* * *
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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.
" 'Utilization review' is the process of determining whether a health insurer should approve a particular treatment for a patient." 687 F.3d, at 1306.
The abuse-of-discretion standard does not preclude an appellate court's correction of a district court's legal or factual error: "A district court would necessarily abuse its discretion if it based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence." Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 405, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | F | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The statutes of the State of Wisconsin forbid the practice of medicine without a license from an Examining Board composed of practicing physicians. The statutes also define and forbid various acts of professional misconduct, proscribe fee splitting, and make illegal the practice of medicine under any name other than the name under which a license has issued if the public would be misled, such practice would constitute unfair competition with another physician, or other detriment to the profession would result. To enforce these provisions, the Examining Board is empowered under Wis. Stat. Ann. §§448.17 and 448.18 (1974) to warn and reprimand, temporarily to suspend the license, and “to institute criminal action or action to revoke license when it finds probable cause therefor under criminal or revocation statute....” When an investigative proceeding before the Examining Board was commenced against him, appellee brought this suit against appellants, the individual members of the Board, seeking an injunction against the enforcement of the statutes. The District Court issued a preliminary injunction, the appellants appealed, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 417 U. S. 943 (1974).
I
Appellee, a resident of Michigan and licensed to practice medicine there, obtained a Wisconsin license in August 1971 under a reciprocity agreement between Michigan and Wisconsin governing medical licensing. His practice in Wisconsin consisted of performing abortions at an office in Milwaukee. On June 20, 1973, the Board sent to appellee a notice that it would hold an investigative hearing on July 12,1973, under Wis. Stat. Ann. § 448.17 to determine whether he had engaged in certain proscribed acts. The hearing would be closed to the public, although appellee and his attorney could attend. They would not, however, be permitted to cross-examine witnesses. Based upon the evidence presented at the hearing, the Board would decide “whether to warn or reprimand if it finds such practice and whether to institute criminal action or action to revoke license if probable cause therefor exists under criminal or revocation statutes.” App. 14.
On July 6, 1973, appellee filed his complaint in this action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief and a temporary restraining order preventing the Board from investigating him and from conducting the investigative hearing. The District Court denied the motion for a temporary restraining order.
On July 12, 1973, appellants moved to dismiss the complaint. On the same day, appellee filed an amended complaint in which injunctive relief was sought on the ground that Wis. Stat. Ann. §§448.17 and 448.18 were unconstitutional and that appellants’ acts with respect to him violated his constitutional rights. The District Court again denied appellee’s motion for a temporary restraining order, but did not act upon appellants’ motion to dismiss. On July 30, 1973, appellants submitted an amended motion to dismiss.
The Board proceeded with its investigative hearing on July 12 and 13, 1973; numerous witnesses testified and appellee’s counsel was present throughout the proceedings. Appellee’s counsel was subsequently informed that appellee could, if he wished, appear before the Board to explain any of the evidence which had been presented. App. 36-37.
On September 18, 1973, the Board sent to appellee a notice that a “contested hearing” would be held on October 4, 1973, to determine whether appellee had engaged in certain prohibited acts and that based upon the evidence adduced at the hearing the Board would determine whether his license would be suspended temporarily under Wis. Stat. Ann. §448.18 (7). Appellee moved for a restraining order against the contested hearing. The District Court granted the motion on October 1, 1973. Because the Board had moved from purely investigative proceedings to a hearing aimed at deciding whether suspension of appellee’s license was appropriate, the District Court concluded that a substantial federal question had arisen, namely, whether the authority given to appellants both “to investigate physicians and present charges [and] to rule on those charges and impose punishment, at least to the extent of reprimanding or temporarily suspending” violated appellee’s due process rights. Appellee’s motion to request the convening of a three-judge court was also granted, and appellants’ motion to dismiss was denied. 368 F. Supp. 793, 795-796 (ED Wis. 1973).
The Board complied and did not go forward with the contested hearing. Instead, it noticed and held a final investigative session on October 4, 1973, at which appellee’s attorney, but not appellee, appeared. The Board thereupon issued “Findings of Fact,” “Conclusions of Law,” and a “Decision” in which the Board found that appellee had engaged in specified conduct proscribed by the statute. The operative portion of its “Decision” was the following:
“Within the meaning of sec. 448.17, Stats., it is hereby determined that there is probable cause to believe that licensee has violated the criminal provisions of ch. 448, Stats., and that there is probable cause for an action to revoke the license of the licensee for engaging in unprofessional conduct.
“Therefore, it is the decision of this Board that the secretary verify this document and file it as a verified complaint with the District Attorney of Milwaukee County in accordance with sec. 448.18 (2), Stats., for the purpose of initiating an action to revoke the license of Duane R. Larkin, M. D., to practice medicine and surgery in the State of Wisconsin and initiating appropriate actions for violation of the criminal laws relating to the practice of medicine.” App. 59-60.
On November 19, 1973, the three-judge District Court found (with an opinion following on December 21, 1973) that § 448.18 (7) was unconstitutional as a violation of due process guarantees and enjoined the Board from enforcing it. Its holding was:
“[F]or the board temporarily to suspend Dr. Lark-in’s license at its own contested hearing on charges evolving from its own investigation would constitute a denial to him of his rights to procedural due process. Insofar as § 448.18 (7) authorizes a procedure wherein a physician stands to lose his liberty or property, absent the intervention of an independent, neutral and detached decision maker, we concluded that it was unconstitutional and unenforceable.” 368 F. Supp. 796, 797 (ED Wis. 1973).
Judgment was entered on January 31, 1974, by which it was “Ordered and Adjudged that § 448.18 (7), Wis. Stats., is unconstitutional and that the defendants are preliminarily enjoined until further notice from utilizing the provisions of §448.18 (7), Wis. Stats.”
Appellants took an appeal from that decision, and we noted probable jurisdiction on June 10, 1974. Subsequently, on July 25, 1974, the District Court, at the initial suggestion of appellants but joined in by a cross-motion of appellee, modified its judgment so as to withdraw its declaration of unconstitutionality and to enjoin the enforcement of § 448.18 (7) against appellee only. The amended judgment declared that appellee would suffer irreparable injury if the statute were applied to him and that his challenge to the statute’s constitutionality had a high likelihood of success.
II
Appellants correctly assert that the District Court’s initial judgment conflicted with this Court’s holding in Mayo v. Lakeland Highlands Canning Co., 309 U. S. 310 (1940), that a state statute should not be declared unconstitutional by a district court if a preliminary injunction is granted a plaintiff to protect his interests during the ensuing litigation. “The question before [the District Court] was not whether the act was constitutional or unconstitutional... but was whether the showing made raised serious questions, under the federal Constitution... and disclosed that enforcement of the act, pending final hearing, would inflict irreparable damages upon the complainants.” Id., at 316. The January 31, 1974, judgment should not have declared § 448.18 (7) unconstitutional and it erroneously enjoined the Board from utilizing the section against any licensee.
The District Court, however, has subsequently modified its judgment to eliminate the declaration of unconstitutionality and to enjoin application of the statute only as against appellee. Since appellants are no longer forbidden to apply the statutes to other persons, this issue in the case has been effectively settled.
We have also concluded that the amended judgment makes inappropriate extended treatment of appellants' contentions that the District Court failed to make the findings and conclusions required by Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52 (a), and failed to include in the order granting the injunction the reasons for its issuance as required by Rule 65 (d). The District Court's opinion and initial judgment were deficient in this respect, but its amended judgment found what the court said was contained in its prior opinion — that appellee would suffer irreparable injury if the statute were to be applied against him and that appellee’s “challenge to the constitutionality of said statute has a high likelihood of success.” Cf. Brown v. Chote, 411 U. S. 452, 456 (1973). While a decision to vacate and remand for fuller emendation of the findings, conclusions, and judgment would be justified in view of their lack of specificity, we doubt that such action, in the circumstances present here, would add anything essential to the determination of the merits. The District Court’s decision turned upon the sequence of functions followed by appellants and not upon any factual issue peculiar to this case. We have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, and a remand at this juncture would be a costly procedure to emphasize points that have already been made and recognized by both parties as well as by the District Court.
Ill
The District Court framed the constitutional issue, which it addressed as being whether “for the board temporarily to suspend Dr. Larkin’s license at its own contested hearing on charges evolving from its own investigation would constitute a denial to him of his rights to procedural due process.” 368 F. Supp., at 797. The question was initially answered affirmatively, and in its amended judgment the court asserted that there was a high probability that appellee would prevail on the question. Its opinion stated that the “state medical examining board [did] not qualify as [an independent] decisionmaker [and could not] properly rule with regard to the merits of the same charges it investigated and, as in this case, presented to the district attorney.” Id., at 798. We disagree. On the present record, it is quite unlikely that appellee would ultimately prevail on the merits of the due process issue presented to the District Court, and it was an abuse of discretion to issue the preliminary injunction.
Concededly, a “fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.” In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136 (1955). This applies to administrative agencies which adjudicate as well as to courts. Gibson v„ Berry- hill, 411 U. S. 564, 579 (1973). Not only is a biased decisionmaker constitutionally unacceptable but “our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness.” In re Murchison, supra, at 136; cf. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510, 532 (1927). In pursuit of this end, various situations have been identified in which experience teaches that the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to be constitutionally tolerable. Among these cases are those in which the adjudicator has a pecuniary interest in the outcome and in which he has been the target of personal abuse or criticism from the party before him.
The contention that the combination of investigative and adjudicative functions, necessarily creates an unconstitutional risk of bias in administrative adjudication has a much more difficult burden of persuasion to carry. It must overcome a presumption of honesty and integrity in those serving as adjudicators; and it must convince that, under a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness, conferring investigative and adjudicative powers on the same individuals poses such a risk of actual bias or prejudgment that the practice must be forbidden if the guarantee of due process is to be adequately implemented.
Very similar claims have been squarely rejected in prior decisions of this Court. In FTC v. Cement Institute, 333 U. S. 683 (1948), the Federal Trade Commission had instituted proceedings concerning the respondents’ multiple basing-point delivered-price system. It was demanded that the Commission members disqualify themselves because long before the Commission had filed' its complaint it had investigated the parties and reported to Congress and to the President, and its members had testified before congressional committees concerning the legality of such a pricing system. At least some of the members had disclosed their opinion that the system was illegal. The issue of bias was brought here and confronted “on the assumption that such an opinion had been formed by the entire membership of the Commission as a result of its prior official investigations.” Id., at 700.
The Court rejected the claim, saying:
“[T]he fact that the Commission had entertained such views as the result of its prior ex parte investigations did not necessarily mean that the minds of its members were irrevocably closed on the subject of the respondents’ basing point practices. Here, in contrast to the Commission’s investigations, members of the cement industry were legally authorized participants in the hearings. They produced evidence — volumes of it. They were free to point out to the Commission by testimony, by cross-examination of witnesses, and by arguments, conditions of the trade practices under attack which they thought kept these practices within the range of legally permissible business activities.” Id., at 701.
In specific response to a due process argument, the Court asserted: pressed an opinion as to whether certain types of conduct were prohibited by law. In fact, Judges frequently try the same case more than once and decide identical issues each time, although these issues involve questions both of law and fact. Certainly, the Federal Trade Commission cannot possibly be under stronger constitutional compulsions in this respect than a court.” Id., at 702-703 (footnote omitted).
“No decision of this Court would require us to hold that it would be a violation of procedural due process for a judge to sit in a case after he had ex-
This Court has also ruled that a hearing examiner who has recommended findings of fact after rejecting certain evidence as not being probative was not disqualified to preside at further hearings that were required when reviewing courts held that the evidence had been erroneously excluded. NLRB v. Donnelly Garment Co., 330 U. S. 219, 236-237 (1947). The Court of Appeals had decided that the examiner should not again sit because it would be unfair to require the parties to try “issues of fact to those who may have prejudged them....” 151 F. 2d 854, 870 (CA8 1945). But this Court unanimously reversed, saying:
“Certainly it is not the rule of judicial administration that, statutory requirements apart... a judge is disqualified from sitting in a retrial because he was reversed on earlier rulings. We find no warrant for imposing upon administrative agencies a stiffer rule, whereby examiners would be disentitled to sit because they ruled strongly against a party in the first hearing.” 330 U. S., at 236-237.
More recently we have sustained against due process objection a system in which a Social Security examiner has responsibility for developing the facts and making a decision as to disability claims, and observed that the challenge to this combination of functions “assumes too much and would bring down too many procedures designed, and working well, for a governmental structure of great and growing complexity.” Richardson v. Perales, 402 U. S. 389, 410 (1971).
That is not to say that there is nothing to the argument that those who have investigated should not then adjudicate. The issue is substantial, it is not new, and legislators and others concerned with the operations of administrative agencies have given much attention to whether and to what extent distinctive administrative functions should be performed by the same persons. No single answer has been reached. Indeed, the growth, variety, and complexity of the administrative processes have made any one solution highly unlikely. Within the Federal Government itself, Congress has addressed the issue in several different ways, providing for varying degrees of separation from complete separation of functions to virtually none at all. For the generality of agencies, Congress has been content with § 5 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 554 (d), which provides that no employee engaged in investigating or prosecuting may also participate or advise in the adjudicating function, but which also expressly exempts from this prohibition “the agency or a member or members of the body comprising the agency.”
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that “[t] he case law, both federal and state, generally rejects the idea that the combination [of] judging [and] investigating functions is a denial of due process....” 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 13.02, p. 175 (1958). Similarly, our cases, although they reflect the substance of the problem, offer no support for the bald proposition applied in this case by the District Court that agency members who participate in an investigation are disqualified from adjudicating. The incredible variety of administrative mechanisms in this country will not yield to any single organizing principle.
Appellee relies heavily on In re Murchison, supra, in which a state judge, empowered under state law to sit as a “one-man grand jury” and to compel witnesses to testify before him in secret about possible crimes, charged two such witnesses with criminal contempt, one for perjury and the other for refusing to answer certain questions, and then himself tried and convicted them. This Court found the procedure to be a denial of due process of law not only because-the judge in effect became part of the prosecution and assumed an adversary position, but also because as a judge, passing on guilt or innocence, he very likely relied on “his own personal knowledge and impression of what had occurred in the grand jury room,” an impression that “could not be tested by adequate cross-examination.” 349 U. S., at 138.
Plainly enough, Murchison has not been understood to stand for the broad rule that the members of an administrative agency may not investigate the facts, institute proceedings, and then make the necessary adjudications. The Court did not purport to question the Cement Institute case, supra, or the Administrative Procedure Act and did not lay down any general principle that a judge before whom an alleged contempt is committed may not bring and preside over the ensuing contempt proceedings. The accepted rule is to the eontrary. Ungar v. Sarafite, 376 U. S. 575, 584 — 585 (1964); Nilva v. United States, 352 U. S. 385, 395-396 (1957).
Nor is there anything in this case that comes within the strictures of Murchison. When the Board instituted its investigative procedures, it stated only that it would investigate whether proscribed conduct had occurred. Later in noticing the adversary hearing, it asserted only that it would determine if violations had been committed which would warrant suspension of appellee’s license. Without doubt, the Board then anticipated that the proceeding would eventuate in an adjudication of the issue; but there was no more evidence of bias or the risk of bias or prejudgment than inhered in the very fact that the Board had investigated and would now adjudicate. Of course, we should be alert to the possibilities of bias that may lurk in the way particular procedures actually work in practice. The processes utilized by the Board, however, do not in themselves contain an unacceptable risk of bias. The investigative proceeding had been closed to the public, but appellee and his counsel were permitted to be present throughout; counsel actually attended the hearings and knew the facts presented to the Board. No specific foundation has been presented for suspecting that the Board had been prejudiced by its investigation or would be disabled from hearing and deciding on the basis of the evidence to be presented at the contested hearing. The mere exposure to evidence presented in nonadversary investigative procedures is insufficient in itself to impugn the fairness of the Board members at a later adversary hearing. Without a showing to the contrary, state administrators “are assumed to be men of conscience and intellectual discipline, capable of judging a particular controversy fairly on the basis of its own circumstances.” United States v. Morgan, 313 U. S. 409, 421 (1941).
We are of the view, therefore, that the District Court was in error when it entered the restraining order against the Board’s contested hearing and when it granted the preliminary injunction based on the untenable view that it would be unconstitutional for the Board to suspend appellee’s license “at its own contested hearing on charges evolving from its own investigation.....” The contested hearing should have been permitted to proceed.
IV
Nor do we think the situation substantially different because the Board, when it was prevented from going forward with the contested hearing, proceeded to make and issue formal findings of fact and conclusions of law asserting that there was probable cause to believe that appellee had engaged in various acts prohibited by the Wisconsin statutes. These findings and conclusions were verified and filed with the district attorney for the purpose of initiating revocation and criminal proceedings. Although the District Court did not emphasize this aspect of the case before it, appellee stresses it in attempting to show prejudice and prejudgment. We are not persuaded.
Judges repeatedly issue arrest warrants on the basis that there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and that the person named in the warrant has committed it. Judges also preside at preliminary hearings where they must decide whether the evidence is sufficient to hold a defendant for trial. Neither of these pretrial involvements has been thought to raise any constitutional barrier against the judge's presiding over the criminal trial and, if the trial is without a jury, against making the necessary determination of guilt or innocence. Nor has it been thought that a judge is disqualified from presiding over injunction proceedings because he has initially assessed the facts in issuing or denying a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction. It is also very typical for the members of administrative agencies to receive the results of investigations, to approve the filing of charges or formal complaints instituting enforcement proceedings, and then to participate in the ensuing hearings. This mode of procedure does not violate the Administrative Procedure Act, and it does not violate due process of law. We should also remember that it is not contrary to due process to allow judges and administrators who have had their initial decisions reversed on appeal to confront and decide the same questions a second time around. See Cement Institute, 333 U. Sat 702-703; Donnelly Garment Co., 330 U. S., at 236-237.
Here, the Board stayed within the accepted bounds of due process. Having investigated, it issued findings and conclusions asserting the commission of certain acts and ultimately concluding that there was probable cause to believe that appellee had violated the statutes.
The risk of bias or prejudgment in this sequence of functions has not been considered to be intolerably high or to raise a sufficiently great possibility that the adjudicators would be so psychologically wedded to their complaints that they would consciously or unconsciously avoid the appearance of having erred or changed position. Indeed, just as there is no logical inconsistency between a finding of probable cause and an acquittal in a criminal proceeding, there is no incompatibility between the agency filing a complaint based on probable cause and a subsequent decision, when all the evidence is in, that there has been no violation of the statute. Here, if the Board now proceeded after an adversary hearing to determine that appellee’s license to practice should not be temporarily suspended, it would not implicitly be admitting error in its prior finding of probable cause. Its position most probably would merely reflect the benefit of a more complete view of the evidence afforded by an adversary hearing.
The initial charge or determination of probable cause and the ultimate adjudication have different bases and purposes. The fact that the same agency makes them in tandem and that they relate to the same issues does not result in a procedural due process violation. Clearly, if the initial view of the facts based on the evidence derived from nonadversarial processes as a practical or legal matter foreclosed fair and effective consideration at a subsequent adversary hearing leading to ultimate decision, a substantial due process question would be raised. But in our view, that is not this case.
That the combination of investigative and adjudicative functions does not, without more, constitute a due process violation, does not, of course, preclude a court from determining from the special facts and circumstances present in the case before it that the risk of unfairness is intolerably high. Findings of that kind made by judges with special insights into local realities are entitled to respect, but injunctions resting on such factors should be accompanied by at least the minimum findings required by Rules 52 (a) and 65 (d).
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
“No person shall practice or attempt or hold himself out as authorized to practice medicine, surgery, or osteopathy, or any other system of treating the sick as the term ‘treat the sick’ is defined in s. 445.01 (l)(a), without a license or certificate of registration from the examining board, except as otherwise specifically provided by statute.” Wis. Stat. Ann. §448.02 (1).
“The examining board shall investigate, hear and act upon practices by persons licensed to practice medicine and surgery under s. 488.06, that are inimical to the public health. The examining board shall have the power to warn and to reprimand, when it finds such practice, and to institute criminal action or action to revoke license when it finds probable cause therefor under criminal or revocation statute, and the attorney general may aid the district attorney in the prosecution thereof.” § 448.17.
“A license or certificate of registration may be temporarily suspended by the examining board, without formal proceedings, and its holder placed on probation for a period not to exceed 3 months where he is known or the examining board has good cause to believe that such holder has violated sub. (1). The examining board shall not have authority to suspend a license or certificate of registration, or to place a holder on probation, for more than 2 consecutive 3-month periods. All examining board actions under this subsection shall be subject to review under ch. 227.” §448.18 (7).
Section 448.18 (l)(g) prohibits “engaging in conduct unbecoming a person licensed to practice or detrimental to the best interests of the public.” Fee splitting is proscribed by §448.23 (1). Section 448.02 (4) regulates the use of a name by a physician in his practice other than the name under which he was licensed.
Appellee maintains that he has legal and factual defenses to all charges made against him. Brief for Appellee 28-29, n. 13.
The notice indicated that the hearing would be held “to determine whether the licensee has engaged in practices that are inimical to the public health, whether he has engaged in conduct unbecoming a person licensed to practice medicine, and whether he has engaged in conduct detrimental to the best interests of the public.” App. 14.
Apart from his claim that the tribunal at the contested hearing would be biased, appellee has not contended that that hearing would not be a full adversary proceeding. See Wis. Stat. Ann. §§ 227.07-227.21. See also Daly v. Natural Resources Board, 60 Wis. 2d 208, 218, 208 N. W. 2d 839, 844 (1973), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1137 (1974); Margoles v. State Board of Medical Examiners, 47 Wis. 2d 499, 508-511, 177 N. W. 2d 353, 358-359 (1970). No issue has been raised concerning the circumstances, if any, in which the Board could suspend a license without first holding an adversary hearing.
The notice stated that the hearing would be held “to determine whether the licensee has practiced medicine in the State of Wisconsin under any other Christian or givefn name or any other surname than that under which he was originally licensed or registered to practice medicine in this state, which practicing has operated to unfairly compete with another practitioner, to mislead the public as to identity, or to otherwise result in detriment to the profession or the public, and more particularly, whether the said Duane Larkin, M. D., has practiced medicine in this state since September 1, 1971, under the name of Glen Johnson.” It would also “determine whether the licensee has permitted persons to practice medicine in this state in violation of sec. 448.02 (1), Stats., more particularly whether the said Duane Larkin, M. D., permitted Young Wahn Ahn, M. D., an unlicensed physician, to perform abortions at his abortion clinic during the year 1972.” Finally the Board would “determine whether the said Duane Larkin, M. D., split fees with other persons during the years 1971, 1972, and 1973 in violation of sec. 448.23 (1).” App. 45-46.
Appellee unsuccessfully sought a temporary restraining order against this hearing. See Record on Appeal, Entry 21.
The modified judgment reads as follows:
“IT IS ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the defendants are preliminarily enjoined until further notice from utilizing the provisions of §448.18 (7), Wis. Stats., against the plaintiff, Duane Larkin, M. D., on the grounds that the plaintiff would suffer irreparable injury if said statute were to be applied against him, and that the plaintiff’s challenge to the constitutionality of said statute has a high likelihood of success.” Suggestion of Mootness or in the Alternative Motion to Reconsider Appellee’s Motion to Dismiss or Affirm 21-22.
See n. 6, supra.
Appellants contend in addition that appellee’s motion for a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief did not state with particularity the grounds for such relief as required by Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 7 (b), and that the motion went beyond the subject matter of the action since the amended complaint challenged only the conducting of the ex parte investigative hearing by the Board. Our review of the record leads us to the conclusion that whatever deficiencies appellee’s motion might have had, they are insufficient to require reversal of the District Court decision giving injunctive relief. We also find that the motion was within the subject matter of the case as defined by the amended complaint. See App. 23.
Appellants also contend that appellee offered no evidence upon which injunctive relief could be based. This case, however, turns upon questions of law and not upon complicated factual issues, and the District Court has found both that appellee’s challenge to § 448.18 (7) has a high likelihood of success on the merits and that appellee would be irreparably injured absent injunctive relief. If the District Court is correct in its constitutional premise that an agency which has investigated possible offenses cannot fairly adjudicate the legal and factual issues involved, then its conclusion that appellee would suffer irreparable injury by having his license temporarily suspended by such an agency is not irrational, and we will not disturb it. Cf. Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 577 n. 16 (1973).
Finally, we do not agree with appellants’ contention that the District Court should have entirely refrained from deciding the merits of this case and from interfering with the state administrative proceeding. Id., at 575-577.
“In addition, the plaintiff requests that the modified judgment should recite specific grounds not previously included in the judgment but contained in the earlier memorandum decision of this court. We conclude that the plaintiff’s position is well taken.” Suggestion of Mootness or in the Alternative Motion to Reconsider Appellee’s Motion to Dismiss or Affirm 19.
See n. 6, supra.
See Schmidt v. Lessard, 414 U. S. 473, 476-477 (1974); Gunn v. University Committee, 399 U. S. 383, 388-389 (1970).
“Except as otherwise provided by law, any party may appeal to the Supreme Court from an order granting or denying, after notice and hearing, an interlocutory or permanent injunction in any civil action, suit or proceeding required by any Act of Congress to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges.”
Under 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281 and 2284, a three-judge district court is required for entering a preliminary or permanent injunction against, the enforcement of a state statute on the grounds of the unconstitutionality of the law. That requirement includes preliminary injunctions against enforcement of state statutes based on “a high likelihood of success” of the constitutional challenge to the statutes. See Brown v. Chote, 411 U. S. 452 (1973); Goldstein v. Cox, 396. U. S. 471 (1970); Mayo v. Lakeland Highlands Canning Co., 309 U. S. 310 (1940).
After the District Court made its decision, the Board altered its procedures. It now assigns each new cáse to one of the members for investigation, and the remainder of the Board has no contact with the investigative process. Affidavit of John W. Rupel, M. D., Suggestion of Mootness or in the Alternative Motion to Reconsider Appellee’s Motion to Dismiss or Affirm 7. That change, designed.to accommodate the Board’s procedures to the District Court’s decision, does not affect this case.
Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S., at 579; Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U. S. 57 (1972); Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 (1927). Cf. Commonwealth Coatings Corp. v. Continental Casualty Co., 393 U. S. 145 (1968).
Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U. S. 488, 501-503 (1974); Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U. S. 455 (1971); Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 578-579, n. 2 (1968). Cf. Ungar v. Sarafite, 376 U. S. 575, 584 (1964).
The decisions of the Courts of Appeals touching upon this question of bias arising from a combination of functions are also instructive. In Pangburn v. CAB, 311 F. 2d 349 (CA1 1962), the Civil Aeronautics Board had the responsibility of making an accident report and also reviewing the decision of a trial examiner that the pilot involved in the accident should have his airline transport pilot rating suspended. The pilot claimed that his right to procedural due process had been violated by the fact that the Board was not an impartial tribunal in deciding his appeal from the trial examiner’s decision since it had previously issued its accident report finding pilot error to be the probable cause of the crash. The Court of Appeals found the Board’s procedures to be constitutionally permissible:
“[W]e cannot say that the mere fact, that a tribunal has had contact with a particular factual complex in a prior hearing, or indeed has taken a public position on the facts, is enough to place that tribunal under a constitutional inhibition to pass upon
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Whittaker
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented by this ease is whether the provisions of § 4 (5) of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act (46. U. S. C. § 1304 (5)) or the parallel provisions of a'n ocean bill of lading, limiting the liability of.an ocean “carrier” to a shipper to $500 per package of cargo, also apply tó and likewise limit the liability of a negligent stevedore.
Respondents, having sold and agreed to deliver certain goods to a Spanish company, arranged for their ocean carriage on the S. S. Castillo -Ampudia from Baltimore, Maryland, to Valencia, Spain. The goods, consisting of 62 cases, were transported from Detroit by flatcar to a point on the Baltimore pier alongside thg S. S. Castillo Ampudia and were there taken in charge by her agent for loading and shipment. A bill, pf lading was prepared by respondents, on forms of the carrier, and was submitted to and signed by an. agent of the carrier. The value of the goods was not declared by respondents or inserted in the bill of lading.
Petitioner, an independent stevedoring company, was orally engaged by the carrier to load the cargo aboard the ship, and while gndeavoring to load one of the cases, containing a press weighing 19 tons, petitioner’s employees caused it to fall into the harbor and- to be extensively damaged. Respondents then brought this tort action in the United States District Court against petitioner to recover théir damages which they alleged had been caused by petitioner’s negligence. Petitioner’s answer denied the allegations of negligence, and asserted, alternatively, that if the damage was. caused by its negligence its liability was limited to $500 by the limitation-of-liábility provisions of the Carriage .of Goods by Sea Act and by the parallel provisions of the bill of lading.
After trial, the District Court held that the damage to the press was caused by petitioner’s negligence; that the limitation-of-liability provisions of the bill of lading were, in express terms, applicable only to the carrier, and did not apply to nor limit the liability of the stevedore; and that respondents were entitled to recover the; full amount of their damages from petitioner (145 F. Supp. ,554). It accordingly rendered judgment for respondents in the amount of $47,992.04 (155 F. Supp. 296). On appeal, the Court, of Appeals unanimously affirmed on the question here presented. 256 F. 2d 946. It held that neither the limitation-of-liability provisions of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act (Note 1) nor of the bill of lading (Note 2) were, applicable to,'or limited the liability of, the stevedoring company, and that it was therefore,liable for the full damage caused by its negligence. The court expressly disagreed with and declined to follow the majority opinion of the Fifth Circuit in A. M. Collins & Co. v. Panama R. Co., 197 F. 2d 893, saying that it thought the dissenting opinion in that case presented the correct view. The question being of importance to the shipping industry, we granted certiorari to resolve this conflict. 358 U. S. 812.
Petitioner's contentions are twofold. First, it contends that the liability-limiting provisions of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act and of the bill of lading should be construed to limit its liability as well as that of the carrier. Second, it contends that even if it be held that those provisions limit only the liability of the “carrier,” it is nevertheless protected by the carrier's limitation under the theory and holding of the majority opinion in the Collins case.
With regard to petitioner’s first contention, we look first to the provisions, legislative history and environment of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 46 U. S.-C. §§ 1300-1315, and next to the limiting provisions of the bill of lading, to determine whether Congress by the Act, or the shippers and the carrier by the bill of lading, evidenced any intention to limit the. liability of negligent agents of a carrier.
The Act ■ is clearly phrased. It defines the term “carrier”, to include “the owner or the charterer who enters into a contract of carriage with the shipper.” § 13Ó1 (a). It imposes particularized duties and obligations upon, and grants stated immunities to, the “carrier.” §§ 1302,1303,1304. Respecting limitation of the amount of liability for loss of or damage to goods, it says that “neither the carrier nor the ship” shall be liable for more than $500 per package. § 1304 (5). It makes.no reference whatever to stevedores ór agents. The legislative history of the Act shows that it was lifted almost bodily from the Hague Rules of 1921, as amended by the Brussels Convention of 1924,- 51 Stat. 233. The effort of those Rules was to establish uniform ocean bills of lading to govern the rights and liabilities of carriers and shippers inter se in international trade. Ibid. Those Rules do not advert to stevedores or agents of a carrier. The debates and Committee Reports in the Senate and the House upon the bill that became the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act likewise do not mention stevedores or agente. There is, thus, nothing in the language, the legislative history or environment of the Act that expressly or impliedly indicates any intention of Congress to regulate stevedores or other agents of a carrier, or to limit the amount of their, liability for damages caused by their negligence. It must be assumed that Congress knew that generally agents are liable for all damages caused by their negligence. Yet Congress, while limiting the amount of liability of “the carrier [and] the ship,” did not even refer to stevedores or agents of a carrier. “We can only conclude that if Congress had intended to make such an inroad on the rights of claimants [against negligent agents] it would have said so in unambiguous terms” and “in the absence of a clear Congressional policy to that end, we cannot go so far.” Brady v. Roosevelt S. S. Co., 317 U. S. 575, 581, 584.
Looking to the limitation-of-liability provisions of the bill of lading, we see that they, like § 1304 (5) of the Act and its legislative history, do not advert to stevedores or agents. Instead they deal only with the “Carrier’s liability” to the shippers. They say that “the Carrier’s liability, if any, shall be determined on the basis of $500 per package.” There is, thus, nothing in those provisions to indicate that the contracting parties intended to limit the liability of stevedores or other agents of the carrier for damages caused by their negligence. If such had been a purpose of the contracting parties it must be presumed that they would in some way have expressed it in the contract. Since they did not do so, it follows that'the provisions of the bill of lading did “not cut off [respondent’s] remedy against the agent that did the wrongful act.” Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. Emergency Fleet Corp., 258 U. S. 549, 568.
We therefore conclude that there is nothing in the provisions, legislative history and environment of the Act, or in the limitation-of-liability provisions of the bill of lading, to indicate any intention, of Congress by the Act, or of the contracting parties by the bill of lading, to limit the liability of negligent agents of the carrier.
Wé now turn to petitioner’s second contention that even if, as we hold, the Act and the bill of lading granted limitation of liability only to the “carrier,” petitioner is nevertheless protected by the carrier’s limitation under the theory and holding of the majority opinion in the Collins case. The premise of the majority opinion in that case is that all agents of the carrier who perform any part of the work undertaken by the carrier in the contract of carriage, evidenced by the bill of ’lading, are, by reason of that fact alone, protected by the provisions of the contract limiting the liability of , the carrier, though such agents are not parties to nor express beneficiaries of the contract' Applying that theory in accordingly limiting theliábility of a negligent stevedore, the-maiority.said:
“A stevedore so unloading, in every practical sense, does so by virtue of the bill of lading and, though not strictly speaking a party thereto, is, while liable as an agent for its own negligence, at the same time entitled to claim the limitation of liability provided by the bill of lading to the furtherance of the terms of which its operations are directed.” 197 F. 2d, at 896.
We are unable to agree with that conclusion, for we think it runs counter to a long-settled line of decisions of this Court. From its early history this Court has consistently held that an agent is liable for all damages caused by his negligence, unless exonerated therefrom, in whole or in part, by a statute or a valid contract binding on the person damaged. In Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 843, it was said that an agent “is responsible for his own act, to the full extent of the injury [causee! -thereby].” In Reid v. Fargo, 241 U. S. 544, this Court’lield, on facts very similar to those here, that, though the carrier’s liability was limited'"by the bill of lading to $100, the negligent agent, a steve-doring company, was liable .to the shipper for the full amount of damage caused by its negligence. In Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. Emergency Fleet Corp., 258 U. S., at 567, it was said that an “agent, because he is agent, does not cease to be answerable for his acts.” In Brady v. Roosevelt S. S. Co., 317 U. S., at 580-581, this Court said that “The liability of an agent for his own negligence has long been embedded in the law,” that “withdrawal of the right to sue the agent for his torts would result at times in a substantial dilution of the rights- of claimants,” and that withdrawal of that right would be “such a basic change in one of the fundamentals of the law of agency [as] should hardly be left to conjecture.” This Court has several times held that an agent’s only shield from liability “for conduct harmful to the plaintiff ... is a constitutional rule of law that exonerates him.” Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. Emergency Fleet Corp., 258 U. S., at 567; Brady v. Roosevelt S. S. Co., 317 U. S., at 584. Any such rule of law, being in derogation of the common law, must be strictly construed, for “[n]o statute is to be construed as altering the common law, farther than its words import. It is not to be construed as making any innovation upon the common law which it does not fairly express.” Shaw v. Railroad Co., 101 U. S. 557, 565; see Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 437. Similarly, contracts purporting to grant immunity from, or limitation of, liability must be strictly construed and limited to intended beneficiaries, for they “are not to be applied to alter familiar rules visiting liability upon a tortfeasor for the consequences of his negligence, unless the clarity of the language used expresses such to be the understanding of the contracting parties.” Boston Metals Co. v. The Winding Gulf, 349 U. S. 122, 123-124 (concurring opinion).
The holding of the majority in Collins that the liability of a negligent agent of a carrier, though not limited by any statute or contract, is nevertheless limited by and to the extent of the limitation granted by thé shipper'to the carrier in the bill of lading, simply because the agent is performing some part of the work thereby undertaken by the carrier, is clearly contrary to the above-cited decisions of this Court.
. Petitioner claims that its position is supported by the decision of the House of Lords in Elder, Dempster & Co Ltd., v. Paterson, Zochonis & Co., Ltd., [1924] A. C. 522, 18 Ll. L. Rep. 319. There, Elder, Dempster & Co. had chartered a ship, on time charter, from the shipowners. The plaintiff company shipped a number of casks of palm oil by that ship from West African ports to England. The casks were crushed by other cargo negligently laid over them, and a large part of the oil was lost. The bill of lading contained a clause which, so far as. here pertinent, : provided that “The shipowners . . . shall not be liable . . i for . . . any damage arising from . . . stowage. . . . The plaintiff company sued both the_char-terer and the shipowners. The principal question was whether the damage was caused by unseaworthiness (which was not within the exemption clause) or by bad stowage (which was within that clause). The House of Lords decided that the loss was due to bad stowage and held, but for differing reasons, that the exemption clause applied to and protected both the charterer and the shipowners.
A careful reading of the several lengthy opinions of their lordships in that case discloses that the question whether a provision in the bill of lading limiting the liability of the carrier likewise limits the liability of its negligent agent, though the agent is neither a* party to por an express beneficiary of the bill of lading, was not involved in or decided by that case. Nor has any English cáse ever held that a bill of lading that expressly limits the liability of only the carrier nevertheless applies to and limits the liability of its negligent agent. See Scrutton, Char-terparties (16th ed.. 1955), 286-287, note (g). It is true that in Gilbert Stokes & Kerr, Prop., Ltd., v. Dalgety & Co., Ltd., 81 Ll. L. Rep. 337 (1948), and Waters Trading Co., Ltd., v. Dalgety & Co., Ltd., [1951] 2 Ll. L. Rep. 385, the Supreme Court of New South Wales held that stevedores, who negligently performed a part of the. work undertaken .by the carrier in the bill of lading, were entitled to the limitation of liability given to the carrier by the limiting provisions of the bill of lading,' though the stevedores were neither parties to nor express beneficiaries of the bill of lading. However, in Wilson v. Darling Island Stevedoring & Lighterage Co., Ltd., [1956] 1 Ll. L. Rep. 346, [1956] Argus Law Rep. 311, 29 Austral. L. J. 740 — an appeal, involving facts indistinguishable from those involved in the two New South Wales cases, which was prosecuted for the avowed purpose of challenging the correctness of those decisions — the High Court of Australia, after extensively reviewing the Elder, Dempster case and many other English decisions, found that there was no English case that supported the two New South Wales decisions mentioned, and it held that they were wrongly .decided and overruled them, saying:
“The stevedore is a complete stranger to the contract of carriage, and it is no concern of his whether there is. a bill of lading or not, or, if there is, what are its terms. He is engaged by the shipowner and by nobody else, and the terms on which he handles the goods are to be found in his contract with the shipowner and nowhere else. The shipowner has no authority whatever to bind the shipper or consignee of cargo by contract with the stevedore, and there is, in my opinion, no principle of law — deducible from the Elder Dempster Case or from any other case— which compels the inference of any contract between the shipper or consignee and the stevedore. If the stevedore negligently soaks cargo with water and ruins it, I can find neither rule of law nor contract to save him from the normal consequences of his tort.” Opinion of Fullager, J., 29 Austral. L. J., at 751.
Under the common law as declared by this Court, petitioner was liable for all damages caused by its negligence unless exonerated therefrom, in whole or in part, by a constitutional rule of law. No statute has limited its liability, and it was not a party to nor a beneficiary of the contract of carriage between the shipper and the carrier, and hence its liability was not limited by that contract. It follows that petitioner’s common-law liability for damages caused by its negligence was in no way limited, and the judgment below so holding was correct and must be
Affirmed.
The limitation-of-liability provisions pf the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act appear in 46 U. S. C. § 1304 (5), which, so far as pertinent, provides:
(5) “Neither the carrier nor the ship shall in any event be or become liable for any loss or damage to or in connection with the transportation of goods in an amount exceeding $500 per package lawful 'money of the United States . . . unless the nature and value of.such goods have been declared by the shipper before shipment and inserted in the bill of lading.”
The parallel limitation-of-liability provisions contained in the bill of lading áre found in §§ 30 and 37 thereof which,’ so far as pertinent, provide: .
“30. In consideration of a choice of freight rates having been offered to the shipper by the Carrier, it is agreed that in case of loss of, or damage to . . . goods of an actual .value exceeding $500 . . . per package . . . the value of such goods, shall be deemed to be $500 per package . . . and the Carrier’s liability, if any, shall be- determined on the basis of a value of $500 per package . . . unless the nature of such goods and a value higher than $500 per package . . . shall have been declared in writing by the shipper, upon delivery to the Carrier and noted on the face hereof and unless payment of the extra freight charge incident thereto shall have been made or promised ... , in which case such declared value, or the actual value if less, shall be the basis for computing damages and any partial loss or damage shaE be adjusted pro rata. . . '
“37. This bill of lading shaE have effect- subject to the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act of the U. S. A. and the Carrier and the ship shaE be entitled to aE of the rights and immunities set forth in said Act.”-
46 U. S. C. § 1301 (e) provides: “The term ‘carriage of goods’ covers the period from the time when the goods are loaded on to the time when they are discharged from the ship.” The district judge was of the view that the casualty occurred before the press had been “loaded on” the ship, and that therefore the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act was not applicable because'its effective period had not begun. ’• ' ■
The court held -that inasmuch as nothing in the'Act purports to limit the liability of a stevedore, there was no need to review the holding of the District Court that its effective period had not begun. See Note 3.
The Hague Rulés as amended by the Brussels Convention were, in turn, based in part upon the pioneering Harter Act of-1893, 27 Stat. 445, 46 U. S. C. §§ 190-196. See H. R. Rep. No. 2218, 74th Corig., 2d Sess. 7.
S. Rep. No. 742, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.'; H. R. Rep. No. 2218, 74th Cong., 2d Sess.
Though the Reid case involved very similar facts, we do not consider that it alone is dispositive of this ease because it does not clearly enough appear that the negligent stevedore specifically raised, or that this Court actually decided, the question whether the negligent stevedore was entitled to invoke the limitation of liability given by the shipper to the carrier in the bill of lading. However, it would seem that there is some basis for respondents’ argument that the members of the Bar understood that case to hold that the stevedore was not so entitled, for that principle does not appear to have been challenged in any reported American opinion during the 36 yqars between the decision of the Reid case in 1916 and the decision of the Collins case in 1952.
Apart from the disapproving opinions of the District Court (145 F. Supp. 554) and of the Court of Appeals (256 F. 2d-946) in this case,-the Collins case has been cited three times in the present context, twice approvingly and once disapprovingly, and seven times in somewhat different contexts.
It was first cited approvingly in Ford Motor Co. v. Jarka Corp., 134 N. Y. S. 2d 52 (Mun. Ct. of New York City), where the court, relying on Collins and two New South Wales cases, Waters Trading Co., Ltd., v. Dalgety & Co., Ltd., [1951] 2 Ll. L. Rep. 385, and Gilbert Stokes & Kerr, Prop., Ltd., v. Dalgety & Co., Ltd., 81 Ll. L. Rep. 337, held that a covenant in a bill of lading limiting the liability of the carrier to $500 per package likewise limited the liability of a negligent stevedoring company, which was not a _ party to nor an express beneficiary of the bill of lading. However the two New South Wales cases relied on by the court have recently been overruled by the High Court of Australia in Wilson v. Darling Island Stevedoring & Lighterage Co., Ltd,., [1956] 1 Ll. L. Rep. 346, [1956] Argus Law Rep. 311, 29 Austral. L. J. 740.
It was next cited approvingly in Autobuses Modernos, S. A., v. The Federal Mariner, 125 F. Supp. 780 (D. C. E. D. Pa.). The court held, citing Collins, that a stevedoring company whose negligence in loading cargo joined with that of the carrier .to cause damage to the cargo was entitled to the benefits of the $500 limitation given to the carrier in the bill of lading.
It was cited disapprovingly in International Milling Co. v. The Perseus, [1958] A. M. C. 526 (D. C. E. D. Mich.). The court held that the negligent master of a ship was not entitled to invoke the limitation of liability given by the shipper to the carrier in the contract of carriage, saying that it was “unable to agree with the reasoning of the majority of the court in the Collins case.” £1958] A. M. C., at 529.
The opinions in which the Collins case has been cited in different contexts are United States v. The South Star, 210 F. 2d 44 (C. A. 2d Cir.); J. B. Effenson Co. v. Three Bays Corp., 238 F. 2d 611 (C. A. 5th Cir.); Twentieth Century Delivery Service, Inc., v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 242 F. 2d 292 (C. A. 9th Cir.); Van Camp Sea Food Co. v. Pacific-Atlantic S. S. Co., 122 F. Supp. 163 (D. C. E. D. Pa.); Chutter v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, 132 F. Supp. 611 (D. C. S. D. N. Y.); National Federation of Coffee Growers, of Colombia v. Isbrandtsen Co., [1957] A. M. C. 1571 (Sup. Ct. N. Y.); Berger v. 34th Street Garage, 3 N. Y. 2d 701, 148 N. E. 2d 883.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the proper standard for issuance of a warrant authorizing the seizure of materials presumptively protected by the First Amendment. Respondents P. J. Video, Inc., and James Erhardt were charged in the village of Depew, New York, Justice Court with six counts of obscenity in the third degree under § 235.05(1) of the New York Penal Law. Respondents moved to suppress five videocassette movies that had been seized from respondents’ store, and that formed the basis for the obscenity charges against respondents, on the ground that the warrant authorizing the seizure was issued without probable cause to believe that the movies were obscene. The Justice Court granted the motion and dismissed the informations under which respondents were charged, and both the County Court of Erie County and the New York Court of Appeals affirmed. 65 N. Y. 2d 566, 483 N. E. 2d 1120 (1985). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict between the decision of the New York Court of Appeals in the instant case and the decisions in Sequoia Books, Inc. v. McDonald, 725 F. 2d 1091 (CA7 1984), and United States v. Pryba, 163 U. S. App. D. C. 389, 502 F. 2d 391 (1974), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 1127 (1975). 474 U. S. 918 (1985). We now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
The obscenity charges against respondents arose out of an investigation by the Erie County District Attorney’s Office. Investigator David J. Groblewski was assigned to review 10 videocassette movies that had been rented from respondents’ store by a member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department. Groblewski viewed the movies in their entirety, and executed affidavits summarizing the theme of, and conduct depicted in, each film. The affidavits were attached to an application filed by the village of Depew Police Department for a warrant to search respondents’ store.
A justice of the New York Supreme Court issued the warrant, authorizing the search of the store and the seizure of the movies. The warrant was executed the next day and, according to a sworn, itemized inventory statement, the police seized 1 or 2 copies of each of the 10 movies. A total of 13 videocassettes were seized. The justice who had issued the warrant ordered that the videocassettes be temporarily retained by the police as evidence for trial. See N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law §§690.05-690.55 (McKinney 1984).
Respondents ultimately were charged in the village of Depew Justice Court with violating the New York obscenity laws with respect to only 5 of the 10 movies. The affidavits describing these five movies appear in full in the Appendix to this opinion. Respondents moved for suppression of the seized videocassettes, alleging that the warrant authorizing their seizure was not supported by probable cause because the issuing justice had not personally viewed the movies. The Justice Court granted the motion and dismissed the in-formations under which respondents were charged, and on the State’s appeal the County Court of Erie County affirmed.
The New York Court of Appeals likewise affirmed, although on a different theory than that of the Justice Court. According to the Court of Appeals, “there is a higher standard for evaluation of a warrant application seeking to seize such things as books and films, as distinguished from one seeking to seize weapons or drugs, for example (Roaden v. Kentucky, [413 U. S. 496], 504 [1973]; Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717, 730-731 [1961]). In applying the [Fourth] Amendment to such items, the court must act with ‘scrupulous exactitude’ (Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 481-485 [1965]; see also, Maryland v. Macon, 472 U. S. 463 [1985]).” 65 N. Y. 2d, at 569-570, 483 N. E. 2d, at 1123 (footnote omitted). Using this “higher” probable-cause standard to review the affidavits submitted in support of the warrant application, the Court of Appeals stated:
“Many of the scenes described contain explicit sexual activity, patently offensive by any constitutional standard, but the allegations of the affidavits do not indicate whether they constitute all, most or a few of the scenes presented in the films. . . . The descriptions of the action are not supplemented by references to the narrative or dialogue of the films and the affiant attempted to describe the ‘character’ or ‘theme’ of the movies by settings having nothing to do with the plot .... He made no attempt to reveal the story line (or lack of one) of the films or demonstrate that their ‘predominant appeal’ was to prurient interest. In short, none of the affidavits permit an inference that the scenes described are more than a catalog of offensive parts of the whole.” Id., at 570-571, 483 N. E. 2d, at 1124.
The Court of Appeals concluded that the affidavits did not contain sufficient information to permit the issuing justice, “applying contemporary community standards, to judge the films as a whole and determine that they are within the statutory definitions of obscenity and thus are not entitled to constitutional protection.” Id., at 572, 483 N. E. 2d, at 1124 (footnote omitted). One judge dissented, arguing that the affidavits contained enough information for the issuing justice “to reasonably believe that the video movies were obscene as legislatively defined.” Id., at 573, 483 N. E. 2d, at 1125 (Jasen, J., dissenting).
We have long recognized that the seizure of films or books on the basis of their content implicates First Amendment concerns not raised by other kinds of seizures. For this reason, we have required that certain special conditions be met before such seizures may be carried out. In Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U. S. 496 (1973), for example, we held that the police may not rely on the “exigency” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in conducting a seizure of allegedly obscene materials, under circumstances where such a seizure would effectively constitute a “prior restraint.” In A Quantity of Books v. Kansas, 378 U. S. 205 (1964), and Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717 (1961), we had gone a step farther, ruling that the large-scale seizure of books or films constituting a “prior restraint” must be preceded by an adversary hearing on the question of obscenity. In Heller v. New York, 413 U. S. 483 (1973), we emphasized that, even where a seizure of allegedly obscene materials would not constitute a “prior restraint,” but instead would merely preserve evidence for trial, the seizure must be made pursuant to a warrant and there must be an opportunity for a prompt postseizure judicial determination of obscenity. And in Lee Art Theatre, Inc. v. Virginia, 392 U. S. 636 (1968), we held that a warrant authorizing the seizure of materials presumptively protected by the First Amendment may not issue based solely on the conclusory allegations of a police officer that the sought-after materials are obscene, but instead must be supported by affidavits setting forth specific facts in order that the issuing magistrate may “focus searchingly on the question of obscenity.” Marcus, supra, at 732; see also Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 486 (1965).
The New York Court of Appeals construed our prior decisions in this area as standing for the additional proposition that an application for a warrant authorizing the seizure of books or films must be evaluated under a “higher” standard of probable cause than that used in other areas of Fourth Amendment law. But we have never held or said that such a “higher” standard is required by the First Amendment. In Heller, we said:
“[S]eizing films to destroy them or to block their distribution or exhibition is a very different matter from seizing a single copy of a film for the bona fide purpose of preserving it as evidence in a criminal proceeding, particularly where, as here, there is no showing or pretrial claim that the seizure of the copy prevented continuing exhibition of the film. If such a seizure is pursuant to a warrant, issued after a determination of probable cause by a neutral magistrate, and, following the seizure, a prompt judicial determination of the obscenity issue in an adversary proceeding is available at the request of any interested party,' the seizure is constitutionally permissible. . . .
“The necessity for a prior judicial determination of probable cause will protect against gross abuses . . . .” 413 U. S., at 492-493 (emphasis added; footnotes omitted).
We think that this passage from Heller, emphasizing the requirement that the magistrate determine probable cause as a means of safeguarding First Amendment interests, and eschewing any suggestion that the standard of probable cause in the First Amendment area is different than in other contexts, suggests that we saw no need for the latter requirement. In our view, the longstanding special protections described above, and enunciated in cases such as Roaden, A Quantity of Books, Marcus, Heller, and Lee Art Theatre, are adequate to ensure that First Amendment interests will not be impaired by the issuance and execution of warrants authorizing the seizure of books or films. We think, and accordingly hold, that an application for a warrant authorizing the seizure of materials presumptively protected by the First Amendment should be evaluated under the same standard of probable cause used to review warrant applications generally.
That standard was recently set forth by this Court in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213 (1983):
“‘[T]he term “probable cause,” . . . means less than evidence which would justify condemnation .... It imports a seizure made under circumstances which warrant suspicion.’ [Locke v. United States, 7 Cranch 339, 348 (1813).] . . . Finely tuned standards such as proof beyond a reasonable doubt or by a preponderance of the evidence, useful in formal trials, have no place in the magistrate’s decision.
“The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, . . . there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a ‘substantial basis for. . . concluding,]’ [Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257, 271 (1960),] that probable cause existed.” Id., at 235, 238-239.
Applying the Gates standard to the affidavits in the instant case, we think it clear beyond peradventure that the warrant was supported by probable cause to believe that the five films at issue were obscene under New York law. Respondents concede that the affidavits describing the five films adequately established probable cause with respect to the second of the three elements of obscenity under the statute, namely, that the movies depicted “in a patently offensive manner” the various kinds of sexual conduct specified in the statute. See N. Y. Penal Law §235.00(l)(b) (McKinney 1980). Our review of the affidavits convinces us that the issuing justice also was given more than enough information to conclude that there was a “fair probability” that the movies satisfied the first and third elements of the statutory definition, namely, that the “predominant appeal [of the movies] is to the prurient interest in sex,” and that the movies “lac[k] serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.” See N. Y. Penal Law §§235.00(l)(a), (c) (McKinney 1980). As Judge Jasen of the Court of Appeals noted in his dissent in the present case:
“Each of the affidavits describing the films clearly state at the outset that ‘the content and character of the above mentioned video movie is as follows.’ Inasmuch as the magistrate was reviewing affidavits describing movies which were advertised by defendants as ‘adult cassette movies,’ it was reasonable for him to believe that the affidavits faithfully and accurately described the substance of each movie as a whole. Each affidavit describes the numerous acts of deviate sexual intercourse and the objectification of women occurring in each film which the majority concede to be offensive. Each film is of relatively short duration. Manifestly, the acts described in each movie consume a substantial time span. Thus, the magistrate may reasonably have concluded that the described, successive acts of deviate sexual intercourse pervaded each film. When the title of each movie is considered together with its plot and setting, its general theme and serious value, if any, may reasonably be discerned. The films were described in each of the five nonconclusory affidavits in such a fashion as to permit the magistrate to focus searchingly on the issue of obscenity. Under these circumstances, there was a reasonable basis for the magistrate to authorize the seizure of the films in question.” 65 N. Y. 2d, at 580, 483 N. E. 2d, at 1130 (emphasis in original).
We believe that the analysis and conclusion expressed by the dissenting judge are completely consistent with our statement in Gates that “probable cause requires only a probability or substantial chance of criminal activity, not an actual showing of such activity.” 462 U. S., at 244, n. 13. We hold that, evaluated under the correct standard of probable cause, the warrant was properly issued and the videocassettes of the five movies should not have been suppressed. The judgment of the New York Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed, and the cause remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT
AFFIDAVIT
STATE OF NEW YORK ) COUNTY OF ERIE ) SS: CITY OF BUFFALO )
DAVID J. GROBLEWSKI, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I am presently a Confidential Criminal Investigator assigned to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office and prior to this, a member of the New York State Police for approximately 25 years.
On September 26th, 1983 I viewed the video tape movie “CALIFORNIA VALLEY GIRLS,” which was rented on September 20th, 1983, from Network Video, 5868 Transit Road, Depew, New York. This movie was rented by Detective Sergeant Vincent Costanza, a member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department. This movie was viewed in my office starting at 12:00 Noon and lasted until 1:33 P.M.
The content and character of the above mentioned video movie is as follows: Six white females, approximately 18 to 25 years of age, are unemployed and attempt to make a living by becoming prostitutes. The first scene is a bedroom scene where two females are involved in love making, fondling and cunnilingus. The second scene depicts a white male and a white female having intercourse in the back of a van. The third scene is a house scene where six girls, all white females are introduced to the art of love making. One male, approximately 35 years of age, is teaching the girls the art of fellatio with each one of them performing this act on him. The next scene is a bedroom scene in a home where a husband and wife, a white male and a white female, alone with a girl, a white female, perform various sexual acts which include intercourse, fellatio, anal intercourse and cunnilingus. The movie ends with some lesbianism where the wife performs cunnilingus on the girl while she performs fellatio on the husband and they engage in intercourse and anal intercourse.
[Signature] David J. Groblewski Confidential Criminal Investigator
Subscribed and sworn to before me this [21] day of November, 1983.
[Signature] Notary Public
AFFIDAVIT
STATE OF NEW YORK ) COUNTY OF ERIE ) SS: CITY OF BUFFALO )
DAVID J. GROBLEWSKI, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I am presently a Confidential Criminal Investigator assigned to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office and prior to this, a member of the New York State Police for approximately 25 years.
On September 23rd, 1983, I viewed the video tape movie “TABOO II,” which was rented on September 20th, 1983, from Network Video, 5868 Transit Road, Depew, New York. This movie was rented by Detective Sergeant Vincent Costanza, a member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department. This movie was viewed in my office starting at 9:00 A.M. and with several interruptions lasted until 12:12 P.M.
The content and character of the above mentioned video movie: The theme of the movie is a middle-class neighborhood where a home is the place where all the sexual acts are performed. The movie starts with a brother and sister, a white male and white female, fondling each other. The second scene is another house scene where a white male and white female are giving a rubdown to a white female. The sexual acts that follow include cunnilingus and fellatio. There is also intercourse and the scene closes with the male placing his penis between the girl’s breasts and ejaculating into and over her mouth. In another scene there is some incestuous type activity between the brother and the sister where again fellatio and intercourse are performed. At one point during the movie the mother enters the bedroom and observes the two performing the sexual acts and becomes depressed about the situation. In a later scene the son and his mother are on a couch where they become involved in sexual acts of intercourse and fellatio. The movie closes with the mother and father asleep in their bedroom at which time the daughter enters and sleeps next to her father, where they perform incestuous acts of intercourse, and she performs fellatio on her father.
[Signature]
Subscribed and sworn to before me this [21] day of November, 1983
[Signature] Notary Public
AFFIDAVIT
STATE OF NEW YORK ) COUNTY OF ERIE ) SS: CITY OF BUFFALO )
DAVID J. GROBLEWSKI, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I am presently a Confidential Criminal Investigator assigned to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office and prior to this, a member of the New York State Police for approximately 25 years.
On September 29th, 1983, I viewed the video tape movie “TABOO,” which was rented on September 27th, 1983 from Network Video, 5868 Transit Road, Depew, New York. This movie was rented by Detective Sergeant Vincent Costanza, a member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department. This movie was viewed in my office starting at 11:00 A.M. and lasted until 11:55 A.M. and watched again commencing at 1:42 P.M. and lasting until 2:23 P.M.
The content and character of the above mentioned video movie is as follows: The first scene is a bedroom scene where two white females and one white male perform various acts of fellatio, cunnilingus and intercourse. The second scene is a house party scene where many white males and white females are involved in various acts of intercourse, fellatio and cunnilingus. There is also a scene where females perform acts of cunnilingus on each other. The movie portrays at one point a bedroom scene with a white male, the son, laying in bed naked, at which time his mother, a white female enters the room. She makes love to him and incestuous acts of intercourse, placing of the penis between her breasts, ejaculation and cunnilingus are performed.
[Signature] David J. Groblewski Confidential Criminal Investigator
Subscribed and sworn to before me this [21] day of November, 1983
[Signature] Notary Public
AFFIDAVIT
STATE OF NEW YORK ) COUNTY OF ERIE ) SS: CITY OF BUFFALO )
DAVID J. GROBLEWSKI, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I am presently a Confidential Criminal Investigator assigned to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office and prior to this, a member of the New York State Police for approximately 25 years.
On September 28th, 1983, Detective Sergeant Vincent Costanza, a Member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department and I viewed the video tape movie “ALL AMERICAN GIRLS,” which was rented on September 27th, 1983 from Network Video, 5868 Transit Road, Depew, New York. This movie was viewed in my office starting at 11:35 A.M., and lasted until 1:00 P.M.
The content and character of the above mentioned video movie is as follows: The theme of the movie is a home of one of the six girls, all white females who had previously attended high school and were meeting for a reunion. The first scene is two girls in a room performing acts of lesbianism, namely cunnilingus on each other. They are met by a white male and they perform acts of fellatio on him, have intercourse and all leave the room. Throughout the movie the girls reminisce about their high school days with each one depicting her sexual acts with her male partner. The sexual acts which followed included intercourse, fellatio and eunnilingus.
[Signature] David J. Groblewski Confidential Criminal Investigator
Subscribed and sworn to before me this [21] day of November, 1983
[Signature] Notary Public
AFFIDAVIT
STATE OF NEW YORK ) COUNTY OF ERIE ) SS: CITY OF BUFFALO )
DAVID J. GROBLEWSKI, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I am presently a Confidential Criminal Investigator assigned to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office and prior to this, a member of the New York State Police for approximately 25 years.
On October 3rd, 1983, Detective Sergeant Vincent Costanza, a member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department and I viewed the video tape movie “DEBBIE DOES DALLAS,” which was rented on September 30th, 1983, by Vincent Costanza from Network Video, 5868 Transit Road, Depew, New York. This movie was viewed in my office starting at 2:50 P.M. and lasted until 4:23 P.M.
The content and character of the above mentioned video movie is as follows: The theme of the movie is a girl moving out west for a change of atmosphere. The first scene is a jail scene where a white female is in jail after she had been put there by the so-called Sheriff, a white male, and she performs fellatio on him. The two then perform intercourse, at which time he removes his pants and ejaculates over her buttocks. The second scene is the ranch, a so-called house of ill repute, a bedroom scene in which a white male and a white female are involved in various sexual acts including fellatio, cunnilingus and intercourse. At the end of the scene the male ejaculates in and over the female’s mouth. The third scene, a bathroom scene, depicts some lesbianism involving three girls. They participate in love making, foreplay and performing cunnilingus on each other. Throughout, the movie depicts some lesbianism along with sexual acts of intercourse, fellatio and cunnilingus.
[Signature] David J. Groblewski Confidential Criminal Investigator
Subscribed and sworn to before me this [21] day of November, 1983
[Signature] Notary Public
Section 235.05(1) (McKinney Supp. 1986) provides:
“A person is guilty of obscenity in the third degree when, knowing its content and character, he:
“1. Promotes, or possesses with intent to promote, any obscene material. . . .”
“Obscenity in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor.”
The statutory definition of “obscenity,” which is derived from Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15 (1973), appears at § 235.00(1) (McKinney 1980):
“. . . Any material or performance is ‘obscene’ if (a) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to the prurient interest in sex, and (b) it depicts or describes in a patently offensive manner, actual or simulated: sexual intercourse, sodomy, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sadism, masochism, excretion or lewd exhibition of the genitals, and (c) considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value. Predominant appeal shall be judged with reference to ordinary adults unless it appears from the character of the material or the circumstances of its dissemination to be designed for children or other specially susceptible audiences.”
The 10 movies were entitled “California Valley Girls,” “Taboo II,” “Taboo,” “All American Girls,” “Debbie Does Dallas,” “Body Magic,” “Deep Throat,” “Every Which Way She Can,” “Filthy Rich,” and “Little Girls Blue.”
The five movies that formed the basis for the obscenity charges against respondents were “California Valley Girls,” “Taboo II,” “Taboo,” “All American Girls,” and “Debbie Does Dallas.”
Respondents argue that the decision of the New York Court of Appeals rested on adequate and independent state grounds, namely, provisions of the New York Constitution and various state-court decisions, and that we therefore lack jurisdiction to review that decision. We disagree. As we explained in Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U. S. 320 (1985):
“[W]e will not assume that a state-court decision rests on adequate and independent state grounds when the ‘state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion.”’ Id., at 327, quoting Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1040-1041 (1983).
Here, the New York Court of Appeals cited the New York Constitution only once,'near the beginning of its opinion, and in the same parenthetical also cited the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Moreover, the Court of Appeals repeatedly referred to the “First Amendment” and “Fourth Amendment” during its discussion of the merits of the case, strongly indicating that it believed that its decision was governed by federal law. Finally, although the Court of Appeals cited several state-court decisions, the only citations appended to the crucial language quoted in the text were to the federal decisions in Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U. S. 496 (1973), Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717 (1961), Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476 (1966), and Maryland v. Macon, 472 U. S. 463 (1985). We conclude, in the absence of a “plain statement” to the contrary, that the decision of the Court of Appeals was premised on federal, not state, law.
Contrary to the position apparently taken by the Justice Court in the instant case, we have never held that a magistrate must personally view allegedly obscene films prior to issuing a warrant authorizing their seizure. See Lee Art Theatre, Inc. v. Virginia, 392 U. S., at 637. On the contrary, we think that a reasonably specific affidavit describing the content of a film generally provides an adequate basis for the magistrate to determine whether there is probable cause to believe that the film is obscene, and whether a warrant authorizing the seizure of the film should issue.
Respondents contend that the seizure in the instant case was not limited to only one copy of each film, but instead extended to all copies of the films that the police were able to find during their search of respondents’ store. According to respondents, the seizure had the effect of severely restricting public access to the films, and thereby constituted a “prior restraint.” Respondents therefore argue that this case is properly governed not by Heller v. New York, 413 U. S. 483 (1973), but by Roaden v. Kentucky, supra, where this Court stated that the seizure of an allegedly obscene film, under circumstances where the seizure “brought to an abrupt halt an orderly and presumptively legitimate . . . exhibition” of the film, “calls for a higher hurdle in the evaluation of reasonableness.” Id., at 504.
We reject this contention. Our reference in Roaden to a “higher hurdle ... of reasonableness” was not intended to establish a “higher” standard of probable cause for the issuance of a warrant to seize books or films, but instead related to the more basic requirement, imposed by that decision, that the police not rely on the “exigency” exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, but instead obtain a warrant from a magistrate who has ‘“foeus[ed] searchingly on the question of obscenity.’” Id., at 506, quoting Marcus v. Search Warrant, supra, at 732.
We also note that the burden is on the defendant to make a pretrial showing of a “substantial restraint” if he wishes to escape the rule of Heller, supra, that a mere seizure to preserve evidence does not impose on the State a duty to conduct an adversary hearing of the sort described in Marcus, supra. Respondents made no such pretrial showing in 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: | 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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to explore the scope of the inherent power of a federal court to sanction a litigant for bad-faith conduct. Specifically, we are asked to determine whether the District Court, sitting in diversity, properly invoked its inherent power in assessing as a sanction for a party’s bad-faith conduct attorney’s fees and related expenses paid by the party’s opponent to its attorneys. We hold that the District Court acted Within its discretion, and we therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
This case began as a simple action for specific performance of a contract, but it did not remain so. Petitioner G. Russell Chambers was the sole shareholder and director of Cal-casieu Television and Radio, Inc. (CTR), which operated television station KPLC-TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana. On August 9, 1983, Chambers, acting both in his individual capacity and on behalf of CTR, entered into a purchase agreement to sell the station’s facilities and broadcast license to respondent NASCO, Inc., for a purchase price of $18 million. The agreement was not recorded in the parishes in which the two properties housing the station’s facilities were located. Consummation of the agreement was subject to the approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); both parties were obligated to file the necessary documents with the FCC no later than September 23, 1983. By late August, however, Chambers had changed his mind and tried to talk NASCO out of consummating the sale. NASCO refused. On September 23, Chambers, through counsel, informed NASCO that he would not file the necessary papers with the FCC.
NASCO decided to take legal action. On Friday, October 14, 1983, NASCO’s counsel informed counsel for Chambers and CTR that NASCO would file suit the following Monday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, seeking specific performance of the agreement, as well as a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the alienation or encumbrance of the properties at issue. NASCO provided this notice in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 and Rule 11 of the District Court’s Local Rules (now Rule 10), both of which are designed to give a defendant in a TRO application notice of the hearing and an opportunity to be heard.
The reaction of Chambers and his attorney, A. J. Gray III, was later described by the District Court as having “emasculated and frustrated the purposes of these rules and the powers of [the District] Court by utilizing this notice to prevent NASCO’s access to the remedy of specific performance.” NASCO, Inc. v. Calcasieu Television & Radio, Inc., 623 F. Supp. 1372, 1383 (1985). On Sunday, October 16, 1983, the pair acted to place the properties at issue beyond the reach of the District Court by means of the Louisiana Public Records Doctrine. Because the purchase agreement had never been recorded, they determined that if the properties were sold to a third party, and if the deeds were recorded before the issuance of a TRO, the District Court would lack jurisdiction over the properties.
To this end, Chambers and Gray created a trust, with Chambers’ sister as trustee and Chambers’ three adult children as beneficiaries. The pair then directed the president of CTR, who later became Chambers’ wife, to execute warranty deeds conveying the two tracts at issue to the trust for a recited consideration of $1.4 million dollars. Early Monday morning, the deeds were recorded. The trustee, as purchaser, had not signed the deeds; none of the consideration had been paid; and CTR remained in possession of the properties. Later that morning, NASCO’s counsel appeared in the District Court to file the complaint and seek the TRO. With NASCO’s counsel present, the District Judge telephoned Gray. Despite the judge’s queries concerning the possibility that CTR was negotiating to sell the properties to a third person, Gray made no mention of the recordation of the deeds earlier that morning. NASCO, Inc. v. Calca-sieu Television & Radio, Inc., 124 F. R. D. 120, 126, n. 8 (1989). That afternoon, Chambers met with his sister and had her sign the trust documents and a $1.4 million note to CTR. The next morning, Gray informed the District Court by letter of the recordation of the deeds the day before and admitted that he had intentionally withheld the information from the court.
Within the next few days, Chambers’ attorneys prepared a leaseback agreement from the trustee to CTR, so that CTR could remain in possession of the properties and continue to operate the station. The following week, the District Court granted a preliminary injunction against Chambers and CTR and entered a second TRO to prevent the trustee from alienating or encumbering the properties. At that hearing, the District Judge warned that Gray’s and Chambers’ conduct had been unethical.
Despite this early warning, Chambers, often acting through his attorneys, continued to abuse the judicial process. In November 1983, in defiance of the preliminary injunction, he refused to allow NASCO to inspect CTR’s corporate records. The ensuing civil contempt proceedings resulted in the assessment of a $25,000 fine against Chambers personally. NASCO, Inc. v. Calcasieu Television & Radio, Inc., 583 F. Supp. 115 (1984). Two subsequent appeals from the contempt order were dismissed for lack of a final judgment. See NASCO, Inc. v. Calcasieu Television & Radio, Inc., No. 84-9037 (CA5, May 29, 1984); NASCO, Inc. v. Calcasieu Television & Radio, Inc., 752 F. 2d 157 (CA5 1985).
Undeterred, Chambers proceeded with “a series of mer-itless motions and pleadings and delaying actions.” 124 F. R. D., at 127. These actions triggered further warnings from the court. At one point, acting sua sponte, the District Judge called a status conference to find out why bankers were being deposed. When informed by Chambers’ counsel that the purpose was to learn whether NASCO could afford to pay for the station, the court canceled the depositions consistent with its authority under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(g).
At the status conference nine days before the April 1985 trial date, the District Judge again warned counsel that further misconduct would not be tolerated. Finally, on the eve of trial, Chambers and CTR stipulated that the purchase agreement was enforceable and that Chambers had breached the agreement on September 23, 1983, by failing to file the necessary papers with the FCC. At trial, the only defense presented by Chambers was the Public Records Doctrine.
In the interlude between the trial and the entry of judgment during which the District Court prepared its opinion, Chambers sought to render the purchase agreement meaningless by seeking permission from the FCC to build a new transmission tower for the station and to relocate the transmission facilities to that site, which was not covered by the agreement. Only after NASCO sought contempt sanctions did Chambers withdraw the application.
The District Court entered judgment on the merits in NASCO’s favor, finding that the transfer of the properties to the trust was a simulated sale and that the deeds purporting to convey the property were “null, void, and of no effect.” 623 F. Supp., at 1385. Chambers’ motions, filed in the District Court, the Court of Appeals, and this Court, to stay the judgment pending appeal were denied. Undeterred, Chambers convinced CTR officials to file formal oppositions to NASCO’s pending application for FCC approval of the transfer of the station’s license, in contravention of both the District Court’s injunctive orders and its judgment on the merits. NASCO then sought contempt sanctions for a third time, and the oppositions were withdrawn.
When Chambers refused to prepare to close the sale, NASCO again sought the court’s help. A hearing was set for July 16, 1986, to determine whether certain equipment was to be included in the sale. At the beginning of the hearing, the court informed Chambers’ new attorney, Edwin A. McCabe, that further sanctionable conduct would not be tolerated. ■ When the hearing was recessed for several days, Chambers, without notice to the court or NASCO, removed from service at the station all of the equipment at issue, forcing the District Court to order that the equipment be returned to service.
Immediately following oral argument on Chambers’ appeal from the District Court’s judgment on the merits, the Court of Appeals, ruling from the bench, found the appeal frivolous. The court imposed appellate sanctions in the form of attorney’s fees and double costs, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38, and remanded the case to the District Court with orders to fix the amount of appellate sanctions and to determine whether further sanctions should be imposed for the manner in which the litigation had been conducted. NASCO, Inc. v. Calcasieu Television & Radio, Inc., 797 F. 2d 975 (CA5 1986) (per curiam) (unpublished order).
On remand, NASCO moved for sanctions, invoking the District Court’s inherent power, Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 11, and 28 U. S. C. § 1927. After full briefing and a hearing, see 124 F. R. D., at 141, n. 11, the District Court determined that sanctions were appropriate “for the manner in which this proceeding was conducted in the district court from October 14, 1983, the time that plaintiff gave notice of its intention to file suit to this date.” Id., at 123. At the end of an extensive opinion recounting what it deemed to have been sanc-tionable conduct during this period, the court imposed sanctions against Chambers in the form of attorney’s fees and expenses totaling $996,644.65, which represented the entire amount of NASCO’s litigation costs paid to its attorneys. In so doing, the court rejected Chambers’ argument that he had merely followed the advice of counsel, labeling him “the strategist,” id., at 132, behind a scheme devised “first, to deprive this Court of jurisdiction and, second, to devise a plan of obstruction, delay, harassment, and expense sufficient to reduce NASCO to a condition of exhausted compliance,” id., at 136.
In imposing the sanctions, the District Court first considered Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. It noted that the alleged sanctionable conduct was that Chambers and the other defendants had “(1) attempted to deprive this Court of jurisdiction by acts of fraud, nearly all of which were performed outside the confines of this Court, (2) filed false and frivolous pleadings, and (3) attempted, by other tactics of delay, oppression, harassment and massive expense to reduce plaintiff to exhausted compliance.” 124 F. R. D., at 138. The court recognized that the conduct in the first and third categories could not be reached by Rule 11, which governs only papers filed with a court. As for the second category, the court explained that the falsity of the pleadings at issue did not become apparent until after the trial on the merits, so that it would have been impossible to assess sanctions at the time the papers were filed. Id., at 138-139. Consequently, the District Court deemed Rule 11 “insufficient” for its purposes. Id., at 139. The court likewise declined to impose sanctions under § 1927, both because the statute applies only to attorneys, and therefore would not reach Chambers, and because the statute was not broad enough to reach “acts which degrade the judicial system,” including “attempts to deprive the Court of jurisdiction, fraud, misleading and lying to the Court.” Ibid. The court therefore relied on its inherent power in imposing sanctions, stressing that “[t]he wielding of that inherent power is particularly appropriate when the offending parties have practiced a fraud upon the court.” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. NASCO, Inc. v. Calcasieu Television & Radio, Inc., 894 F. 2d 696 (CA5 1990). The court rejected Chambers’ argument that a federal court sitting in diversity must look to state law, not the court’s inherent power, to assess attorney’s fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct in litigation. The court further found that neither 28 U. S. C. § 1927 nor Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 limits a court’s inherent authority to sanction bad-faith conduct “when the party’s conduct is not within the reach of the rule or the statute.” 894 F. 2d, at 702-703. Although observing that the inherent power “is not a broad reservoir of power, ready at an imperial hand, but a limited source; an implied power squeezed from the need to make the court function,” id., at 702, the court also concluded that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in awarding to NASCO the fees and litigation costs paid to its attorneys. Because of the importance of these issues, we granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 807 (1990).
II
Chambers maintains that 28 U. S. C. § 1927 and the various sanctioning provisions in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure reflect a legislative intent to displace the inherent power. At least, he argues that they obviate or foreclose resort to the inherent power in this case. We agree with the Court of Appeals that neither proposition is persuasive.
A
It has long been understood that “[c]ertain implied powers must necessarily result to our Courts of justice from the nature of their institution,” powers “which cannot be dispensed with in a Court, because they are necessary to the exercise of all others.” United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32, 34 (1812); see also Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper, 447 U. S. 752, 764 (1980) (citing Hudson). For this reason, “Courts of justice are universally acknowledged to be vested, by their very creation, with power to impose silence, respect, and decorum, in their presence, and submission to their lawful mandates.” Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 227 (1821); see also Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 510 (1874). These powers are “governed not by rule or statute but by the control necessarily vested in courts to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases.” Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U. S. 626, 630-631 (1962).
Prior cases have outlined the scope of the inherent power of the federal courts. For example, the Court has held that a federal court has the power to control admission to its bar and to discipline attorneys who appear before it. See Ex parte Burr, 9 Wheat. 529, 531 (1824). While this power “ought to be exercised with great caution,” it is nevertheless “incidental to all Courts.” Ibid.
In addition, it is firmly established that “[t]he power to punish for contempts is inherent in all courts.” Robinson, supra, at 510. This power reaches both conduct before the court and that beyond the court’s confines, for “[t]he underlying concern that gave rise to the contempt power was not... merely the disruption of court proceedings. Rather, it was disobedience to the orders of the Judiciary, regardless of whether such disobedience interfered with the conduct of trial.” Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton et Fils S. A., 481 U. S. 787, 798 (1987) (citations omitted).
Of particular relevance here, the inherent power also allows a federal court to vacate its own judgment upon proof that a fraud has been perpetrated upon the court. See Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U. S. 238 (1944); Universal Oil Products Co. v. Root Refining Co., 328 U. S. 575, 580 (1946). This “historic power of equity to set aside fraudulently begotten judgments,” Hazel-Atlas, 322 U. S., at 245, is necessary to the integrity of the courts, for “tampering with the administration of justice in [this] manner... involves far more than an injury to a single litigant. It is a wrong against the institutions set up to protect and safeguard the public.” Id., at 246. Moreover, a court has the power to conduct an independent investigation in order to determine whether it has been the victim of fraud. Universal Oil, supra, at 580.
There are other facets to a federal court’s inherent power. The court may bar from the courtroom a criminal defendant who disrupts a trial. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337 (1970). It may dismiss an action on grounds offorum non conveniens, Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U. S. 501, 507-508 (1947); and it may act sua sponte to dismiss a suit for failure to prosecute, Link, supra, at 630-631.
Because of their very potency, inherent powers must be exercised with restraint and discretion. See Roadway Express, supra, at 764. A primary aspect of that discretion is the ability to fashion an appropriate sanction for conduct which abuses the judicial process. As we recognized in Roadway Express, outright dismissal of a lawsuit, which we had upheld in Link, is a particularly severe sanction, yet is within the court’s discretion. 447 U. S., at 765. Consequently, the “less severe sanction” of an assessment of attorney’s fees is undoubtedly within a court’s inherent power as well. Ibid. See also Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 689, n. 14 (1978).
Indeed, “[t]here are ample grounds for recognizing... that in narrowly defined circumstances federal courts have inherent power to assess attorney’s fees against counsel,” Roadway Express, supra, at 765, even though the so-called “American Rule” prohibits fee shifting in most cases. See Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240, 259 (1975). As we explained in Alyeska, these exceptions fall into three categories. The first, known as the “common fund exception,” derives not from a court’s power to control litigants, but from its historic equity jurisdiction, see Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U. S. 161, 164 (1939), and allows a court to award attorney’s fees to a party whose litigation efforts directly benefit others. Alyeska, 421 U. S., at 257-258. Second, a court may assess attorney’s fees as a sanction for the “‘willful disobedience of a court order.’” Id., at 258 (quoting Fleischmann Distilling Corp. v. Maier Brewing Co., 386 U. S. 714, 718 (1967)). Thus, a court’s discretion to determine “[t]he degree of punishment for contempt” permits the court to impose as part of the fine attorney’s fees representing the entire cost of the litigation. Toledo Scale Co. v. Computing Scale Co., 261 U. S. 399, 428 (1923).
Third, and most relevant here, a court may assess attorney’s fees when a party has “ ‘acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons.’” Alyeska, supra, at 258-259 (quoting F. D. Rich Co. v. United States ex rel. Industrial Lumber Co., 417 U. S. 116, 129 (1974)). See also Hall v. Cole, 412 U. S. 1, 5 (1973); Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402, n. 4 (1968) (per curiam). In this regard, if a court finds “that fraud has been practiced upon it, or that the very temple of justice has been defiled,” it may assess attorney’s fees against the responsible party, Universal Oil, supra, at 580, as it may when a party “shows bad faith by delaying or disrupting the litigation or by hampering enforcement of a court order,” Hutto, 437 U. S., at 689, n. 14. The imposition of sanctions in this instance transcends a court’s equitable power concerning relations between the parties and reaches a court’s inherent power to police itself, thus serving the dual purpose of “vindicat[ing] judicial authority without resort to the more drastic sanctions available for contempt of court and mak[ing] the prevailing party whole for expenses caused by his opponent’s obstinacy.” Ibid.
B
We discern no basis for holding that the sanctioning scheme of the statute and the rules displaces the inherent power to impose sanctions for the bad-faith conduct described above. These other mechanisms, taken alone or together, are not substitutes for the inherent power, for that power is both broader and narrower than other means of imposing sanctions. First, whereas each of the other mechanisms reaches only certain individuals or conduct, the inherent power extends to a full range of litigation abuses. At the very least, the inherent power must continue to exist to fill in the interstices. Even Justice Kennedy’s dissent so concedes. See post, at 64. Second, while the narrow exceptions to the American Rule effectively limit a court’s inherent power to impose attorney’s fees as a sanction to cases in which a litigant has engaged in bad-faith conduct or willful disobedience of a court’s orders, many of the other mechanisms permit a court to impose attorney’s fees as a sanction for conduct which merely fails to meet a reasonableness standard. Rule 11, for example, imposes an objective standard of reasonable inquiry which does not mandate a finding of bad faith. See Business Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications Enterprises, Inc., 498 U. S. 533, 548-549 (1991).
It is true that the exercise of the inherent power of lower federal courts can be limited by statute and rule, for “[t]hese courts were created by act of Congress.” Robinson, 19 Wall., at 511. Nevertheless, “we do not lightly assume that Congress has intended to depart from established principles” such as the scope of a court’s inherent power. Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456 U. S. 305, 313 (1982); see also Link, 370 U. S., at 631-632. In Alyeska we determined that “Congress ha[d] not repudiated the judicially fashioned exceptions” to the American Rule, which were founded in the inherent power of the courts. 421 U. S., at 260. Nothing since then has changed that assessment, and we have thus reaffirmed the scope and the existence of the exceptions since the most recent amendments to § 1927 and Rule 11, the other sanctioning mechanisms invoked by NASCO here. See Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, 478 U. S. 546, 561-562, and n. 6 (1986). As the Court of Appeals recognized, 894 F. 2d, at 702, the amendment to § 1927 allowing an assessment of fees against an attorney says nothing about a court’s power to assess fees against a party. Likewise, the Advisory Committee’s Notes on the 1983 Amendment to Rule 11, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 575, declare that the Rule “build[s] upon and expand[s] the equitable doctrine permitting the court to award expenses, including attorney’s fees, to a litigant whose opponent acts in bad faith in instituting or conducting litigation,” citing as support this Court’s decisions in Roadway Express and Hall. Thus, as the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has recognized, Rule 11 “does not repeal or modify existing authority of federal courts to deal with abuses... under the court’s inherent power.” Zaldivar v. Los Angeles, 780 F. 2d 823, 830 (1986).
The Court’s prior cases have indicated that the inherent power of a court can be invoked even if procedural rules exist which sanction the same conduct. In Link, it was recognized that a federal district court has the inherent power to dismiss a case sua sponte for failure to prosecute, even though the language of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) appeared to require a motion from a party:
“The authority of a court to dismiss sua sponte for lack of prosecution has generally been considered an ‘inherent power,’ governed not by rule or statute but by the control necessarily vested in courts to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases. That it has long gone unquestioned is apparent not only from the many state court decisions sustaining such dismissals, but even from language in this Court’s opinion in Redfield v. Ystalyfera Iron Co., 110 U. S. 174, 176. It also has the sanction of wide usage among the District Courts. It would require a much clearer expression of purpose than Rule 41(b) provides for us to assume that it was intended to abrogate so well-acknowledged a proposition.” 370 U. S., at 630-632 (footnotes omitted).
In Roadway Express, a party failed to comply with discovery orders and a court order concerning the schedule for filing briefs. 447 U. S., at 755. After determining that § 1927, as it then existed, would not allow for the assessment of attorney’s fees, we remanded the case for a consideration of sanctions under both Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 and the court’s inherent power, while recognizing that invocation of the inherent power would require a finding of bad faith. Id., at 767.
There is, therefore, nothing in the other sanctioning mechanisms or prior cases interpreting them that warrants a conclusion that a federal court may not, as a matter of law, resort to its inherent power to impose attorney’s fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct. This is plainly the case where the conduct at issue is not covered by one of the other sanctioning provisions. But neither is a federal court forbidden to sanction bad-faith conduct by means of the inherent power simply because that conduct could also be sanctioned under the statute or the Rules. A court must, of course, exercise caution in invoking its inherent power, and it must comply with the mandates of due process, both in determining that the requisite bad faith exists and in assessing fees, see Roadway Express, supra, at 767. Furthermore, when there is bad-faith conduct in the course of litigation that could be adequately sanctioned under the Rules, the court ordinarily should rely on the Rules rather than the inherent power. But if in the informed discretion of the court, neither the statute nor the Rules are up to the task, the court may safely rely on its inherent power.
Like the Court of Appeals, we find no abuse of discretion in resorting to the inherent power in the circumstances of this case. It is true that the District Court could have employed Rule 11 to sanction Chambers for filing “false and frivolous pleadings,” 124 F. R. D., at 138, and that some of the other conduct might have been reached through other Rules. Much of the bad-faith conduct by Chambers, however, was beyond the reach of the Rules; his entire course of conduct throughout the lawsuit evidenced bad faith and an attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the court, and the conduct sanctionable under the Rules was intertwined within conduct that only the inherent power could address. In circumstances such as these in which all of a litigant’s conduct is deemed sanctionable, requiring a court first to apply Rules and statutes containing sanctioning provisions to discrete occurrences before invoking inherent power to address remaining instances of sanctionable conduct would serve only to foster extensive and needless satellite litigation, which is contrary to the aim of the Rules themselves. See, e. g., Advisory Committee’s Notes on 1983 Amendment to Rule 11, 28 U. S. C. App., pp. 575-576.
We likewise do not find that the District Court’s reliance on the inherent power thwarted the purposes of the other sanctioning mechanisms. Although Justice Kennedy’s dissent makes much of the fact that Rule 11 and Rule 26(g) “are cast in mandatory terms,” post, at 66, the mandate of these provisions extends only to whether a court must impose sanctions, not to which sanction it must impose. Indeed, the language of both Rules requires only that'a court impose “an appropriate sanction.” Thus, this case is distinguishable from Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U. S. 250 (1988), in which this Court held that a district court could not rely on its supervisory power as a means of circumventing the clear mandate of a procedural rule. Id., at 254-255.
III
Chambers asserts that even if federal courts can use their inherent power to assess attorney’s fees as a sanction in some cases, they are not free to do so when they sit in diversity, unless the applicable state law recognizes the “bad-faith” exception to the general rule against fee shifting. He relies on footnote 31 in Alyeska, in which we stated with regard to the exceptions to the American Rule that “[a] very different situation is presented when a federal court sits in a diversity case. ‘[I]n an ordinary diversity case where the state law does not run counter to a valid federal statute or rule of court, and usually it will not, state law denying the right to attorney’s fees or giving a right thereto, which reflects a substantial policy of the state, should be followed.’ 6 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 54.77[2], pp. 1712-1713 (2d ed. 1974) (footnotes omitted).” 421 U. S., at 259, n. 31.
We agree with NASCO that Chambers has misinterpreted footnote 31. The limitation on a court’s inherent power described there applies only to fee-shifting rules that embody a substantive policy, such as a statute which permits a prevailing party in certain classes of litigation to recover fees. That was precisely the issue in Sioux County v. National Surety Co., 276 U. S. 238 (1928), the only case cited in footnote 31. There, a state statute mandated that in actions to enforce an insurance policy, the court was to award the plaintiff a reasonable attorney’s fee. See id., at 242, and n. 2. In enforcing the statute, the Court treated the provision as part of a statutory liability which created a substantive right. Id., at 241-242. Indeed, Alyeska itself concerned the substantive nature of the public policy choices involved in deciding whether vindication of the rights afforded by a particular statute is important enough to warrant the award of fees. See 421 U. S., at 260-263.
Only when there is a conflict between state and federal substantive law are the concerns of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), at issue. As we explained in Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U. S. 460 (1965), the “outcome determinative” test of Erie and Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99 (1945), “cannot be read without reference to the twin aims of the Erie rule: discouragement of forum-shopping and avoidance of inequitable administration of the laws.” 380 U. S., at 468. Despite Chambers’ protestations to the contrary, neither of.these twin aims is implicated by the assessment of attorney’s fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct before the court which involved disobedience of the court’s orders and the attempt to defraud the court itself. In our recent decision in Business Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications Enterprises, Inc., 498 U. S., at 553, we stated, “Rule 11 sanctions do not constitute the kind of fee shifting at issue in Alyeska [because they] are not tied to the outcome of litigation; the relevant inquiry is whether a specific filing was, if not successful, at least well founded.” Likewise, the imposition of sanctions under the bad-faith exception depends not on which party wins the lawsuit, but on how the parties conduct themselves during the litigation. Consequently, there is no risk that the exception will lead to forum-shopping. Nor is it inequitable to apply the exception to citizens and noncitizens alike, when the party, by controlling his or her conduct in litigation, has the power to determine whether sanctions will be assessed. As the Court of Appeals expressed it: ‘Erie guarantees a litigant that if he takes his state law cause of action to federal court, and abides by the rules of that court, the result in his case will be the same as if he had brought it in state court. It does not allow him to waste the court’s time and resources with cantankerous conduct, even in the unlikely event a state court would allow him to do so.” 894 F. 2d, at 706.
As Chambers has recognized, see Brief for Petitioner 15, in the case of the bad-faith exception to the American Rule, “the underlying rationale of ‘fee shifting’ is, of course, punitive.” Hall, 412 U. S., at 4-5. Cf. Pavelic & LeFlore v. Marvel Entertainment Group, 493 U. S. 120, 126 (1989). “[T]he award of attorney’s fees for bad faith serve[s] the same purpose as a remedial fine imposed for civil contempt,” because “[i]t vindicate[s] the District Court’s authority over a recalcitrant litigant.” Hutto, 437 U. S., at 691. “That the award ha[s] a compensatory effect does not in any event distinguish it from a fine for civil contempt, which also compensates a private party for the consequences of a contemnor’s disobedience.” Id., at 691, n. 17.
Chambers argues that because the primary purpose of the sanction is punitive, assessing attorney’s fees violates the State’s prohibition on punitive damages. Under Louisiana law, there can be no punitive damages for breach of contract, even when a party has acted in bad faith in breaching the agreement. Lancaster v. Petroleum Corp. of Delaware, 491 So. 2d 768, 779 (La. App. 1986). Cf. La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 1995 (West 1987). Indeed, “as a general rule attorney’s fees are not allowed a successful litigant in Louisiana except where authorized by statute or by contract.” Rutherford v. Impson, 366 So. 2d 944, 947 (La. App. 1978). It is clear, though, that this general rule focuses on the award of attorney’s fees because of a party’s success on the underlying claim. Thus, in Frank L. Beier Radio, Inc. v. Black Gold Marine, Inc., 449 So. 2d 1014 (La. 1984), the state court considered the scope of a statute which permitted an award of attorney’s fees in a suit seeking to collect on an open account. Id., at 1015. This substantive state policy is not implicated here, where sanctions were imposed for conduct during the litigation.
Here, the District Court did not attempt to sanction petitioner for breach of contract, but rather imposed sanctions for the fraud he perpetrated on the court and the bad faith he displayed toward both his adversary and the court throughout the course
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Each of the petitioners has been convicted of violating an identical ordinance of an Arkansas municipality by refusing a demand to furnish city officials with a list of the names of the members of a local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The question for decision is whether these-' convictions can stand under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Municipalitiés in Arkansas are authorized by the State to levy a license tax on any person, firm, individual, or corporation engaging in any “trade, business, profession, vocation or calling” within their corporate limits! Pursuant to this authority, the City of Little Rock and the City of North Little Rock have for some years imposed annual license taxes on a broad variety of businesses, occupations, and professions. Charitable organizations which engage in the activities affected are relieved from paying, the taxes.
In 1957 the two cities added identical amendments to their occupation license tax ordinances. These amendments require that any organization operating within the municipality in question must supply to the City Clerk, upon request and within a specified time, (1) the official name of the organization; (2) its headquarters or regular meeting place; (3) the names of the officers, agents, servants, employees, or representatives, and their salaries; (4) the purpose of the organization; (5) a statement as to dues, assessments, and contributions paid, by whom and when paid, together with a statement reflecting the disposition of the funds and the total net income; (6) an affidavit stating whether the organization is subordinate to a parent organization, and if so, the latter’s name. The ordinances expressly provide that all information furnished shall be public and subject to the inspection of any interested party at all reasonable business hours.
Petitioner Bates was the custodian of the records of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Little Rock, and petitioner Williams was the custodian of the records of the North Little Rock branch. These local organizations supplied the two municipalities with all the. information required by the ordinances, except that demanded under § 2E of each ordinance which would have required disclosure of the names of the organizations’ members and contributors. Instead of furnishing the detailed breakdown required by this section of the North Little Rock ordinance, the petitioner Williams wrote to the City Clerk as follows:
“E. The financial statement is as follows:
January 1,1957 to December 4,1957.
Total receipts from membership and contributors $252.00.
$183.60 Total expenditures... (to National Office)
Secretarial help. o o io
Stationery, stamps, .etc o o c6
Total . $191.60
On Hand... 60.40
“F. I am attaching my affidavit as president indicating that we are a Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a New York Corporation.
“We cannot give you any information with respect to the names and addresses of our members and contributors or any information which may lead to the ascertainment of such information. We base this refusal on the anti-NAACP climate in this state. It is our good faith and belief that the public disclosure of the names of our members and contributors might lead to their harassment, economic reprisals, and even bodily harm. Moreover, even aside from that possibility, we have been advised by our counsel, and we do so believe that the city has no right under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and under the Constitution and laws of the State of Arkansas to demand the names and addresses, of our members and contributors. We. assert on behalf of the organization and its members the right to contribute to the NAACP and to seek under its aegis to accomplish the aims and purposes herein described free from any restraints or interference from city or state officials! In addition we assert the right of our members and contributors to participate in the activities of the NAACP, anonymously, a right which has ■>. been recognized as the basic right of every American citizen since the founding of this country. . . .”
A substantially identical written statement was submitted on behalf of the Little Rock branch of the Association to the Clerk of that city.
After refusing upon further demand to submit the .names of the members of her organization, each petitioner was tried, convicted, and fined for a violation of the ordinance of her respective municipality At the Bates trial evidence was offered to show that many former members of the local organization had declined to renew their membership because, of the existence of the ordinance in question.' Similar evidence was received in the Williams trial, as well as evidence that those who had b.een publicly identified in the community as members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had been subjected to harassment and threats of bodily harm. • •
• On appeal the cases were consolidated in the Supreme Court of Arkansas, and, with two justices dissenting, the convictions were upheld. 229 Ark. 819, 319 S. W. 2d 37. The court concluded that compulsory disclosure of the membership lists under the circumstances was “not an unconstitutional invasion of the freedoms guaranteed . . .” but “a mere incident to a permissible legal result.” Because of the significant constitutional question involved, we granted certiorari. 359 U. S. 988.
Like freedom of speech and a free press, the right of peaceable assembly was considered by the Framers of our Constitution to lie at the foundation of a government based upon the consent of an informed citizenry — a government dedicated to the establishment of justice and the preservation of liberty. U. S. Const., Amend. I. And it is now beyond dispute that freedom of association for the» purpose of advancing ideas and airing grievances is protected by the. Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by the States. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 364; N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 460. ■
Freedoms such as these are protected not only against heavy-handed frontal attack, but also from being stifled by more subtle governftiental interference. Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 402; N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, supra; Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147. “It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute [an] effective . . . restraint on freedom of association. . . . This Court has recognized the. vital relationship between freedom to associate • and privacy in one’s associations. . ! . Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.” N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, 357 U. S., at 462.
On this record it sufficiently appears that compulsory disclosure of the membership lists of the local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People would work a significant interference with the freedom of association of their members. There was substantial uncontroverted evidence that public identification of persons in the community as members of the organizations had been followed by harassment and threats.of bodily harm. There was also evidence that fear of community hostility and economic reprisals that would follow public disclosure of the membership lists had discouraged new members from joining the organizations and induced former members to withdraw. This repressive effect, while in part the result of private attitudes and pressures, was brought to bear only after the exercise of governmental power had threatened to force disclosure of the members’ names. N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, 357 U. S., at 463. Thus, the threat of substantial government encroachment upon important .and traditional aspects of individual freedom is neither speculative nor remote.
Decision in this case must finally turn, therefore, on whether the cities as instrumentalities of the State have demonstrated so cogent an interest in obtaining and making public the membership lists of these organizations as to justify the substantial abridgment of associational freedom which such disclosures will effect. Where there is a significant encroachment upon personal liberty, the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling. N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449. See also Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147; Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 574; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158; Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77.
It cannot be questioned that the governmental purpose upon which the municipalities rely is a fundamental one. No power is more basic to the ultimate purpose and function of government than is the power to tax. See James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134, 150. Nor can it be doubted that the proper and efficient exercise of this essential governmental power may sometimes entail the possibility of encroachment upon individual freedom. See United States v. Kahriger, 345 U. S. 22; Hubbard v. Mellon, 55 App. D. C. 341, 5 F. 2d 764.
It was as an adjunct of their power to impose occupational license taxes that the cities enacted the legislation here in question. But governmental action does not automatically become reasonably related to the achievement of a legitimate and substantial governmental purpose by mere' assertion in the preamble of an ordinance. When it is shown that state action threatens significantly to impinge upon constitutionally protected freedom it becomes the duty of this Court to determine whether the action bears a reasonable relationship to the achievement of the governmental purpose asserted as its justification.
In this record we can find no relevant correlation between the power of the municipalities to impose occupational license taxes and the compulsory disclosure and publication of the membership lists of the local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The occupational license tax ordinances. of the municipalities are squarely aimed at reaching all, the commercial, professional, and business occupations within the communities. The taxes are not, and as a matter of state law cannot be, based on earnings or income, but upon the nature of the occupation or enterprise conducted.
Inquiry of organizations within the communities as to the purpose and nature of their activities would thus appear to be entirely relevant to enforcement of the ordinances. Such an inquiry was addressed to these organizations and was answered as follows:
“We are an affiliate of a national organization seeking to secure for American Negroes.their rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Our purposes may best be described by quoting from the Articles of Incorporation of our National Organization where these purposes are set forth as:
“'. . . voluntarily to promote equality of rights and eradicate caste Or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for their children,
' employment according to their ability, and complete equality before the law. To ascertain and publish all facts bearing upon these subjects and to take any lawful action thereon; together with any kind and all things which may lawfully be done by a membership corporation organized under the laws of the State of New York for the further advancement of these objects.’
“The Articles of Incorporation hereinabove referred to are on file in the office of the Secretary of State of the State of Arkansas. In accord with these purposes and aims, [this] . . . Branch, NAACP was chartered and organized, and we are seeking to effectuate, these principles within [this municipality].”
The municipalities have not suggested that an activity so described, even if conducted for profit, would fall within any of the occupational classifications for which a license is required or a tax payable.. On oral argument counsel for the City of Little Rock was unable to relate any activity of these organizations to which a license tax might attach. And there is nothing in the record to indicate that a tax claim has ever been asserted against either organization. If the organizations were to claim the exemption which the ordinance grants to charitable endeavors, information as to the specific sources and expenditures of their funds might well be a. subject of relevant inquiry. But there is nothing to show that any exemption has ever been sought, claimed, or granted— and positive evidence in the record to the contrary.
In sum, there is a complete failure in this record to show (1) that the organizations were engaged in any occupation for which a license would be required, even if ' the occupation were conducted for a profit; (2) that the cities have ever asserted a claim against the organizations for payment of an occupational license tax;. (3) that the organizations have ever asserted exemption from a tax imposed by the municipalities, either because of their alleged nonprofit character or for any other reason.
We conclude that the municipalities have failed to demonstrate a controlling justification for the deterrence of free association which compulsory disclosure of the membership lists would cause. The petitioners cannot be punished for refusing to produce information which the municipalities could not constitutionally require. The judgments cannot stand.
Reversed
Ark. Stat., 1947, § 19-4601.
Little Rock Ord. No. 7444. North Little Rock Ord. No. 1786. These ordinances have been amended numerous times by adding various businesses, occupations and professions to be licensed, and by changing the rates of the taxes imposed.
The pertinent provisions of the ordinances are as follows:
“Whereas, it has been found and determined that' certain organizations within the City . . . have been claiming immunity from the terms of [the ordinance], governing the payment of occupation licenses levied for the privilege of doing business .within the city, upon the premise that such organizations are benevolent, charitable, mutual benefit, fraternal or non-profit, and
• “Whereas, many such organizations claiming the occupation license exemption are mere subterfuges for businesses -being operated for profit which are subject to the occupation license ordinance;
“Now, Therefore,. Be It Ordained by the City Council of the City ....
“Section 1. The word ‘organization’ as used herein means any group of individuals, whether incorporated or unincorporated. •
“Section 2. Any organization operating or functioning within the City . . . including but not limited to civic, fraternal, political, mutual benefit, legal, medical, trade, or other organization, upon the request of the Mayor, Alderman, Member of the Board of Directors, City Clerk,- City Collector, or City Attorney, shall list with the City Clerk the following information within 15 days after suqh request is submitted:'
“A. The official name of the organization.
• “B. The office, place of business, headquarters or usual meeting place of such organization.
“C. The officers, agents, servants, employees or representatives of such organization, and the salaries paid to them.
“D. The purpose or purposes of such organization. '
“E. A financial statement of such organization, including dues, fees, assessments and/or contributions paid, by whom paid, and the date .thereof, together with the statement reflecting the disposition of such sums, to whom and when paid, together with the total net income of such organization.
“F. An affidavit by the president or other officiating officer of the organization stating whether the organization is subordinate to a parent organization, and if so, the name of the parent organization.
“Section 3. This ordinance shall be cumulative to other ordinances heretofore passed by the City with reference to occupation licenses and the collection thereof.
“Section 4. All information obtained pursuant to this ordinance, shall be deemed public and subject to the inspection of any interested party at all’reasonable business hours.
“Section 5. Any section or part of this ordinance declared to be unconstitutional or void shall not affect the remaining sections of the ordinance, and to this end the sections or subsections hereof are declared to be severable. ,
“Section 6. Any person or organization who shall violate the provisions of this ordinance shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined . . . .”
Section 2E of the ordinances does not explicitly require submission of membership lists, but, rather, of “dues .... and, or contributions-paid, by whom paid . . . That the effect of this language was to require submission of the names of all members was made clear in the supplemental request made by the City Clerk of North Little Rock to the petitioner Williams:
“Dear Madam: ■
“At a regular meeting of the North Little Rock City Council held in the Council Chamber on December 9, 1957, I was instructed to request a list of the names and addresses of all the officers and members of the North Little Rock Branch of the NAACP.
“This portion of the questionaire answered by you on December 4, 1957 did not furnish this information. The above information must be received not later than December 1&, 1957 as requested in the original questionaire received by you on December 3, 1957.”
• (In fact, the names of all the officers of the North Little Rock branch had already been submitted in accordance with § 2C of the ordinance.)
For example, petitioner Bates testified: “Well, I will say it like this — for the past five years I have been collecting, I guess, 150 to 200 members each year — just renewals of the same people. This year, I guess I lost 100 or 150 of those same members because when I went back for renewals they said, ‘Well, we will wait and see what happens in the Bennett Ordinance.’ ”
For example, a witness testified: “Well, the people are afraid to join, afraid to join because the people — they don’t want their names exposed and they are afraid their names will be exposed and they might lose their jobs.- They will be intimidated and they are afraid to join. They said, ‘Well, you will have to wait. I can’t do it.’ They are afraid to give, their — because they áre afraid somebody, if their names are publicized, then they will lose their jobs or be intimidated or what-not.”
For example, petitioner Williams testified: “Well, I have — we were not able td' rest at night or day for quite a while. We had to have our phone number changed because they call that day and night and then we — they have found out the second phone number and they did the same way and they called me all hours of night over the telephone and then I had to get a new number and they have been trying to find out that one, of course. I would tell them who is talking and they have throwed stones at my home. They wrote me — I got a — I received a letter threatening my life and they threaten my life over the telephone. That is the way.”
The Arkansas Supreme Court construed § 2E of the ordinances as requiring disclosure “of the membership list.” 229 Ark., at-, 319 S. W. 2d, at 41.
The cities do not challenge petitioners’ right to raise any objections or defenses available to their organizations,.nor do the .cities challenge the right of the organizations in these circumstances to assert the individual rights of their members. Cf. N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, at 458-459.
See note 3, supra.
A “catch-all” provision of the Little Rock ordinance imposes an annual tax upon “[a]ny person, firm, or corporation within the City .■ . . engaging in the business of selling any and all kinds of goods, wares, and merchandise, whether raw materials or finished products, or both, from a regularly established place of business maintained within the City . . . ■The tax is measured by “the gross value of the average stock inventory for the preceding year,” with a minimum of $25. It was conceded on oral argument' by counsel for the City of Little Rock, that this provision was inapplicable. No brief was filed nor oral argument made on behalf of the City of North Little Rock. ■
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Buackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
An advertisement carried in appellant’s newspaper led to his conviction for a violation of a Virginia statute that made it a misdemeanor, by the sale or circulation of any publication, to encourage or prompt the procuring of an abortion. The issue here is whether the editor-appellant’s First Amendment rights were unconstitutionally abridged by the statute. The First Amendment, of course, is applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 160 (1939).
I
The Virginia Weekly was a newspaper published by the Virginia Wéekly Associates of Charlottesville. It was issued in that city and circulated in Albemarle County, with particular focus on the campus of the University of Virginia. Appellant, Jeffrey C. Bigelow, was a director and the managing editor and responsible officer of the newspaper.
On February 8, 1971, the Weekly’s Vol. V, No. 6, was published and circulated under the direct responsibility of the appellant. On page 2 of that issue was the following advertisement:
“UNWANTED PREGNANCY LET US HELP YOU
Abortions are now legal in New York.
There are no residency requirements.
FOR IMMEDIATE PLACEMENT IN ACCREDITED HOSPITALS AND CLINICS AT LOW COST
Contact
WOMEN'S PAVILION
515 Madison Avenue
New York, N. Y. 10022
or call any time
(212) 371-6670 or (212) 371-6650
AVAILABLE 7 DAYS A WEEK
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. We will make all arrangements for you and help you with information and counseling.''
It is to be observed that the advertisement announced that the Women's Pavilion of New York City would help women with unwanted pregnancies to obtain “immediate placement in accredited hospitals and clinics at low cost” and would “make all arrangements” on a “strictly confidential” basis; that it offered “information and counseling”; that it gave the organization's address and telephone numbers; and that it stated that abortions “are now legal in New York” and there “are no residency requirements.” Although the advertisement did not contain the name of any licensed physician, the “placement” to which it referred was to “accredited hospitals and clinics.”
On May 13 Bigelow was charged with violating Va. Code Ann. § 18.1-63 (1960). The statute at that time read:
“If any person, by publication, lecture, advertisement, or by the sale or circulation of any publication, or in any other manner, encourage or prompt the procuring of abortion or miscarriage, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Shortly after the statute was utilized in Bigelow’s case, and apparently before it was ever used again, the Virginia Legislature amended it and changed its prior application and scope.
Appellant was first tried and convicted in the County Court of Albemarle County. He appealed to the Circuit Court of that county where he was entitled to a de novo trial. Va. Code Ann. §§ 16.1-132 and 16.1-136 (1960). In the Circuit Court he waived a jury and in July 1971 was tried to the judge. The evidence consisted of stipulated facts; an excerpt, containing the advertisement in question, from the Weekly’s issue of February 8, 1971; and the June 1971 issue of Redbook magazine, containing abortion information and distributed in Virginia and in Albemarle County. App. 3, 8. The court rejected appellant’s claim that the statute was unconstitutional and adjudged him guilty. He was sentenced to pay a fine of $500, with $350 thereof suspended “conditioned upon no further violation” of the statute. Id., at 5.
The Supreme Court of Virginia granted review and, by a 4-2 vote, affirmed Bigelow’s conviction. 213 Va. 191, 191 S. E. 2d 173 (1972). The court first rejected the appellant’s claim that the advertisement was purely informational and thus was not within the “encourage or prompt” language of the statute. It held, instead, that the advertisement “clearly exceeded an informational status” and “constituted an active offer to perform a service, rather than a passive statement of fact.” Id., at 193, 191 S. E. 2d, at 174. It then rejected Bigelow’s First Amendment claim. This, the court.said, was a “commercial advertisement” and, as such, “may be constitutionally prohibited by the state,” particularly “where, as here, the advertising relates to the medical-health field.” Id., at 193-195, 191 S. E. 2d, at 174r-176. The issue, in the court’s view, was whether the statute was a valid exercise of the State’s police power. It answered this question in the affirmative, noting that the statute’s goal was “to ensure that pregnant women in Virginia who decided to have abortions come to their decisions without the commercial advertising pressure usually incidental to the sale of a box of soap powder.” Id., at 196, 191 S. E. 2d, at 176. The court then turned to Bigelow’s claim of overbreadth. It held that because the appellant himself lacked a legitimate First Amendment interest, inasmuch as his activity "was of a purely commercial nature,” he had no “standing to rely upon the hypothetical rights of those in the non-commercial zone.” Id., at 198, 191 S. E. 2d, at 177-178.
Bigelow took a timely appeal to this Court. During the pendency of his appeal, Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), were decided. We subsequently vacated Bigelow’s judgment of conviction and remanded the case for further consideration in the light of Roe and Doe. 413 U. S. 909 (1973).
The Supreme Court of Virginia, on such reconsideration, but without further oral argument, again affirmed appellant’s conviction, observing that neither Roe nor Doe “mentioned the subject of abortion advertising” and finding nothing in those decisions “which in any way affects our earlier view.” 214 Va. 341, 342, 200 S. E. 2d 680 (1973). Once again, Bigelow appealed. We noted probable jurisdiction in order to review the important First Amendment issue presented. 418 U. S. 909 (1974).
II
This Court often has recognized that a defendant’s standing to challenge a statute on First Amendment grounds as facially overbroad does not depend upon whether his own activity is shown to be constitutionally privileged. The Court consistently has permitted “attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with the requisite narrow specificity.” Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 486 (1965). See also Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 114 (1972); Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 520-521 (1972); Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U. S. 611, 616 (1971), and id., at 619-620 (White, J., dissenting); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 432 (1963); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 97-98 (1940). The Supreme Court of Virginia itself recognized this principle when it recently stated that “persons who engage in non-privileged conduct are not precluded from attacking a statute under which they were convicted.” Owens v. Commonwealth, 211 Va. 633, 638-639, 179 S. E. 2d 477, 481 (1971). “For in appraising a statute’s inhibitory effect upon [First Amendment] rights, this Court has not hesitated to take into account possible applications of the statute in other factual contexts besides that at bar.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S., at 432. See generally Note, The First Amendment Over-breadth Doctrine, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 844, 847-848 (1970).
This “exception to the usual rules governing standing,” Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S., at 486, reflects the transcendent value to all society of constitutionally protected expression. We give a defendant standing to challenge a statute on grounds that it is facially over-broad, regardless of whether his own conduct could be regulated by a more narrowly drawn statute, because of the “danger of tolerating, in the area of First Amendment freedoms, the existence of a penal statute susceptible of sweeping and improper application.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S., at 433.
Of course, in order to have standing, an individual must present more than “[a]negations of a subjective ‘chill.’ ” There must be a “claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm.” Laird v. Tatum, 408 U. S. 1, 13-14 (1972). That requirement, however, surely is met under the circumstances of this case, where the threat of prosecution already has blossomed into the reality of a conviction, and where there can be no doubt concerning the appellant’s personal stake in the outcome of the controversy. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962). The injury of which appellant complains is one to him as an editor and publisher of a newspaper; he is not seeking to raise the hypothetical rights of others. See Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 166 (1972); Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622, 641 (1951). Indeed, unlike some cases in which the standing issue similarly has been raised, the facts of this case well illustrate “the statute’s potential for sweeping and improper applications.” Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S., at 532-533 (Burger, C. J., dissenting).
Declaring a statute facially unconstitutional because of overbreadth “is, manifestly, strong medicine,” and “has been employed by the Court sparingly and only as a last resort.” Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 613 (1973). But we conclude that the Virginia courts erred in denying Bigelow standing to make this claim, where “pure speech” rather than conduct was involved, without any consideration of whether the alleged over-breadth was or was not substantial. Id., at 615, 616. The Supreme Court of Virginia placed no effective limiting construction on the statute. Indeed, it characterized the rights of doctors, husbands, and lecturers as “hypothetical,” and thus seemed to imply that, although these were in the noncommercial zone, the statute might apply to them, too.
In view of the statute’s amendment since Bigelow’s conviction in such a way as “effectively to repeal” its prior application, there is no possibility now that the statute’s pre-1972 form will be applied again to appellant or will chill the rights of others. As a practical matter, the issue of its overbreadth has become moot for the future. We therefore. decline to rest our decision on overbreadth and we pass on to the further inquiry, of greater moment not only for Bigelow but for others, whether the statute as applied to appellant infringed constitutionally protected speech.
Ill
A. The central assumption made by the Supreme Court of Virginia was that the First Amendment guarantees of speech and press are inapplicable to paid commercial advertisements. Our cases, however, clearly establish that speech is not stripped of First Amendment protection merely because it appears in that form. Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm’n, 413 U. S. 376, 384 (1973); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 266 (1964).
The fact that the particular advertisement in appellant’s newspaper had commercial aspects or reflected the advertiser’s commercial interests did not negate all First Amendment guarantees. The State was not free of constitutional restraint merely because the advertisement involved sales or “solicitations,” Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 110-111 (1943), or because appellant was paid for printing it, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 266; Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 150 (1959), or because appellant’s motive or the motive of the advertiser may have involved financial gain, Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 531 (1945). The existence of “commercial activity, in itself, is. no justification for narrowing the protection of expression secured by the First Amendment.” Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S. 463, 474 (1966).
Although other categories of speech — such as fighting words, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (1942), or obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 481-485 (1957), Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 23 (1973), or libel, Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974), or incitement, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444 (1969) — have been held unprotected, no contention has been made that the particular speech embraced in the advertisement in question is within any of these categories.
The appellee, as did the Supreme Court of Virginia, relies on Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U. S. 52 (1942), where a unanimous Court, in a brief opinion, sustained an ordinance which had been interpreted to ban the distribution of a handbill advertising the exhibition of a submarine. The handbill solicited customers to tour the ship for a fee. The promoter-advertiser had first attempted to distribute a single-faced handbill consisting only of the advertisement, and was denied permission to do so. He then had printed, on the reverse side of the handbill, a protest against official conduct refusing him the use of wharfage facilities. The Court found that the message of asserted “public interest” was appended solely for the purpose of evading the ordinance and therefore did not constitute an “exercise of the freedom of communicating information and disseminating opinion.” Id., at 54. It said:
“We are equally clear that the Constitution imposes no such restraint on government as respects purely commercial advertising.” Ibid.
But the holding is distinctly a limited one: the ordinance was upheld as a reasonable regulation of the manner in which commercial advertising could be distributed. The fact that it had the effect of banning a particular handbill does not mean that Chrestensen is authority for the proposition that all statutes regulating commercial advertising are immune from constitutional challenge. The case obviously does not support any sweeping proposition that advertising is unprotected per se.
This Court’s cases decided since Chrestensen clearly demonstrate as untenable any reading of that case that would give it so broad an effect. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, a city official instituted a civil libel action against four clergymen and the New York Times. The suit was based on an advertisement carried in the newspaper criticizing police action against members of the civil rights movement and soliciting contributions for the movement. The Court held that this advertisement, although containing factually erroneous defamatory content, was entitled to the same degree of constitutional protection as ordinary speech. It said:
“That the Times was paid for publishing the advertisement is as immaterial in this connection as is the fact that newspapers and books are sold.” 376 U. S., at 266.
Chrestensen was distinguished on the ground that the handbill advertisement there did no more than propose a purely commercial transaction, whereas the one in New York Times
“communicated information, expressed opinion, recited grievances, protested claimed abuses, and sought financial support on behalf of a movement whose existence and objectives are matters of the highest public interest and concern.” Ibid.
The principle that commercial advertising enjoys a degree of First Amendment protection was reaffirmed in Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm’n, 413 U. S. 376 (1973). There, the Court, although divided, sustained an ordinance that had been construed to forbid newspapers to carry help-wanted advertisements in sex-designated columns except where based upon a bona fide occupational exemption. The Court did describe the advertisements at issue as “classic examples of commercial speech,” for each was “no more than a proposal of possible employment.” Id., at 385. But the Court indicated that the advertisements would have received some degree of First Amendment protection if the commercial proposal had been legal. The illegality of the advertised activity was particularly stressed:
“Any First Amendment interest which might be served by advertising an ordinary commercial proposal and which might arguably outweigh the governmental interest supporting the regulation is altogether absent when the commercial activity itself is illegal and the restriction on advertising is incidental to a valid limitation on economic activity.” Id., at 389.
B. The legitimacy of appellant’s First Amendment claim in the present case is demonstrated by the important differences between the advertisement presently at issue and those involved in Chrestensen and in Pittsburgh Press. The advertisement published in appellant’s newspaper did more than simply propose a commercial transaction. It contained factual material of clear “public interest.” Portions of its message, most prominently the lines, “Abortions are now legal in New York. There are no residency requirements,” involve the exercise of the freedom of communicating information and disseminating opinion.
Viewed in its entirety, the advertisement conveyed information of potential interest and value to a diverse audience — not only to readers possibly in need of the services offered, but also to those with a general curiosity about, or genuine interest in, the subject matter or the law of another State and its development, and to readers seeking reform in Virginia. The mere existence of the Women’s Pavilion in New York City, with the possibility of its being typical of other organizations there, and the availability of the services offered, were not unnewsworthy. Also, the activity advertised pertained to constitutional interests. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973). Thus, in this case, appellant’s First Amendment interests, coincided with the constitutional interests of the general public.
Moreover, the placement services advertised in appellant’s newspaper were legally provided in New York at that time. The Virginia Legislature could not have regulated the advertiser’s activity in New York, and obviously could not have proscribed the activity in that State. Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657, 669 (1892). Neither could Virginia prevent its residents from traveling to New York to obtain those services or, as the State conceded, Tr. of Oral Arg. 29, prosecute them for going there. See United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 757-759 (1966); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 629-631 (1969); Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 200. Virginia possessed no authority to regulate the services provided in New York — the skills and credentials of the New York physicians and of the New York professionals who assisted them, the standards of the New York hospitals and clinics to which patients were referred, or the practices and charges of the New York referral services.
A State does not acquire power or supervision over the internal affairs of another State merely because the welfare and health of its own citizens may be affected when they travel to that State. It may seek to disseminate information so as to enable its citizens to make better informed decisions when they leave. But it may not, under the guise of exercising internal police powers, bar a citizen of another State from disseminating information about an activity that is legal in that State.
C. We conclude, therefore, that the Virginia courts erred in their assumptions that advertising, as such, was entitled to no First Amendment protection and that appellant Bigelow had no legitimate First Amendment interest. We need not decide in this case the precise extent to which the First Amendment permits regulation of advertising that is related to activities the State may legitimately regulate or even prohibit.
Advertising, like all public expression, may be subject to reasonable regulation that serves a legitimate public interest. See Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm’n, supra; Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298 (1974). To the extent that commercial activity is subject to regulation, the relationship of speech to that activity may be one factor, among others, to be considered in weighing the First Amendment interest against the governmental interest alleged. Advertising is not thereby stripped of all First Amendment protection. The relationship of speech to the marketplace of products or of services does not make it valueless in the marketplace of ideas.
The Court has stated that “a State cannot foreclose the exercise of constitutional rights by mere labels.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S., at 429. Regardless of the particular label asserted by the State — whether it calls speech “commercial” or “commercial advertising” or “solicitation” — a court may not escape the task of assessing the First Amendment interest at stake and weighing it against the public interest allegedly served by the regulation. The diverse motives, means, and messages of advertising may make speech “commercial” in widely varying degrees. We need not decide here the extent to which constitutional protection is afforded commercial advertising under all circumstances and in the face of all kinds of regulation.
IV
The task of balancing the interests at stake here was one that should have been undertaken by the Virginia courts before they reached their decision. We need not remand for that purpose, however, because the outcome is readily apparent from what has been said above.
In support of the statute, the appellee contends that the commercial operations of abortion referral agencies are associated with practices, such as fee splitting, that tend to diminish, or at least adversely affect, the quality of medical care, and that advertising of these operations will lead women to seek services from those who are interested only or mainly in financial gain apart from professional integrity and responsibility.
The State, of course, has a legitimate interest in maintaining the quality of medical care provided within its borders. Barsky v. Board of Regents, 347 U. S. 442, 451 (1954). No claim has been made, however, that this particular advertisement in any way affected the quality of medical services within Virginia. As applied to Bigelow’s case, the statute was directed at the publishing of informative material relating to services offered in another State and was not directed at advertising by a referral agency or a practitioner whose activity Virginia had authority or power to regulate.
To be sure, the agency-advertiser’s practices, although not then illegal, may later have proved to be at least “inimical to the public interest” in New York. S. P. S. Consultants, Inc. v. Lefkowitz, 333 F. Supp. 1373, 1378 (SDNY 1971). But this development would not justify a Virginia statute that forbids Virginians from using in New York the then legal services of a local New York agency. Here, Virginia is really asserting an interest in regulating what Virginians may hear or read about the New York services. It is, in effect, advancing an interest in shielding its citizens from information about activities outside Virginia’s borders, activities that Virginia’s police powers do not reach. This asserted interest, even if understandable, was entitled to little, if any, weight under the circumstances.
No claim has been made, nor could any be supported on this record, that the advertisement was deceptive or fraudulent, or that it related to a commodity or service that was then illegal in either Virginia or in New York, or that it otherwise furthered a criminal scheme in Virginia. There was no possibility that appellant’s activity would invade the privacy of other citizens, Breará v. Alexandria, supra, or infringe on other rights. Observers would not have the advertiser’s message thrust upon them as a captive audience. Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, supra; Packer Corp. v. Utah, 285 U. S. 105, 110 (1932).
The strength of appellant’s interest was augmented by the fact that the statute was applied against him as publisher and editor of a newspaper, not against the advertiser or a referral agency or a practitioner. The prosecution thus incurred more serious First Amendment overtones.
If application of this statute were upheld under these circumstances, Virginia might exert the power sought here over a wide variety of national publications or interstate newspapers carrying advertisements similar to the one that appeared in Bigelow’s newspaper or containing articles on the general subject matter to which the advertisement referred. Other States might do the same. The burdens thereby imposed on publications would impair, perhaps severely, their proper functioning. See Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241, 257-258 (1974). We know from experience that “liberty of the press is in peril as soon as the government tries to compel what is to go into a newspaper.” 2 Z. Chafee, Government and Mass Communications 633 (1947). The policy of the First Amendment favors dissemination of information and opinion, and “[t]he guarantees of freedom of speech and press were not designed to prevent 'the censorship of the press merely, but any action of the government by means of which it might prevent such free and general discussion of public matters as seems absolutely essential....’ 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 886 (8th ed.).” Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130, 150 (1967) (opinion of Harlan, J.).
We conclude that Virginia could not apply Va. Code Ann. § 18.1-63 (1960), as it read in 1971, to appellant’s publication of the advertisement in question without unconstitutionally infringing upon his First Amendment rights. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia is therefore reversed..
It is so ordered.
His brief describes the publication as an “underground newspaper.” Brief for Appellant 3. The appellee states that there is no evidence in the record to support that description. Brief for Appellee 3 n. 1.
We were advised by the State at oral argument that the statute dated back to 1878, and that Bigelow’s was the first prosecution under the statute “in modern times,” and perhaps the only prosecution under it “at any time.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 40. The statute appears to have its origin in Va. Acts of Assembly 1877-1878, p. 281, c. 2, § 8. •
The statute, as amended by Va. Acts of Assembly 1972, c. 725, now reads:
“18.1-63. If any person, by publication, lecture, advertisement, or by the sale or circulation of any publication, or through the use of a referral agency for profit, or in any other manner, encourage or promote the processing of an abortion or miscarriage to be performed in this State which is prohibited under this article, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
It is to be observed that the amendment restricts the statute’s application, with respect to advertising, to an abortion illegal in Virginia and to be performed there. Since the State’s statutes purport- to define those abortions that are legal when performed in the State, see Va. Code Ann. §§ 18.1-62.1 and 18.1-62.3 (Supp. 1975), the State at oral argument described the pre-1972 form of § 18.1-63 as “effectively repealed by amendment,” and, citing Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), the statute, as amended, as limited to an abortion performed by a nonphysician. Tr. of Oral Arg. 38-39. In any event, there is no dispute here that the amended statute would not reach appellant’s advertisement.
See Note, The First Amendment and Commercial Advertising: Bigelow v. Commonwealth, 60 Va. L. Rev. 154 (1974).
Virginia asserts, rightfully we feel, that this is "a First Amendment case” and “not an abortion case.” Brief for Appellee 15 n. 6; Tr. of Oral Arg. 26.
Mr. Justice Douglas, who was a Member of the Court when Chrestensen was decided and who joined that opinion, has observed: “The ruling was casual, almost offhand. And it has not survived reflection.” Cammarano v. United States, 358 U. S. 498, 514 (1959) (concurring opinion). Mr. Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Stewart, Marshall, and Powell, has observed: “There is some doubt concerning whether the ‘commercial speech’ distinction announced in Valentine v. Chrestensen... retains continuing validity.” Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298, 314 n. 6 (1974) (dissenting opinion). See also Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm’n, 413 U. S. 376, 393 (1973) (Burger, C. J., dissenting); id., at 398 (Douglas, J., dissenting); id., at 401 (Stewart, J., dissenting).
It was argued, too, that under the circumstances the appearance of the advertisement in the appellant’s newspaper was “an implicit editorial endorsement” of its message. Brief for Appellant 29.
Subsequent to Bigelow’s publication of the advertisement in February 1971, New York adopted Laws 1971, c. 725, effective July 1, 1971, amended by Laws 1972, c. 17, § 1, now codified as Art. 45 of the State’s Public Health Law (Supp. 1974-1975). Section 4500 contains a legislative finding:
“Medical referral services, organized as profit making enterprises within this state, have been... in violation of the standards of ethics and public policy applicable to the practice of medicine and which would be violations of standards of professional conduct if the acts were performed by physicians.... It is hereby declared to be the public policy of this state... that such profit making medical referral service organizations be declared to be invalid and unlawful in this state.”
Section 4501 (1) provides:
“No person, firm, partnership, association or corporation, or agent or employee thereof, shall engage in for profit any business or service which in whole or in part includes the referral or recommendation of persons to a physician, hospital, health related facility, or dispensary for any form of medical care or treatment of any ailment or physical condition. The imposition of a fee or charge for any such referral or recommendation shall create a presumption that the business or service is engaged in for profit.”
A violation of the statute is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not longer than one year or a fine of not more than $5,000 or both. § 4502 (1). Article 45 expressly is made inapplicable to a nonprofit corporation exempt from federal income taxation under § 501 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. §501 (c). §4503.
The 1971 statute has been upheld against constitutional challenge. S. P. S. Consultants, Inc. v. LejkovAtz, 333 F. Supp. 1373 (SDNY 1971).
In 1972, after Bigelow’s prosecution was begun, Virginia adopted Acts of Assembly 1972, c. 642, now codified as Va. Code Ann. § 18.1— 417.2 (Supp. 1975). This statute is similar to the New York statute described in n. 8, supra, and is directed at for-profit medical referrals within Virginia. The statute prohibits engaging for profit “in any business which in whole or in part includes the referral or recommendation of persons to a physician, hospital, health related facility, or dispensary for any form of medical care or treatment of any ailment or physical condition.” Acceptance of a fee for any such referral or recommendation “shall create a presumption that the business is engaged in such service for profit.” Violation of the statute is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not longer than one year or a fine of not more than $5,000, or both.
By a 1973 amendment, Acts of Assembly 1973, c. 529, to its statute dealing with unprofessional conduct by a member of the medical or a related profession, Virginia prohibits advertising by a physician. Specifically, Va. Code Ann. § 54-317 (1974) now provides:
“Any practitioner of medicine... shall be considered guilty of unprofessional conduct if he:
“(13) Advertises to the general public directly or indirectly in any manner his professional services, their costs, prices, fees, credit terms or quality.”
See also Va. Code Ann. §§ 54-278.1 and 54-317 (4), (5), and (6) (1974).
We, of course, have no occasion to comment here on whatever constitutional issue, if any, may be raised with respect to these statutes.
We have no occasion, therefore, to comment on decisions of lower courts concerning regulation of advertising in readily distinguishable fact situations. Wholly apart from the respective rationales that may have been developed by the courts in those cases, their results are not inconsistent with our holding here. In those cases there usually existed a clear relationship between the advertising in question and an activity that the government was legitimately regulating. See, e. g., United States v. Bob Lawrence Realty, Inc., 474 F. 2d 115, 121 (CA5), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 826 (1973); Rockville Reminder, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 480 F. 2d 4 (CA2 1973); United States v. Hunter, 459 F. 2d 205 (CA4), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 934 (1972).
Nor need we comment here on the First Amendment ramifications of legislative prohibitions of certain kinds of advertising in the electronic media, where the “unique characteristics” of this form of communication “make it especially subject to regulation in the public interest.” Capital Broadcasting Co. v. Mitchell, 333 F. Supp. 582, 584 (DC 1971), aff’d, 405 U. S. 1000 (1972). See also Banzhaf v. FCC, 132 U. S. App. D. C. 14, 405 F. 2d 1082 (1968), cert. denied sub nom. Tobacco Institute, Inc. v. FCC, 396 U. S.. 842 (1969); Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U. S. 94 (1973).
Our decision also is in no way inconsistent with our holdings in the Fourteenth Amendment cases that concern the regulation of professional activity. See North Dakota Pharmacy Bd. v. Snyder’s Stores, 414 U. S. 156 (1973); Head v. New Mexico Board, 374 U. S. 424 (1963); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955);
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Respondent Central Office Telephone, Inc. (COT), a reseller of long-distance communications services, sued petitioner AT&T, a provider of long-distance communications services, under state law for breach of contract and tortious interference with contract. Petitioner is regulated as a common carrier under the Communications Act of 1984, 48 Stat. 1064, as amended, 47 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. The issue before us is whether the federal filed-tariff requirements of the Communications Act pre-empt respondent's state-law claims.
I
Respondent purchases “bulk” long-distance services— volume-discounted services designed for large customers— from long-distance providers, and resells them to smaller customers. Like many other resellers in the telecommunications industry, respondent does not own or operate facilities of its own; it is known as a “switehless reseller,” which is the industry nomenclature for arbitrageur. Of course respondent passes along only a portion of the bulk-purchase discount to its aggregated customers, and retains the remaining discount as profit.
Petitioner provides long-distance services and, as a common carrier under the Communications Act, § 153(h), must observe certain substantive requirements imposed by that law. Section 203 of the Act requires that common carriers file “schedules” (also known as “tariffs”) containing all their “charges” for interstate services and all “classifications, practices, and regulations affecting such charges.” § 203(a). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is the agency responsible for enforcing the Act, requires carriers to sell long-distance services to resellers such as respondent under the same rates, terms, and conditions as apply to other customers.
Prior to 1989, petitioner had developed a type of long-distance service known as Software Defined Network (SDN), designed to meet the needs of large companies with offices in multiple locations. SDN established a “virtual private network” that allowed employees in different locations to communicate easily. For example, an employee in Washington could call a co-worker in Denver simply by dialing a four-digit extension. SDN customers, in exchange for a commitment to purchase large volumes of long-distance communication time, received this service at a rate much below what it would otherwise cost.
Several changes to SDN in 1989 made the service extremely attractive to resellers, such as respondent, who aggregate smaller customers. Petitioner developed the capability to allow customers to use ordinary (“switched access”) telephone lines to connect locations to their SDN networks. Previously, locations had to be connected over special “dedicated access” lines, which are direct lines from a location’s telephone system to petitioner’s long-distance network, bypassing the switches of the local exchange carrier. Dedicated access involves large fixed costs, so it is cost effective only when a location originates a large volume of calls. Switched access, in contrast, does not entail additional high fixed costs, so it is better suited to small users and hence to resellers. Petitioner also instituted two pricing promotions for SDN in 1989: additional discounts from the basic SDN rates for customers making large usage and duration commitments, and waiver of installation charges for customers making multiyear commitments (subject to penalties for early termination). Petitioner also added a new billing option. In addition to network billing, whereby petitioner prepares a single bill that applies the tariffed rate to all usage at all locations, petitioner started to offer multilocation billing (MLB), which allows the SDN volume discounts to be apportioned between an SDN customer and individual locations on its network, with the proportion being chosen by the customer. Under this option, petitioner sends bills directly to the customer’s individual locations (which, in the case of resellers, means to the reseller’s customers) but the customer (or reseller) remains responsible for all payments. The tariff provides, however, that petitioner is not responsible for the allocation of charges. See AT&T Tariff F’CC No. 1, §6.2.4 (1986), App. to Brief for Petitioner 24a.
Attracted by these changes, in October 1989, respondent approached petitioner regarding its possible purchase of SDN. LaDonna Kisor, a sales representative in petitioner’s Portland, Oregon, office, described the service and gave respondent literature on SDN. She predicted that petitioner could establish an initial SDN network for respondent in four to five months, and could thereafter add new locations within 80 days of receiving an order. Respondent subscribed to a tariffed switched-access SDN plan under which the up-front installation charges would be waived and respondent would receive a 17% to 20% discount off basic SDN rates in exchange for a 4-year commitment to purchase two million minutes of service annually. Respondent also requested MLB. Petitioner confirmed respondent’s order, stating that respondent would obtain SDN “ ‘pursuant to the rates, terms and conditions in AT&T’s [PCC Tariff No. 1],’ ” and that the provisions of the tariff, “ ‘including limitations on AT&T’s liabilities, shall govern your and AT&T’s obligations and liabilities with respect to the service and options you have selected.’” Brief for Petitioner 14. Respondent accepted these terms in writing on October 30,1989.
By February 1990, it had become apparent that the demand for SDN exceeded petitioner’s expectations — largely because of the switehless resellers attracted to the service. Petitioner could not fill the volumes of switched-access orders as rapidly as dedicated access orders, or as quickly as petitioner’s personnel had predicted. Accordingly, Ms. Kisor notified respondent that it would take up to 90 days to add new locations after the initial SDN was established. She suggested placing respondent’s customers with another AT&T service, the Multiloeation Calling Plan (MLCP), until they could be placed on SDN. Respondent agreed to this, and ordered MLCP. Again, respondent signed a letter confirming that MLCP “ ‘is provided under the terms and conditions stated in AT&T’s Tariff F. C. C. Nos. 1 and 2.’ ” Brief for Appellant in Nos. 94-36116, 94-36156 (CA9), p. 15.
Ms. Kisor informed respondent that its initial SDN network was functioning in April 1990. At that point, respondent elected to increase to a larger SDN volume commitment in order to qualify, for a larger discount. In placing this order, respondent signed a form stating that the SDN service ‘“WILL BE GOVERNED BY THE RATES AND TERMS AND CONDITIONS IN THE APPROPRIATE AT&T TARIFFS.’” Brief for Petitioner 14-15. Respondent then began reselling SDN to its own customers and placing orders with petitioner that required petitioner to treat respondent’s customers as if they were new locations on a corporate SDN.
Almost from the outset, respondent experienced problems with the network, including delays in provisioning (the filling of orders) and in billing. An additional billing problem was especially damaging to respondent: respondent’s customers received bills reflecting 100% of the discount instead of the 50% respondent selected. These problems continued, and in October 1990, they led respondent to switch to network billing. Although respondent continued to resell SDN, it was ultimately unable to meet its usage commitment for the first period in which it was applicable. In September 1992, respondent notified petitioner that it was terminating its SDN service effective September 30,1992, with 18 months remaining on its contract.
Meanwhile, on November 27, 1991, respondent had filed suit against petitioner in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. The complaint contained a variety of claims, none of which arose under the Communications Act, and ultimately two state-law claims went to trial: (1) breach of contract (including breach of an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing); and (2) tortious interference with contractual relations (viz., respondent’s contracts with its customers). Respondent’s state-law claims rested on the allegation that its contracts with petitioner were not limited by petitioner’s tariff but also included certain understandings respondent’s president derived from reading petitioner’s brochures and talking with its representatives. According to respondent, petitioner promised various service, provisioning, and billing options in addition to those set forth in the tariff. Respondent also claimed that petitioner violated its state-law implied duty of good faith and fair dealing by taking actions that undermined the purpose of the contract for respondent, which was to purchase SDN services for resale at a profit. The tortious-interference claim was derivative of the contract claim. Respondent asserted that, because respondent promised certain benefits of SDN to its customers, and because petitioner provided competing services, any intentional violation of petitioner’s contractual duties constituted tortious-interference with respondent’s relationship with its customers. Respondent also asserted that, since petitioner’s conduct was willful, consequential damages were available under the terms of the tariff. Petitioner filed a counterclaim to recover $200,000 in unpaid tariffed charges from April to October 1990, and to obtain the termination charges that respondent did not pay in 1992.
Throughout the proceedings in District Court, petitioner argued that respondent’s state-law contract and tort claims were pre-empted by the filed-tariff requirements of §203 of the Act. The Magistrate Judge rejected this argument and instructed the jury to consider not only the written subscription agreements, but also any statements made or documents furnished before the parties signed the agreements “ ‘if you find that the parties intended that those statements or written materials form part of their agreements.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 18. The Magistrate Judge also instructed the jury that it could not find for respondent on its contract claims unless it found that petitioner engaged in willful misconduct. He declined to instruct on punitive damages for the tortious-interference claim. The jury found for respondent on its state-law claims, rejected petitioner’s counterclaim, and awarded respondent $13 million in lost profits. The Magistrate Judge reduced the judgment to $1.154 million, which represented.the lost profits respondent claimed during the period before it canceled SDN on September 30, 1992; he found that there was no competent evidence for lost profits after that date. The Court of Appeals, over a dissent by Judge Brunetti, affirmed the judgment but reversed the Magistrate Judge’s failure to instruct on punitive damages and remanded for a trial on that aspect of the case. 108 F. 3d 981 (CA9 1997). We granted certiorari to determine whether the federal filed-rate requirements of § 203 pre-empt respondent’s claims. 522 U. S. 1024 (1997).
1 — t
Section 203(a) of the Communications Act requires every common carrier to file with the FCC “schedules,” i e., tariffs, “showing all charges” and “showing the classifications, practices, and regulations affecting such charges.” 47 U. S. C. § 203(a). Section 203(c) makes it unlawful for a carrier to “extend to any person any privileges or facilities in such communication, or employ or enforce any classifications, regulations, or practices affecting such charges, except as specified in such schedule.” These provisions are modeled after similar provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act (ICA) and share its goal of preventing unreasonable and discriminatory charges. MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 512 U. S. 218, 229-230 (1994). Accordingly, the century-old “filed rate doctrine” associated with the ICA tariff provisions applies to the Communications Act as well. See id., at 229-231; Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. v. Hall, 453 U. S. 571, 577 (1981); cf. United States Nav. Co. v. Cunard S. S. Co., 284 U. S. 474, 481 (1932). In Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Maxwell, 237 U. S. 94, 97 (1915), we described the basic contours of the filed rate doctrine under the ICA:
“Under the Interstate Commerce Act, the rate of the carrier duly filed is the only lawful charge. Deviation from it is not permitted upon any pretext. Shippers and travelers are charged with notice of it, and they as well as the carrier must abide by it, unless it is found by the Commission to be unreasonable. Ignorance or misquotation of rates is not an excuse for paying or charging either less or more than the rate filed. This rule is undeniably strict and it obviously may work hardship in some cases, but it embodies the policy which has been adopted by Congress in the regulation of interstate commerce in order to prevent unjust discrimination.”
Thus, even if a carrier intentionally misrepresents its rate and a customer relies on the misrepresentation, the carrier cannot be held to the promised rate if it conflicts with the published tariff. Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. Carl, 227 U. S. 639, 653 (1913).
While the filed rate doctrine may seem harsh in some circumstances, see, e. g., Maislin Industries, U.S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U. S. 116, 130-131 (1990), its strict application is necessary to “prevent carriers from intentionally ‘misquoting’ rates to shippers as a means of offering them rebates or discounts,” the very evil the filing requirement seeks to prevent. Id., at 127. Regardless of the carrier’s motive — whether it seeks to benefit or harm a particular customer — the policy of nondiseriminatory rates is violated when similarly situated customers pay different rates for the same services. It is that antidiseriminatory policy which lies at “the heart of the common-carrier section of the Communications Act.” MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., supra, at 229.
The Ninth Circuit thought the filed rate doctrine inapplicable “[bjeeause this ease does not involve rates or rate-setting, but rather involves the provisioning of services and billing.” 108 F. 3d, at 990. Rates, however, do not exist in isolation. They have meaning only when one knows the services to which they are attached. Any claim for excessive rates can be couched as a claim for inadequate services and vice versa. “If ‘discrimination in charges’ does not include non-price features, then the carrier could defeat the broad purpose of the statute by the simple expedient of providing an additional benefit at no additional charge.... An unreasonable ‘discrimination in charges,’ that is, can come in the form of a lower price for an equivalent service or in the form of an enhanced service for an equivalent price.” Competitive Telecommunications Assn. v. FCC, 998 F. 2d 1058, 1062 (CADC 1993). The Communications Act recognizes this when it requires the filed tariff to show not only “charges,” but also “the classifications, practices, and regulations affecting such charges,” 47 U. S. C. § 203(a); and when it makes it unlawffd to “extend to any person any privileges or facilities in such communication, or employ or enforce any classifications, regulations, or practices affecting such charges” except those set forth in the tariff, § 203(c).
Unsurprisingly, the cases decided under the ICA make it clear that discriminatory “privileges” come in many guises, and are not limited to discounted rates. “[A] preference or rebate is the necessary result of every violation of [the analog to § 203(c) in the ICA] where the carrier renders or pays for a service not covered by the prescribed tariffs.” United States v. Wabash R. Co., 321 U. S. 403, 412-413 (1944). In Chicago & Alton R. Co. v. Kirby, 225 U. S. 155 (1912), we rejected a shipper’s breach-of-contract claim against a railroad for failure to ship a carload of race horses by a particularly fast train. We held that the contract was invalid as a matter of law because the carrier’s tariffs “did not provide for an expedited service, nor for transportation by any particular train,” and therefore the shipper received “an undue advantage . . . that is not one open to others in the same situation.” Id., at 163,165. Similarly, in Davis v. Cornwell, 264 U. S. 560 (1924), we invalidated the carrier’s agreement to provide the shipper with a number of railroad cars on a specified day; such a special advantage, we said, “is illegal, when not provided for in the tariff.” Id., at 562. See also Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. Carl, supra, at 653; Wight v. United States, 167 U. S. 512, 517-518 (1897); I. Lake, Discrimination by Railroads and Other Public Utilities 310-315 (1947).
Ill
The Ninth Circuit distinguished the Court’s filed rate eases involving claims for special services on the ground that the services at issue there “should have been included in the tariff and made available to all” because “the customer would have been expected to pay a higher rate” for those services. 108 F. 3d, at 989, n. 9. But that is precisely the case here. Indeed, the additional services and guarantees that respondent claims it was entitled to by virtue of Ms. Kisor’s representations and petitioner’s sales brochures— viz., faster provisioning, the allocation of charges through multiloeation billing, and various matters relating to deposits, calling cards, and service support, see 108 F. 3d, at 987-988—all pertain to subjects that are specifically addressed by the filed tariff. See AT&T Tariff FCC No. 1, §2.5.10 (provisioning of orders); §6.2.4 (allocation of charges); §2.5.6 (deposits); §2.5.12.B (calling cards); § 6.2.5 (service supports).
The Ninth Circuit agreed that all of respondent’s claims except those relating to provisioning and billing would be pre-empted if the filed rate doctrine applied. 108 F. 3d, at 990. But even provisioning and billing are, in the relevant sense, “covered” by the tariff. For example, whereas respondent asks to enforce a guarantee that orders would be provisioned within 30 to 90 days, the tariff leaves it up to petitioner to “establish] and confir[m]” a due date for provisioning, requires that petitioner merely make “every reasonable effort” to meet that due date, and if it fails gives the customer no recourse except to “cancel the order without penalty or payment of nonrecurring charges.” § 2.5.10(B). Faster, guaranteed provisioning of orders for the same rate is certainly a privilege within the meaning of 47 U. S. C. § 203(c) and the filed rate doctrine. Cf. Chicago & Alton R. Co. v. Kirby, supra, at 163 (refusing to enforce promise for faster, guaranteed service not included in the tariff). As for billing, whereas respondent claims that, pursuant to the MLB option, petitioner promised to allocate usage and charges accurately among respondent’s customers, the tariff provides that petitioner “will not allocate . . . usage or charges” among the locations on the customer’s network and “is not responsible for the way that the Customer may allocate usage or charges.” AT&T Tariff FCC No. 1, § 6.2.4. Any assurance by petitioner that it would allocate usage and charges and take responsibility for the task would have been in flat contradiction of the tariff. See Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co. v. Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co., 270 U. S. 260, 266 (1926).
The Ninth Circuit distinguished respondent’s claims from those in our filed-rate cases involving special services in one other respect: according to respondent, the “special services” that it sought were provided by petitioner, without charge, to other customers, 108 F. 3d, at 989, n. 9. Even if that were so, the claim for these services would still be pre-empted under the filed rate doctrine. To the extent respondent is asserting discriminatory treatment, its remedy is to bring suit under §202 of the Communications Act. To the extent petitioner is claiming that its own claims for special services are not really special because other companies get the same preferences, “that would only tend to show that the practice was unlawful [with regard to] the others as well.” United States v. Wabash R. Co., supra, at 413. Because respondent asks for privileges not included in the tariff, its state-law claims are barred in either case.
IV
Our analysis applies with equal force to respondent’s tortious-interference claim because that is wholly derivative of the contract claim for additional and better services. Respondent contended that the tort claim was based on “AT&T’s refusal to provide [respondent] with certain types of service” and the Magistrate Judge agreed, noting that “ ‘the claims in this case, even the tort claim,... stem from the alleged failure of AT&T to comply with its contractual relationship.’” Brief for Appellant in Nos. 94-36116, 94-36156 (CA9), p. 33. Respondent can no more obtain unlawful preferences under the cloak of a tort claim than it can by contract. “The rights as defined by the tariff cannot be varied or enlarged by either contract or tort of the carrier.” Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156, 163 (1922); see also Maislin, 497 U. S., at 126.
The saving clause of the Communications Act, §414, contrary to respondent’s reading of it, does not dictate a different result. Section 414 copies the saving clause of the ICA, and we have long held that the latter preserves only those rights that are not inconsistent with the statutory filed-tariff requirements. Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491, 507 (1913). A claim for services that constitute unlawful preferences or that directly conflict with the tariff — the basis for both the tort and contract claims here — cannot be “saved” under §414. “Th[e saving] clause... cannot in reason be construed as continuing in [customers] a common law right, the continued existence of which would be absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of the act. In other words, the act cannot be held to destroy itself.” Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 446 (1907).
Finally, we reject respondent’s argument that, even if the tariff exclusively governs the parties' relationship, the relief awarded is consistent with the tariff, since AT&T Tariff FCC No. 1, §2.3.1 provides that petitioner’s “liability, if any, for its willful misconduct is not limited by this tariff.” Respondent reasons that, because the jury found that petitioner engaged in willful misconduct, the verdict does not conflict with the tariff. Section 2.3.1, however, cannot be construed to do what the parties have no power to do. It removes only those limitations upon liability imposed by the tariff, not those imposed by law. It is the Communications Act that renders the promise of preferences unenforceable. The tariff can no more exempt the broken promise of preference that is willful than it can the broken promise of preference that is unintentional. (In fact, perversely enough, the willful breach displays a greater, if belated, attempt to comply with the law.)
* * *
Because respondent’s state-law claims are barred by the filed rate doctrine, we reverse the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Justice O’Connor took no part in the consideration or decision of this ease.
Eight months after the dose of discovery (and well after the 2-year statute of limitations in the Communications Act, §415), respondent sought leave to file a second amended complaint to add a § 202 daim. The Magistrate Judge denied the request. Respondent did not appeal that ruling.
The dissent argues that “the jury’s verdict on respondent’s tort daim is supported by evidence that went well beyond, and differed in nature from, the contract daim,” post, at 231, which the dissent asserts requires us to remand this case rather than reverse the judgment. This issue of noncontract evidence neither was included within the question presented for our review (“Whether... the Ninth Circuit improperly allowed state-law contract and tort claims based on a common carrier’s failure to honor an alleged side agreement to give its customer better service than called for by the carrier’s tariff”) nor was raised by respondent as an alternative ground in support of the judgment. Nor has respondent ever suggested the need for a remand, even though the petition for certiorari sought not merely reversal, but summary reversal. In its brief on the merits, respondent argued that the intentional tort claim was not pre-empted because AT&T’s willful breach of its contractual commitments was not protected by the filed rate doctrine. There was no hint of an argument that, even if that willful breach could not form the basis for an action, other alleged intentional acts sufficed to support the judgment below. At no point has respondent disputed the Magistrate Judge’s finding that the tort claim is derivative of the contract claim, or the Ninth Circuit’s description of its tort claim as based on the fact that “because COT had promised certain benefits of SDN to its customers, and because AT&T provided competing services, any violation of AT&T’s contractual duties constituted tortious interference with COT’s relationship with its customers.” 108 F. 3d 981, 988 (1997). Contrary to the dissent’s assertion, we have no obligation to search the record for the existence of a nonjurisdictional point not presented, and to consider a disposition (remand instead of reversal) not suggested by either side.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a private enforcement action under the citizen-suit provision of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA), 100 Stat. 1755, 42 U. S. C. § 11046(a)(1). The case presents the merits question, answered in the affirmative by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, whether EPCRA authorizes suits for purely past violations. It also presents the jurisdictional question whether respondent, plaintiff below, has standing to bring this action.
I
Respondent, an association of individuals interested m environmental protection, sued petitioner, a small manufacturing company in Chicago, for past violations of EPCRA. EPCRA establishes a framework of state, regional, and local agencies designed to inform the public about the presence of hazardous and toxic chemicals, and to provide for emergency response in the event of health-threatening release. Central to its operation are reporting requirements compelling users of specified toxic and hazardous chemicals to file annual “emergency and hazardous chemical inventory forms” and “toxic chemical release forms,” which contain, inter alia, the name and location of the facility, the name and quantity of the chemical on hand, and, in the ease of toxic chemicals, the waste-disposal method employed and the annual quantity released into each environmental medium. 42 U. S. C. §§ 11022 and 11023. The hazardous-chemical inventory forms for any given calendar year are due the following March 1st, and the toxic-chemical release forms the following July 1st. §§ 11022(a)(2) and 11023(a).
Enforcement of EPCRA can take place on many fronts. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the most powerful enforcement arsenal: it may seek criminal, civil, or administrative penalties. § 11045. State and local governments can also seek civil penalties, as well as injunctive relief. §§ 11046(a)(2) and (c). For purposes of this ease, however, the crucial enforcement mechanism is the citizen-suit provision, § 11046(a)(1), which likewise authorizes civil penalties and injunctive relief, see § 11046(c). This provides that “any person may commence a civil action on his own behalf against... [a]n owner or operator of a facility for failure,” among other things, to “[cjomplete and submit an inventory form under section 11022(a) of this title... [and] section 11023(a) of this title.” § 11046(a)(1). As a prerequisite to bringing such a suit, the plaintiff must, 60 days prior to filing his complaint, give notice to the Administrator of the EPA, the State in which the alleged violation occurs, and the alleged violator. § 11046(d). The citizen suit may not go forward if the Administrator “has commenced and is diligently pursuing an administrative order or civil action to enforce the requirement concerned or to impose a civil penalty.” § 11046(e).
In 1995 respondent sent a notice to petitioner, the Administrator, and the relevant Illinois authorities, alleging — accurately, as it turns out — that petitioner had failed since 1988, the first year of EPCRA’s filing deadlines, to complete and to submit the requisite hazardous-chemical inventory and toxic-chemical release forms under §§11022 and 11023. Upon receiving the notice, petitioner filed all of the overdue forms with the relevant agencies. The EPA chose not to bring an action against petitioner, and when the 60-day waiting period expired, respondent filed suit in Federal District Court. Petitioner promptly filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and (6), contending that, because its filings were up to date when the complaint was filed, the court had no jurisdiction to entertain a suit for a present violation; and that, because EPCRA does not allow suit for a purely historical violation, respondent’s allegation of untimeliness in filing was not a claim upon which relief could be granted.
The District Court agreed with petitioner on both points. App. to Pet. for Cert. A24-A26. The Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that citizens may seek penalties against EPCRA violators who file after the statutory deadline and after receiving notice. 90 F. 3d 1237 (CA7 1996). We granted certiorari, 519 U. S. 1147 (1997).
II
We granted certiorari in this ease to resolve a conflict between the interpretation of EPCRA adopted by the Seventh Circuit and the interpretation previously adopted by the Sixth Circuit in Atlantic States Legal Foundation, Inc. v. United Musical Instruments, U. S. A., Inc., 61 F. 3d 473 (1995) — a ease relied on by the District Court, and acknowledged by the Seventh Circuit to be “factually indistinguishable,” 90 F. 3d, at 1241-1242. Petitioner, however, both in its petition for certiorari and in its briefs on the merits, has raised the issue of respondent’s standing to maintain the suit, and hence this Court’s jurisdiction to entertain it. Though there is some dispute on this point, see Part III, infra, this would normally be considered a threshold question that must be resolved in respondent’s favor before proceeding to the merits. Justice Stevens’ opinion concurring in the judgment, however, claims that the question whether § 11046(a) permits this cause of action is also “jurisdictional,” and so has equivalent claim to being resolved first. Whether that is so has significant implications for this case and for many others, and so the point warrants extended discussion.
It is firmly established in our eases that the absence of a valid (as opposed to arguable) cause of action does not implicate subject-matter jurisdiction, i. e., the courts’ statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate the ease. See generally 5A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §1850, p. 196, n. 8 and eases cited (2d ed. 1990). As we stated in Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 682 (1946), “[jlurisdiction... is not defeated... by the possibility that the aver-ments might fail to state a cause of action on which petitioners could actually recover.” Rather, the district court has jurisdiction if “the right of the petitioners to recover under their complaint will be sustained if the Constitution and laws of the United States are given one construction and will be defeated if they are given another,” id., at 685, unless the claim “clearly appears to be immaterial and made solely for the purpose of obtaining jurisdiction or where such a claim is wholly insubstantial and frivolous.” Id., at 682-683; see also Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, 506 U. S. 263, 285 (1993); The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U. S. 22, 25 (1913). Dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because of the inadequacy of the federal claim is proper only when the claim is “so insubstantial, implausible, foreclosed by prior decisions of this Court, or otherwise completely devoid of merit as not to involve a federal controversy.” Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. v. County of Oneida, 414 U. S. 661, 666 (1974); see also Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U. S. 354, 359 (1959). Here, respondent wins under one construction of EPCRA and loses under another, and Justice Stevens does not argue that respondent’s claim is frivolous or immaterial— in fact, acknowledges that the language of the citizen-suit provision is ambiguous. Post, at 131.
Justice Stevens relies on our treatment of a similar issue as jurisdictional in Gwaltney of Smithfteld, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U. S. 49 (1987). Post, at 114. The statute at issue in that case, however, after creating the cause of action, went on to say that “[t]he district courts shall have jurisdiction, without regard to the amount in controversy or the citizenship of the parties,” to provide various forms of relief. 33 U. S. C. § 1365(a) (emphasis added). The italicized phrase strongly suggested (perhaps misleadingly) that the provision was addressing genuine subject-matter jurisdiction. The corresponding provision in the present case, however, reads as follows:
“The district court shall have jurisdiction in actions brought under subsection (a) of this section against an owner or operator of a facility to enforce the requirement concerned and to impose any civil penalty provided for violation of that requirement.” 42 U. S. C. § 11046(c).
It is unreasonable to read this as making all the elements of the cause of action under subsection (a) jurisdictional, rather than as merely specifying the remedial powers of the court, viz., to enforce the violated requirement and to impose civil penalties. “Jurisdiction,” it has been observed, “is a word of many, too many, meanings,” United States v. Vanness, 85 F. 3d 661, 663, n. 2 (CADC 1996), and it is commonplace for the term to be used as it evidently was here. See, e. g., 7 U. S. C. § 13a-1(d) (“In any action brought under this section, the Commission may seek and the court shall have jurisdiction to impose... a civil penalty in the amount of not more than the higher of $100,000 or triple the monetary gain to the person for each violation”); 15 U. S. C. § 2622(d) (“In actions brought under this subsection, the district courts shall have jurisdiction to grant all appropriate relief, including injunctive relief and compensatory and exemplary damages”); 42 U. S. C. § 7622(d) (“In actions brought under this subsection, the district courts shall have jurisdiction to grant all appropriate relief including, but not limited to, in-junctive relief, compensatory, and exemplary damages”).
It is also the case that the Gwaltney opinion does not display the slightest awareness that anything turned upon whether the existence of a cause of action for past violations was technically jurisdictional — as indeed nothing of substance did. The District Court had statutory jurisdiction over the suit in any event, since continuing violations were also alleged. See 484 U. S., at 64. It is true, as Justice Stevens points out, that the issue of Article III standing which is addressed at the end of the opinion should technically have been addressed at the outset if the statutory question was not jurisdictional. But that also did not really matter, since Article III standing was in any event found. The short of the matter is that the jurisdictional character of the elements of the cause of action in Gwaltney made no substantive difference (nor even any procedural difference that the Court seemed aware of), had been assumed by the parties, and was assumed without discussion by the Court. We have often said that drive-by jurisdictional rulings of this sort (if Gwaltney can even be called a ruling on the point rather than a dictum) have no precedential effect. See Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 352, n. 2 (1996); Federal Election Comm’n V. NBA Political Victory Fund, 513 U. S. 88, 97 (1994); United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 33, 38 (1952). But even if it is authoritative on the point as to the distinctive statute there at.issue, it is fanciful to think that Gwaltney revised our established jurisprudence that the failure of-a cause of action does not automatically produce a failure of jurisdiction, or adopted the expansive principle that a statute saying “the district court shall have jurisdiction to remedy violations [in specified ways]” renders the existence of a violation necessary for subject-matter jurisdiction.
Justice Stevens’ concurrence devotes a large portion of its discussion to cases in which a' statutory standing question was decided before a question of constitutional standing. See post, at 115-117. They also are irrelevant here, because it is not a statutory standing question that Justice Stevens would have us decide first. He wishes to resolve, not whether EPCRA authorizes this plaintiff to sue (it assuredly does), but whether the scope of the EPCRA right of action includes past violations. Such a question, we have held, goes to the merits and not to statutory standing. See Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent, 510 U. S. 355, 365 (1994) (“The question whether a federal statute creates a claim for relief is not jurisdictional”); Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., supra, at 359; Montana-Dakota Util. Co. v. Northwestern Public Service Co., 341 U. S. 246, 249 (1951).
Though it is replete with extensive case discussions, case citations, rationalizations, and syllogoids, see post, at 120, n. 12, and n. 2, infra, Justice Stevens’ opinion conspicuously lacks one central feature: a single case in which this Court has done what he proposes, to wit, call the existence of a cause of action “jurisdictional,” and decide that question before resolving a dispute concerning the existence of an Article III ease or controversy. Of course, even if there were not solid precedent contradicting Justice Stevens’ position, the consequences are alone enough to condemn it. It would turn every statutory question in an EPCRA citizen suit into a question of jurisdiction. Under Justice Stevens’ analysis, § 11046(e)’s grant of “jurisdiction in actions brought under [§ 11046(a)]” withholds jurisdiction over claims involving purely past violations if past violations are not in fact covered by § 11046(a). By parity of reasoning, if there is a dispute as to whether the omission of a particular item constituted a failure to “complete” the form; or as to whether a particular manner of delivery complied in time with the requirement to “submit” the form; and if the court agreed with the defendant on the point; the action would not be “brought under [§ 11046(a)],” and would be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction rather than decided on the merits. Moreover, those statutory arguments, since they are “jurisdictional,” would have to be considered by this Court even though not raised earlier in the litigation — indeed, this Court would have to raise them sua sponte. See Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 278-279 (1977); Great Southern Fire Proof Hotel Co. v. Jones, 177 U. S. 449, 453 (1900). Congress of course did not create such a strange scheme. In referring to actions “brought under” § 11046(a), § 11046(e) means suits contending that § 11046(a) contains a certain requirement. If Justice Stevens is correct that all cause-of-action questions may be regarded as jurisdictional questions, and thus capable of being decided where there is no genuine case or controversy, it is hard to see what is left of that limitation in Article III.
III
In addition to its attempt to convert the merits issue in this case into a jurisdictional one, Justice Stevens’ concurrence proceeds, post, at 117-124, to argue the bolder point that jurisdiction need not be addressed first anyway. Even if the statutory question is not “fram[ed]... in terms of ‘jurisdiction,’ ” but is simply “characterize!)!]... as whether respondent’s complaint states a ‘cause of action,’ ” “it is also clear that we have the power to decide the statutory question first.” Post, at 117-118. This is essentially the position embraced by several Courts of Appeals, which find it proper to proceed immediately to the merits question, despite jurisdictional objections, at least where (1) the merits question is more readily resolved, and (2) the prevailing party on the merits would be the same as the prevailing party were jurisdiction denied. See, e. g., SEC v. American Capital Investments, Inc., 98 F. 3d 1133, 1139-1142 (CA9 1996), cert. denied sub nom. Shelton v. Barnes, 520 U. S. 1185 (1997); Smith v. Avino, 91 F. 3d 105, 108 (CA11 1996); Clow v. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 948 F. 2d 614, 616, n. 2 (CA9 1991); Cross-Sound Ferry Services, Inc. v. ICC, 934 F. 2d 327, 333 (CADC 1991); United States v. Parcel of Land, 928 F. 2d 1, 4 (CA1 1991); Browning-Ferris Industries v. Muszynski, 899 F. 2d 151, 154-159 (CA2 1990). The Ninth Circuit has denominated this practice — which it characterizes as “assuming” jurisdiction for the purpose of deciding the merits — the “doctrine of hypothetical jurisdiction.” See, e. g., United States v. Troescher, 99 F. 3d 933, 934, n. 1 (1996).
We decline to endorse such an approach because it carries the courts beyond the bounds of authorized judicial action and thus offends fundamental principles of separation of powers. This conclusion should come as no surprise, since it is reflected in a long and venerable line of our cases. 'Without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any cause. Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the.cause.” Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514 (1869). “On every writ of error or appeal, the first and fundamental question is that of jurisdiction, first, of this court, and then of the court from which the record comes. This question the court is bound to ask and answer for itself, even when not otherwise suggested, and without respect to the relation of the parties to it.” Great Southern Fire Proof Hotel Co. v. Jones, supra, at 453. The requirement that jurisdiction be established as a threshold matter “spring[s] from the nature and limits of the judicial power of the United States” and is “inflexible and without exception.” Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884).
This Court’s insistence that proper jurisdiction appear begins at least as early as 1804, when we set aside a judgment for the defendant at the instance of the losing plaintiff who had himself failed to allege the basis for federal jurisdiction. Capron v. Van Noorden, 2 Cranch 126 (1804). Just last Term, we restated this principle in the dearest fashion, unanimously setting aside the Ninth Circuit’s merits decision in a case that had lost the elements of a justiciable controversy:
“ '[Ejvery federal appellate court has a special obligation to'satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review,’ even though the parties are prepared to concede it. Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U. S. 237, 244 (1934). See Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327, 331-332 (1977) (standing). ‘And if the record discloses that the lower court was without jurisdiction this court will notice the defect, although the parties make no contention concerning it. [When the lower federal court] lack[s] jurisdiction, we have jurisdiction on appeal, not of the merits but merely for the purpose of correcting the error of the lower court in entertaining the suit.’ United States v. Corrick, 298 U. S. 435, 440 (1936) (footnotes omitted).’ ” Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U. S. 43, 73 (1997), quoting Bender v. Williamsport Area School Dist., 475 U. S. 534, 541 (1986) (brackets in original).
Justice Stevens’ arguments contradicting all this jurisprudence — and asserting that a court may decide the cause of action before resolving Article III jurisdiction — are readily refuted. First, his concurrence seeks to convert Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678 (1946), into a case in which the cause-of-action question was decided before an Article III standing question. Post, at 118-119, n. 8. “Bell,” Justice Stevens asserts, “held that we have jurisdiction to decide [whether the plaintiff has stated a cause of action] even when it is unclear whether the plaintiff’s injuries can be redressed” Post, at 118. The italicized phrase (the italics are his own) invites the reader to believe that Article III redressability was at issue. Not only is this not true, but the whole point of Bell was that it is not true. In Bell, which was decided before Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971), the District Court had dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds because it believed that (what we would now call) a Bivens action would not lie. This Court held that the nonexistence of a cause of action was no proper basis for a jurisdictional dismissal. Thus, the uncertainty about “whether the plaintiff’s injuries can be redressed” to which Justice Stevens refers is simply the uncertainty about whether a cause of action existed — which is precisely what Bell holds not to be an Article III “redressability” question. It would have been a different matter if the relief requested by the plaintiffs in Bell (money damages) would not have remedied their injury in fact; but it of course would. Justice Stevens used to understand the fundamental distinction between arguing no cause of action and arguing no Article III redressability, having written for the Court that the former argument is “not squarely directed at jurisdiction itself, but rather at the existence of a remedy for the alleged violation of... federal rights,” which issue is “‘not of the jurisdictional sort which the Court raises on its own motion.’” Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S. 391, 398 (1979) (Stevens, J.), (quoting Mt. Healthy Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S., at 279).
Justice Stevens also relies on National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. National Assn. of Railroad Passengers, 414 U. S. 453 (1974). Post, at 119-120. But in that case, we did not determine whether a cause of action existed before determining that the plaintiff had Article III standing; there was no question of injury in fact or effectiveness of the requested remedy. Rather, National Railroad Passenger Corp. determined whether a statutory cause of action existed before determining whether (if so) the plaintiff came within the “zone of interests” for which the cause of action was available. 414 U. S., at 465, n. 13. The latter question is an issue of statutory standing. It has nothing to do with whether there is case or controversy under Article III.
Much more extensive defenses of the practice of deciding the cause of action before resolving Article III jurisdiction have been offered by the Courts of Appeals. They rely principally upon two cases of ours, Norton v. Mathews, 427 U. S. 524 (1976), and Secretary of Navy v. Avrech, 418 U. S. 676 (1974) (per curiam). Both are readily explained, we think, by their extraordinary procedural postures. In Norton, the ease came to us on direct appeal from a three-judge District Court, and the jurisdictional question was whether the action was properly brought in that forum rather than in an ordinary district court. We declined to decide that jurisdictional question, because the merits question was decided in a companion case, Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495 (1976), with the consequence that the jurisdictional question could have no effect on the outcome: If the three-judge court had been properly convened, we would have affirmed, and if not, we would have vacated and remanded for a fresh decree from which an appeal could be taken to the Court of Appeals, the outcome of which was foreordained by Lucas. Norton v. Mathews, supra, at 531. Thus, Norton did not use the pretermission of the jurisdictional question as a device for reaching a question of law that otherwise would have gone unaddressed. Moreover, the Court seems to have regarded the merits judgment that it entered on the basis of Lucas as equivalent to a jurisdictional dismissal for failure to present a substantial federal question. The Court said: “This disposition [Lucas] renders the merits in the present case a decided issue and thus one no longer substantial in the jurisdictional sense.” 427 U. S., at 530-531. We think it clear that this peculiar case, involving a merits issue dispositively resolved in a companion case, was not meant to overrule, sub silentio, two centuries of jurisprudence affirming the necessity of determining jurisdiction before proceeding to the merits. See Clow, 948 F. 2d, at 627 (O’Seannlain, J., dissenting).
Avrech also involved an instance in which an intervening Supreme Court decision definitively answered the merits question. The jurisdictional question in the case had been raised by the Court sua sponte after oral argument, and supplemental briefing had been ordered. Secretary of Navy v. Avrech, supra, at 677. Before the Court came to a decision, however, the merits issue in the case had been conclusively resolved in Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733 (1974), a case argued the same day as Avrech. The Court was unwilling to decide the jurisdictional question without oral argument, 418 U. S., at 677, but acknowledged (with some understatement) that “even the most diligent and zealous advocate could find his ardor somewhat dampened in arguing a jurisdictional issue where the decision on the merits is... foreordained,” id., at 678. Accordingly, the Court disposed of the ease on the basis of the intervening decision in Parker, in a minimalist two-page per curiam opinion. The first thing to be observed about Avrech is that the supposed jurisdictional issue was technically not that. The issue was whether a court-martial judgment could be attacked collaterally by a suit for backpay. Although Avrech, like the earlier case of United States v. Augenblick, 393 U. S. 348 (1969), characterized this question as jurisdictional, we later held squarely that it was not. See Schlesinger v. Councilman, 420 U. S. 738, 753 (1975). In any event, the peculiar circumstances of Avrech hardly permit it to be cited for the precedent-shattering general proposition that an “easy” merits question may be decided on the assumption of jurisdiction. To the contrary, the fact that the Court ordered briefing on the jurisdictional question sua sponte demonstrates its adherence to traditional and constitutionally dictated requirements. See Cross-Sound Ferry Services, Inc. v. ICC, 934 F. 2d, at 344-345, and n. 10 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in denial of petition for review).
Other eases sometimes cited by the lower courts to support “hypothetical jurisdiction” are similarly distinguishable. United States v. Augenblick, as we have discussed, did not involve a jurisdictional issue. In Philbrook v. Glodgett, 421 U. S. 707, 721 (1975), the jurisdictional question was whether, in a suit under 28 U. S. C. § 1343(8) against the Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Social Welfare for deprivation of federal rights under color of state law by denying payments under a federally funded welfare program, the plaintiff could join a similar claim against the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. The merits issue of statutory construction involved in the claim against the Secretary was precisely the same as that involved in the claim against the Commissioner, and the Secretary (while challenging jurisdiction) assured the Court that he would comply with any judgment entered against the Commissioner. The Court’s disposition of the case was to dismiss the Secretary’s appeal under what was then this Court’s Rule 40(g), for failure to brief the jurisdictional question adequately. Normally, the Court acknowledged, its obligation to inquire into the jurisdiction of the District Court might prevent this disposition. But here, the Court concluded, “the substantive issue decided by the District Court would have been decided by that court even if it had concluded that the Secretary was not properly a party,” and “the only practical difference that resulted... was that its injunction was directed against him as well as against [the Commissioner],” which the Secretary “has [not] properly contended to be wrongful before this Court.” 421 U. S., at 721-722. And finally, in Chandler v. Judicial Council of Tenth Circuit, 398 U. S. 74 (1970), we reserved the question whether we had jurisdiction to issue a writ of prohibition or mandamus because the petitioner had not exhausted all available avenues before seeking relief under the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651, and because there was no record to review. 398 U. S., at 86-88. The exhaustion question itself was at least arguably jurisdictional, and was clearly treated as such. Id., at 86.
While some of the above eases must be acknowledged to have diluted the absolute purity of the rule that Article III jurisdiction is always an antecedent question, none of them even approaches approval of a doctrine of “hypothetical jurisdiction” that enables a court to-resolve contested questions of law when its jurisdiction is in doubt. Hypothetical jurisdiction produces nothing more than a hypothetical judgment — which comes to the same thing as an advisory opinion, disapproved by this Court from the beginning. Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346, 362 (1911); Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall. 409 (1792). Much more than legal niceties are at stake here. The statutory and (especially) constitutional elements of jurisdiction are an essential ingredient of separation and equilibration of powers, restraining the courts from acting at certain tjmes, and even restraining them from acting permanently regarding certain subjects. See United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166, 179 (1974); Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 227 (1974). For a court to pronounce upon the meaning or the constitutionality of a state or federal law when it has no jurisdiction to do so is, by very definition, for a court to act ultra vires.
IV
Having reached the end of what seems like a long front walk, we finally arrive at the threshold jurisdictional question: whether respondent, the plaintiff below, has standing to sue. Article III, § 2, of the Constitution extends the “judicial Power” of the United States only to “Cases” and “Controversies.” We have always taken this to mean cases and controversies of the sort traditionally amenable to, and resolved by, the judicial process. Muskrat v. United States, supra, at 356-357. Such a meaning is fairly implied by the text, since otherwise the purported restriction upon the judicial power would scarcely be a restriction at all. Every criminal investigation conducted by the Executive is a “ease,” and every policy issue resolved by congressional legislation involves a “controversy.” These are not, however, the sort of cases and controversies that Article III, § 2, refers to, since “the Constitution’s central mechanism of separation of powers depends largely upon common understanding of what activities are appropriate to legislatures, to executives, and to courts.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 559-560 (1992). Standing to sue is part of the common understanding of what it takes to make a justiciable ease. Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 155 (1990).
The “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing” contains three requirements. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, supra, at 560. First and foremost, there must be alleged (and ultimately proved) an “injury in fact” — a harm suffered by the plaintiff that is “concrete” and “actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical.’ ” Whitmore v. Arkansas, supra, at 149, 155 (quoting Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 101-102 (1988)). Second, there must be causation — a fairly traceable connection between the plaintiff’s injury and the complained-of conduct of the defendant. Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 41-42 (1976). And third, there must be redressability — a likelihood that the requested relief will redress the alleged injury. Id., at 45-46; see also Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 505 (1975). This triad of injury in fact, causation, and re-dressability constitutes the core of Article Ill’s ease-or-controversy requirement, and the party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing its existence. See FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 231 (1990).
We turn now to the particulars of respondent’s complaint to see how it measures up to Article Ill’s requirements. This case is on appeal from a Rule 12(b) motion to dismiss on the pleadings, so we must presume that the general allegations in the complaint encompass the specific facts necessary to support those allegations. Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 889 (1990). The complaint contains claims “on behalf of both [respondent] itself and its members.” App. 4. It describes respondent as an organization that seeks, uses, and acquires data reported under EPCRA. It says that respondent “reports to its members and the public about storage and releases of toxic chemicals into the environment, advocates changes in environmental regulations and statutes, prepares reports for its members and the public, seeks the reduction of toxic chemicals and further seeks to promote the effective enforcement of environmental laws.” Id., at 5. The complaint asserts that respondent’s “right to know about [toxic-chemical] releases and its interests in protecting and improving the environment and the health of its members have been, are being, and will be adversely affected by [petitioner’s] actions in failing to provide timely and required information under EPCRA.” Ibid. The complaint also alleges that respondent’s members, who live in or frequent the area near petitioner’s facility, use the EPCRA-reported information “to learn about toxic chemical releases, the use of hazardous substances in their communities, to plan emergency preparedness in the event of accidents, and to attempt to reduce the toxic chemicals in areas in which they live, work and visit.” Ibid. The members’ “safety, health
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 407 of the Social Security Act, 75 Stat. - 75, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 607, part of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, provides benefits to families whose dependent children have been deprived of parental support because of the unemployment of the father, but does not provide such benefits when the mother becomes unemployed. The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that this distinction violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and ordered that benefits be paid to families deprived of support because of the unemployment of the mother to the same extent they are paid to families deprived of support because of the unemployment of the father. 460 F. Supp. 737 (1978). In these appeals, the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), in No. 78-437, challenges the holding on the constitutionality of § 407, but does not question the relief ordered by the District Court; the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare (DPW), in No. 78-689, acquiesces in the decision on the merits, but contests the relief.
I
The Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, 49 Stat. 626, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 601 et seq., provides financial assistance to families with needy dependent children. The program is administered by participating States, in conformity with federal standards, and is financed by the Federal Government and the States on a matching-funds basis. King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309, 316-317 (1968); Shea v. Vialpando, 416 U. S. 251, 253 (1974).
As originally enacted in 1935, the AFDC program provided benefits to families whose dependent children were needy because of the death, absence, or incapacity of a parent. Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416, 418 (1977). This provision, which forms the core of the AFDC program today, is gender neutral: benefits are available to any family so long as one parent of either sex is dead, absent from the home, or incapacitated, and the family otherwise meets the financial requirements of eligibility. 42 U. S. C. § 606.
In 1961, and again in 1962, Congress temporarily extended the AFDC program to provide assistance to families whose dependent children were deprived of support because of a parent’s unemployment. Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S., at 419; Philbrook v. Glodgett, 421 U. S. 707, 709-710 (1975). Again, this provision was gender neutral. A “dependent child,” for purposes of determining eligibility for AFDC benefits, was defined to include “a needy child . . . who has been deprived of parental support or care by reason of the unemployment ... of a parent.” 75 Stat. 75 (emphasis added).
In 1968, as part of a general revision of the Social Security Act, Congress made this extension permanent. In so doing, however, it added a gender qualification to the statute. The definition of “dependent child” in § 407 was amended to include a “needy child . . . who has been deprived of parental support or care by reason of the unemployment ... of his father.” 42 U. S. C. § 607 (a) (emphasis added). This portion of the AFDC program is known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Unemployed Father (AFDC-UF). Although all 50 States have chosen to participate in the basic AFDC program, only 26 States (plus Guam and the District of Columbia) take part in the AFDC-UF program. One of these is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Appellees are two couples who, it is stipulated, satisfy all the requirements for AFDC-UF benefits except for the requirement that the unemployed parent be the father. Cindy and William Westcott are married and have an infant son. They applied to the Massachusetts DPW for public assistance, but were informed that they did not qualify because William, who was unable to find work, had not previously been employed for a sufficient period to qualify as an “unemployed” father under the Act and applicable regulations. Cindy, until her recent unemployment, was the family breadwinner, and would have satisfied the “unemployment” criteria had she been male.
Susan and John Westwood are also married and have an infant son. They applied for Medicaid benefits as a family eligible for, but not receiving, AFDC-UF benefits. They, too, were turned down on the ground that John’s prior work history was insufficient. Susan, like Cindy Westcott, had been the family breadwinner before losing her job, and would have qualified the family for benefits had she been male.
Appellees instituted this class action in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, naming as defendants the Secretary of HEW and the Commissioner of the DPW. Appellees alleged that § 407 and its implementing regulations discriminate on the basis of gender in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief.
The District Court certified the case as a class action, and granted appellees’ motion for summary judgment. 460 F. Supp. 737 (1978). The court found that the gender qualification of § 407 was not substantially related to the achievement of any important governmental interests. 460 F. Supp., at 748-751. It was, rather, the product of an “archaic and over-broad generalization” — that “mothers in two parent families are not breadwinners, so that loss of their earnings would not substantially affect the families’ well being.” Id., at 751. The court accordingly declared § 407 unconstitutional “insofar as it establishes a classification which discriminates . . . solely on the basis of sex.” 460 F. Supp., at 754.
The District Court then turned to the question of relief. The court saw two remedial alternatives: a simple injunction against further operation of the AFDC-UF program, or extension of the program to all families with needy children where either parent is unemployed. Id., at 753. The court decided that extension, rather than nullification, was the proper remedial course; it noted the strength of Congress’ commitment to the “specific goal of assisting needy children,” and emphasized that if provision of benefits “were halted because of the constitutional defect, many persons would lose their very means of subsistence.” Id., at 753-754. The court therefore, by order dated April 20, 1978, enjoined the Commissioner from refusing to grant benefits to families made needy by the unemployment of the mother “in the same amounts and under the same standards” as he grants benefits to families made needy by the unemployment of the father. App. to Juris. Statement in No. 78-437, pp. 41A-42A. The court likewise enjoined the Secretary from refusing to provide federal matching funds for payment of such benefits. Id., at 40A-41A.
Although the Commissioner originally had agreed that this was the appropriate remedy, Juris. Statement in No. 78-689, p. 6, he later sought modification of the District Court’s order, so as to effect a more limited extension of the AFDC-UF program. The Commissioner requested that he be permitted to pay benefits “only to those families where needy children have been deprived of parental support or care by the unemployment of the family’s principal wage-earner.” App. to Juris. Statement in No. 78-689, p. 3a (emphasis added). This modification, he argued, would accomplish a gender-neutral extension of the program at a much lower cost. Id., at 4a. On August 9, 1978, the District Court denied the Commissioner’s motion, believing that “any reformulation of the statutory scheme . . . which goes beyond the remedy already ordered in this case is properly left to Congressional action.” Id., at 13a.
The Secretary, pursuant to 28 U. S. C § 1252, appealed directly to this Court from the District Court’s April 20 decision holding § 407 unconstitutional. App. to Juris. Statement in No. 78-437, p. 43A. The Commissioner took a separate appeal, also pursuant to § 1252, from the District Court’s August 9 refusal to modify its remedial order. App. to Juris. Statement in No. 78-689, p. 15a. We noted probable jurisdiction and consolidated the cases for argument. 439 U. S. 1044 (1978).
II
THE SECRETARY’S APPEAL
The Secretary advances two arguments in support of .the constitutionality of § 407. First, he contends that although § 407 incorporates a gender distinction, it does not discriminate against women as a class. Second, he urges that the distinction is substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental objective: the need to deter real or pretended desertion by the father in order to make his family eligible for AFDC benefits.
A
The Secretary readily concedes that § 407 entails a gender distinction. Brief for Appellant in No. 78-437, p. 36. He submits, however, that the Act does not award AFDC benefits to a father where it denies them to a mother. Rather, the grant or denial of aid based on the father’s unemployment necessarily affects, to an equal degree, one man, one woman, and one or more children. As the Secretary puts it, even if the statute is “gender-based,” it is not “gender-biased.” Ibid.
We are not persuaded by this analysis. For mothers who are the primary providers for their families, and who are unemployed, § 407 is obviously gender biased, for it deprives them and their families of benefits solely on the basis of their sex. The Secretary’s argument, at bottom, turns on the fact that the impact of the gender qualification is felt by family units rather than individuals. But this Court has not hesitated to strike down gender classifications that result in benefits being granted or denied to family units on the basis of the sex of the qualifying parent. See Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973) (military quarters allowances and medical and dental benefits); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636 (1975) (survivor’s benefits); Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199 (1977) (survivor’s benefits); Califano v. Jablon, 430 U. S. 924 (1977), summarily aff’g 399 F. Supp. 118 (Md. 1975) (spousal benefits). Here, as in those cases, the statute “discriminates against one particular category of family — that in which the female spouse is a wage earner.” Goldfarb, 430 U. S., at 209 (plurality opinion).
The Secretary appears to acknowledge the force of these precedents, but suggests that each involved benefits that either were a form of compensation earned by a woman as a member of the labor force, or were directly related to such compensation. In the present case, in contrast, the benefits are part of a noncontributory welfare program. Thus, the Secretary argues, the gender qualification of § 407 is distinguishable from those contained in the earlier cases, for it does not denigrate “the efforts of women who do work and whose earnings contribute significantly to their families’ support.” Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 645.
The distinction between employment-related benefits and other forms of government largesse may be relevant to equal protection analysis, for example in determining whether the differential treatment of survivor’s benefits denigrates the efforts of the deceased spouse. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 645-647; Goldfarb, 430 U. S., at 206-207 (plurality opinion). This does not mean, however, that the Constitution is indifferent to a statute that conditions the availability of noncontributory welfare benefits on the basis of gender. The Secretary’s argument to the contrary in effect invites a return to the discredited view that welfare benefits are a “privilege” not subject to the guarantee of equal protection. See Graham v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 365, 374 (1971). Putting labels aside, the exclusion here is if anything more pernicious than those in Frontiero, Wiesenfeld, and Goldfarb. AFDC-UF benefits are not “fringe benefits,” nor are they a type of social assistance paid without regard to need. Rather, they are subsistence payments made available as a last resort to families that would otherwise lack basic necessities. The deprivation imposed by § 407, moreover, is not a mere procedural barrier, like the proof-of-dependency requirement in Frontiero and Goldfarb, but is an absolute bar to qualification for aid. We therefore reject the contention that the classification imposed by § 407 does not discriminate on the basis of gender.
B
The Secretary next argues that the gender distinction imposed by § 407 survives constitutional scrutiny because it is substantially related to achievement of an important governmental objective. Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268, 279 (1979); Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313, 316-317 (1977); Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 197 (1976). The Secretary identifies two important objectives served by § 407.
First and most obviously, the statute was intended to provide aid for children deprived of basic sustenance because of a parent’s unemployment. H. R. Rep. No. 28, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1961). As then HEW Secretary Ribicoff put it in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, “there is no justification whatsoever for denying to the child of the unemployed parent the food that you give to the child of the parent who deserts or is absent or dead.” Hearings on H. R. 3864 and 3865 before the House Committee on Ways and Means, S7th Cong., 1st Sess., 102 (1961). The appellant Secretary does not contend, however, that the gender qualification of § 407 serves to achieve this goal. Tr. of Oral Arg. 6, 7-8. Nor could he, since families where the mother is the principal wage earner and is unémployed are often in as much need of AFDC-UF benefits and Medicaid as families where the father is unemployed.
Second, the statute was designed to remedy a structural fault in the original AFDC program. Under that program, a family was eligible for benefits if deprived of parental support because of the “continued absence from the home ... of a parent.” 42 U. S. C. §606 (a). In times of economic adversity, this provision was thought to create an incentive for the father to desert, or to pretend to desert, in order to make the family eligible for assistance. Section 407, by providing AFDC benefits to families rendered needy by parental unemployment, was intended to reduce this incentive and thereby promote the goal of family stability. The Secretary submits that reducing the incentive for the father to desert was an important objective of the AFDC-UF program, and he argues that the gender qualification is substantially related to its achievement.
We perceive, however, at least two flaws in this argument. Although it is relatively clear that Congress was concerned about the problem of parental desertion, see S. Rep. No. 744, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 160 (1967); H. R. Rep. No. 28, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1961), there is no evidence that the gender distinction was designed to address this problem. See Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 648. Both the original AFDC program, and the temporary versions of the AFDC-UF program enacted in 1961 and 1962, were gender neutral. The gender qualification added to the permanent version of AFDC-TJF in 1968 escaped virtually unnoticed in the hearings and floor debates. The only explanation for this addition is contained in the following passage, which appears in nearly identical form in both the House and Senate Reports:
“This program was originally conceived by Congress as one to provide aid for the children of unemployed fathers. However, some States make families in which the father is working but the mother is unemployed eligible for assistance. The bill would not allow such situations. Under the bill, the program could apply only to the children of unemployed fathers.” S. Rép. No. 744, at 160.
See also H. R. Rep. No. 554, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 108 (1967).
This suggests that the gender qualification was part of the general objective of the 1968 amendments to tighten standards for eligibility and reduce program costs. Congress was concerned that certain States were making AFDC-TJF assistance available to families where the mother was out of work, but the father remained fully employed and able to support the family. Apparently, Congress was not similarly concerned about States making benefits available where the father was out of work, but the mother remained fully employed. From all that appears, Congress, with an image of the “traditional family” in mind, simply assumed that the father would be the family breadwinner, and that the mother’s employment role, if any, would be secondary. In short, the available evidence indicates that the gender distinction was inserted to reduce costs and eliminate what was perceived to be a type of superfluous eligibility for AFDC-UF benefits. There is little to suggest that the gender qualification had anything to do with reducing the father’s incentive to desert.
Even if the actual purpose of the gender qualification was to deal with the problem of paternal desertion, it does not appear that the classification is substantially related to the achievement of that goal. The Secretary argues there is “[s]olid statistical evidence” that fathers are more susceptible to pressure to desert than mothers, and thus that Congress was justified in excluding families headed by unemployed mothers from the AFDC-UF program. - Brief for Appellant in No. 78-437, p. 33. We may assume, for purposes of discussion, that Congress could legitimately view paternal desertion as a problem separate and distinct from maternal desertion. Even so, the gender qualification of § 407 is not substantially related to the stated purpose. There is no evidence, in the legislative history or elsewhere, that a father has less incentive to desert in a family where the mother is the breadwinner and becomes unemployed, than in a family where the father is the breadwinner and becomes unemployed. In either case, the family’s need will be equally great, and the father will be equally subject to pressure to leave the home to make the family eligible for benefits. The Secretary urges that Congress could take “one firm step” toward the goal of eliminating the incentive to desert, quoting Califano v. Jobst, 434 U. S. 47, 57-58 (1977). But Congress may not legislate “one step at a time” when that step is drawn along the line of gender, and the consequence is to exclude one group of families altogether from badly needed subsistence benefits. Cf. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489 (1955).
We conclude that the gender classification of § 407 is not substantially related to the attainment of any important and valid statutory goals. It is, rather, part of the “baggage of sexual stereotypes,” Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S., at 283, that presumes the father has the “primary responsibility to provide a home and its essentials,” Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U. S. 7, 10 (1975), while the mother is the “ 'center of home and family life/ ” Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522, 534 n. 15 (1975). Legislation that rests on such presumptions, without more, cannot survive scrutiny under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Ill
THE COMMISSIONER’S APPEAL
A
“Where a statute is defective because of underinclusion,” Mr. Justice Harlan noted, “there exist two remedial alternatives: a court may either declare [the statute] a nullity and order that its benefits not extend to the class that the legislature intended to benefit, or it may extend the coverage of the statute to include those who are aggrieved by the exclusion.” Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S. 333, 361 (1970) (concurring in result). In previous cases involving equal protection challenges to underinclusive federal benefits statutes, this Court has suggested that extension, rather than nullification, is the proper course. See, e. g., Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U. S. 628, 637-638 (1974); Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S., at 691 and n. 25 (plurality opinion). Indeed, this Court regularly has affirmed District Court judgments ordering that welfare benefits be paid to members of an unconstitutionally excluded class. E. g., Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S. 199 (1977), aff’g 396 F. Supp. 308, 309 (EDNY 1975); Califano v. Silbowitz, 430 U. S. 924 (1977), summarily aff’g 397 F. Supp. 862, 871 (SD Fla. 1975); Jablon v. Califano, 430 U. S. 924 (1977), summarily aff’g 399 F. Supp. 118, 132-133 (Md. 1975); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636 (1975), aff’g 367 F. Supp. 981, 991 (NJ 1973); United States Dept. of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528 (1973), aff’g 345 F. Supp. 310, 315-316 (DC 1972); Richardson v. Griffin, 409 U. S. 1069 (1972), summarily aff’g 346 F. Supp. 1226, 1237 (Md.).
The District Court ordered extension rather than invalidation by way of remedy here, and equitable considerations surely support its choice. Approximately 300,000 needy children currently receive AFDC-UF benefits, see 42 Soc. Sec. Bull. 78 (Jan. 1979), and an injunction suspending the program’s operation would impose hardship on beneficiaries whom Congress plainly meant to protect. The presence in the Social Security Act of a strong severability clause, 42 U. S. C. § 1303, likewise counsels against nullification, for it evidences a congressional intent to minimize the burdens imposed by a declaration of unconstitutionality upon innocent recipients of government largesse.
There is no need, however, to elaborate here the conditions under which invalidation rather than extension of an under-inclusive federal benefits statute should be ordered, for no party has presented that issue for review. All parties before the District Court agreed that extension was the appropriate remedy. Juris. Statement in No. 78-689, p. 6; Motion to Affirm 5; Juris. Statement in No. 78-437, p. 6 n. 5. Appellees support that remedy here, and the Secretary, while arguing in favor of § 407’s constitutionality, urges that, if the statute is invalidated, the District Court’s remedy should be affirmed. Brief for Federal Appellee in No. 78-689, pp. 5-10. The Commissioner likewise argues that extension, rather than nullification, is proper, Tr. of Oral Arg. 18; indeed, the Commissioner did not appeal from the District Court’s April 20 extension order, but only from its August 9 refusal to limit extension along “principal wage-earner” fines. App. to Juris. Statement in No. 78-689, p. 15a. Since no party has presented the issue of extension versus nullification for review, we would be inclined to consider it only if the power to order extension were clearly beyond the constitutional competence of a federal district court. This Court’s previous decisions, however, which routinely have affirmed District Court judgments ordering extension of federal welfare programs, suggest strongly that no such remedial incapacity exists.
B
The narrower question presented by the Commissioner’s appeal concerns not the merits of extension versus nullification, but rather the form that extension should take. The District- Court ordered that benefits be paid to families in which either the mother or the father is unemployed within the meaning of the Act. The Commissioner agrees that either the mother’s or the father’s unemployment should be able to qualify a needy family for benefits, but proposes to award them only if the parent in question can show that he or she is both unemployed and the family’s “principal wage-earner.” Citing the legislative history of the AFDC-UF program, the Commissioner argues that his proposed remedy comports with Congress’ intent to aid families made needy by their breadwinner’s unemployment. This argument, as the preceding portions of this opinion show, is not without force. We may assume arguendo that, if Congress knew in 1968 what it knows now, it might well have adopted the “principal wage-earner” model suggested by the Commissioner. But this does not mean that the AFDC-UF program should be restructured along these lines by a federal court.
First, the Commissioner's proposed remedy would have the effect of terminating benefits to many families currently receiving them. Under the Act and implementing regulations, benefits are paid to needy families of all unemployed fathers, whether or not the father is actually the “principal wage-earner.” See 42 U. S, C. § 607 (a); 45 CFR § 233.100 (a) (1) (1978). No one contends that the Act and regulations, insofar as they provide benefits to families of <all unemployed fathers, are invalid. Absent some such showing of invalidity, we would hesitate to terminate needy families’ entitlement to statutory benefits merely because the unemployed father cannot prove “breadwinner” status.
Second, the Commissioner’s proposed remedy would involve a restructuring of the Act that a court should not undertake lightly. Whenever a court extends a benefits program to redress unconstitutional underinclusiveness, it risks infringing legislative prerogatives. The extension ordered by the District Court possesses at least the virtue of simplicity: by ordering that “father” be replaced by its gender-neutral equivalent, the court avoided disruption of the AFDC-UF program, for benefits simply will be paid to families with an unemployed parent on the same terms that benefits have long been paid to families with an unemployed father. The “principal wage-earner” solution, by contrast, would introduce a term novel in the AFDC scheme, and would pose definitional and policy questions best suited to legislative or administrative elaboration. The Commissioner, with his “principal wage-earner” gloss on parental unemployment, in essence asks this Court to redefine “unemployment” within the meaning of the Act. Yet “Congress in § 407 (a) expressly delegated to the Secretary the power to prescribe standards for determining what constitutes 'unemployment’ for purposes of AFDC-UF eligibility. In a situation of this kind, Congress entrusts to the Secretary, rather than to the courts, the primary responsibility for interpreting the statutory term.” Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S., at 425 (emphasis in original).
The remedy the Commissioner proposes, of course, undeniably would be cheaper than the remedy the District Court decreed, in part because it would terminate some current recipients’ eligibility. Although cost may prove a dispositive factor in other contexts, we do not regard it as controlling here. The United States, which will bear the main burden of added coverage through federal matching grants, urges that the District Court’s remedy be affirmed. The AFDC-UF program, furthermore, is optional with the States, id., at 431, and any State is free to drop out of it if dissatisfied with the added expense. This Court, in any event, is ill-equipped both to estimate the relative costs of various types of coverage, and to gauge the effect that different levels of expenditures would have upon the alleviation of human suffering. Under these circumstances, any fine-tuning of AFDC coverage along “principal wage-earner” lines is properly left to the democratic branches of the Government. In sum, we believe the District Court, in an effort to render the AFDC-UF program gender neutral, adopted the simplest and most equitable extension possible.
The judgment of the District Court accordingly is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
To be eligible for benefits under the AFDC-UF program, a family must meet both financial and categorical requirements. The financial requirements are determined by the participating States, and vary widely from one State to another. Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 408-409 (1970). The categorical requirements, however, are largely determined by the Federal Government. The Act itself specifies that the father must have had 6 or more quarters of work in any 13-quarter period ending within one year prior to the application for aid, and must be currently employed for less than 100 hours per month. 42 U. S. C. § 607 (b) (1) (C). In addition, § 407 of the Act gives the Secretary of HEW authority to promulgate regulations further defining the “unemployment” that will render a family eligible for AFDC-UF benefits. Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416, 425 (1977). The regulations, like the statute, speak in terms of the unemployment of the “father.”' 45 CFR §233.100 (a)(1) (1978).
In States that participate in both the AFDC program and the Medicaid program, 42 U. S. C. § 1396 et seq., individuals who qualify for AFDC benefits are also entitled to receive Medicaid benefits. § 1396a (a)(10).
The class was defined as
“those Massachusetts families with two parents in the home and with minor dependent children, born or unborn, who would otherwise be eligible for AFDC under Massachusetts AFDC program, and hence Medicaid as well, but for the sex discrimination in the federal statute [42 U. S. C. § 607] and Massachusetts regulations [6 CHSR III, Subch. A, Pt. 301, § 301.03; Pt. 303, Subpt. A, §§303.01 & 303.04] which provide for the granting of federally funded AFDC and Medicaid to families deprived of support because of the unemployment of their father, but not to families deprived of support because of the mother’s unemployment.” App. to Juris. Statement in No. 78-437, pp. 39A-40A.
The Secretary does not contest the class certification. Juris. Statement in No. 78-437, p. 5 n. 4.
The Commissioner proposed to define “principal wage-earner” as the parent whose earned income or unemployment compensation was greater during the six months preceding the month of application. App. to Juris. Statement in No. 78-689, pp. 7a-8a.
During the Senate floor debate on the Conference Report, Senator Muskie briefly noted and opposed the gender limitation of § 407. 113 Cong. Rec. 36914 (1967).
The overriding purpose of the 1968 AFDC amendments was “[t]o give greater emphasis to getting appropriate members of families drawing aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) payments into employment and thus no longer dependent on the welfare rolls.” H. R. Rep. No. 544, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1967). The principal changes in the AFDC-UF program designed to accomplish this end included provisions “to authorize a Federal definition of unemployment by the Secretary (but within certain limits set forth in the legislation), to tie the program more closely to the work and training program authorized by the bill, and to protect only the children of unemployed fathers who have had a recent attachment to the work force.” Id., at 108.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that both the House and Senate Reports included material dealing specifically with the problem of parental desertion, yet none of this material mentioned the gender qualification of § 407. H. R. Rep. No. 544, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 102-103 (1967); S. Rep. No. 744, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 160-163 (1967).
“If any provision of this chapter, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of the chapter, and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.” 42 U. S. C. § 1303.
The Act, for example, provides benefits to two-parent families made needy by the incapacity of either parent, regardless of which parent may have been the “principal wage-earner.” 42 U. S. C. § 606 (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: | 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.
This controversy started in a Federal District Court. Appellant, a Negro citizen of North Carolina, sued to have the literacy test for voters prescribed by that State declared unconstitutional and void. A three-judge court was convened. That court noted that the literacy test was part of a provision of the North Carolina Constitution that also included a grandfather clause. It said that the grandfather clause plainly would be unconstitutional under Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347. It noted, however, that the North Carolina statute which enforced the registration requirements contained in the State Constitution had been superseded by a 1957 Act and that the 1957 Act does not contain the grandfather clause or any reference to it. But being uncertain as to the significance, of the 1957 Act and deeming it wise to have all administrative remedies under that Act exhausted before the federal court acted, it stayed its action, retaining jurisdiction for a reasonable time to enable appellant to exhaust her administrative remedies and obtain from the state courts an interpretation of the statute in light of the State Constitution. 152 F. Supp. 295.
Thereupon the instant case was commenced. It started as an administrative proceeding. Appellant applied for registration as a voter. Her registration was denied by the registrar becafise she refused to submit to a literacy test as required by the North Carolina statute. She appealed to the -County Board of Elections. On the . de novo hearing before that Board appellant again refused to take the literacy test and she was again denied registration for that reason. She appealed to the Superior Court which sustained the Board against the claim that the requirement of the literacy test violated the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution. Preserving her federal question, she appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court which affirmed the lower court. 248 N. C. 102, 102 S. E. 2d 853. The case came here by appeal, 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), and we noted probable jurisdiction. 358 U. S. 916.
The literacy test is a part of § 4 of Art. VI of the North Carolina Constitution. That test is contained in the first sentence of § 4. The second sentence contains a so-called grandfather clause. The entire § 4 reads as follows:
“Every person presenting himself for registration shall be able to read and write any section of the Constitution in the English language. But no male person who was, on January 1, 1867, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under the laws of any state in the United States wherein he then resided, and no lineal descendant of any such person, shall be denied the right to register and vote at any election in this State by reason of his failure to possess the educational qualifications herein prescribed: Provided, he shall have registered in accordance with the terms of this section prior to December 1, 1908. The General Assembly shall provide for the registration of all persons entitled to vote without the educational qualifications herein prescribed, and shall, on or before November 1, 1908, provide for the making of a permanent record of such registration, and all persons so registered shall forever thereafter have the right to vote in all elections by the people in this State, unless disqualified under section 2 of this article.”
Originally Art. VI contained in § 5 the following provision:
“That this amendment to the Constitution is presented and adopted as one indivisible plan for the regulation of the suffrage, with the intent and purpose to so connect the different parts, and to make them so dependent upon each other, that the whole shall stand or fall together.”
But the North Carolina Supreme Court in the instant case held that a 1945 amendment to Article VI freed it of the indivisibility clause. That amendment rephrased § 1 of Art. VI tp read as follows:
“Every persen bern in the United States, and every person who has been naturalized, twenty-one years of age, and possessing the qualifications set out in this article, shall be entitled to vote . . . .”
That court said that “one of those qualifications’- was the literacy test contained in § 4 of Art. VI; and that the 1945 amendment “had the effect of incorporating and adopting anew the provisions as to the qualifications required of a voter as set out in Article VI, freed of the indivisibility clause of the' 1902 amendment. And the way was made clear for the General Assembly to act.” 248 N. C., at 112, 102 S. E. 2d 860, 861.
In 1957 the Legislature rewrote General Statutes § 163-28 as we have noted. Prior to that 1957 amendment § 163-28 perpetuated the grandfather clause contained in § 4 of Art. VI of the Constitution-and § 163-32 established' a procedure for registration to effectuate it. But the 1957 amendment contained a provision that “All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.” The federal three-judge court ruled that this 1957 amendment- eliminated the grandfather clause from the statute. 152 F. Supp., at 296.
The Attorney General of North Carolina, in an amicus brief, agrees that the grandfather clause contained in Art. VI is in conflict with the Fifteenth Amendment. Appellee .maintains that the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the invalidity of that part of Art. VI does not impair the remainder of Art. VI since the 1945 amendment to Art. VI freed it of its indivisibility clause. Under that view Art. VI would impose the same literacy test as that imposed by the 1.957 statute and neither would be linked with the grandfather clause- which, though present in print, is separable from the rest and void. We so read the opinion of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Appellant argues that that is not the end of the problem presented by the grandfather clause. There is a provision in the General Statutes for permanent registration in some counties. Appellant points out that although the cut-off date in the grandfather clause was December 1, 1908, those who registered before then might still be voting. If they were allowed to vote without taking a literacy test and if appellant were denied the'right to vote unless she passed it, members of the white face would receive preferential privileges of the ballot contrary to the command of the Fifteenth Amendment. That would be analogous to the problem posed in the classic case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, where an ordinance unimpeachable on its face was applied in such a way as to. violate the guarantee of equal protection contained in the Fourteenth Amendment. But this issue of discrimination in the actual operation of the ballot' laws of North Carolina has not been framed in the issues presented for the state court litigation. Cf. Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U. S. 213, 225. So we do not reach it. But we mention it in passing so that it may be clear that nothing we say or do here will prejudice appellant in tendering that issue in the federal proceedings which await the termination of this state court litigation.
We come then to the question whether a State may consistently with the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments apply a literacy test to all voters irrespective of race or- color. The Court in Guinn v. United States, supra, at 366, disposed of the question in a few words, “No time need be spent on the question of the validity of the literacy test considered alone since as we have seen its establishment was but the exercise by the State of a lawful power vested in it not subject to our supervision, and indeed, its validity is admitted.”
The States have long been held to have broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised, Pope v. Williams, 193 U. S. 621, 633; Mason v. Missouri, 179 U. S. 328, 335, absent, of course the discrimination which the Constitution condemns. Article I, § 2 of the Constitution in its provision for the election of members of the House of Representatives and the Seventeenth Amendment-in its provision for the election of Senators provide that officials will be chosen “by the People.” Each provision goes on to state that “the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” ' So while the right of suffrage is established and guaranteed by the Constitution (Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 663-665; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 661-662) it is subject to the imposition of state standards which are not discriminatory and which do not contravene any restriction that Congress, acting pursuant to its constitutional powers, has imposed. See United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315. While § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides for apportionment of Representatives among the States according to their respective numbers counting the whole number of persons in each State (except Indians not taxed), speaks of “the right to vote,” the right protected “refers to the right to vote as established by the laws and constitution of the State.” McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 39.
We do not suggest that any standards which a State desires to adopt may be required of voters. But there is wide scope for exercise of its jurisdiction. Residence requirements, age, previous criminal record (Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333, 345-347) are. obvious examples indicating factors which a State may take into consideration in determining the qualifications of voters. The ability to read and write likewise has some relation to standards designed to promote intelligent use of the'ballot. Literacy and illiteracy are neutral on race, creed, color, and sex, as reports around the world show. Literacy and intelligence are obviously not synonymous. Illiterate people may be intelligent voters. Yet in our society where-newspapers, periodicals; books, and other printed, matter canvass and debate campaign issues, a State might conclude that only those who are literate should exercise the franchise. Cf. Franklin v. Harper, 205 Ga. 779, 55 S. E. 2d 221, appeal dismissed 339 U. S. 946. It was said last century in Massachusetts that a literacy test was designed to insure an “independent and intelligent” exercise of the right of suffrage. Stone v. Smith, 159 Mass. 413-414, 34 N. E. 521. North Carolina agrees. We do not sit in judgment on the wisdom of that policy. We cannot say, however, that it is not an allowable one measured by constitutional standards.
Of course a literacy test, fair on its face, may be employed to perpetuate that discrimination which the Fifteenth Amendment was designed to uproot. No such influence is charged here. On the other hand, a literacy test may be unconstitutional on its face. In Davis v. Schnell, 81 F. Supp. 872, aff’d 336 U. S. 933, the test was the citizen’s ability to “understand and explain” an article of the Federal Constitution. The legislative setting of that provision and the great discretion it vested in the registrar made clear that a literacy requirement was merely a device to make racial discrimination easy. We cannot make the same inference here. The present requirement, applicable to members of all races, is that the prospective voter “be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of North Carolina in the English language.” That seems to us to be one fair way of determining whether a-person is literate, not a calculated scheme to lay springes for the citizen. Certainly we cannot condemn it on its face as a device unrelated to the desire of North Carolina to raise the standards for people of all races who cast the ballot.
Affirmed.
This Act, passed in 1957, provides in § 163-28 as follows:
“Every person presenting himself for registration shall be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of North Carolina in the English language. It shall be the duty of each registrar to administer the provisions of this section.”.
Sections 163-28.1, 163-28.2, and 163-28.3 provide the administrative remedies pursued in this case.
Note 1, supra.
Section 163-32 provided:
“Every person claiming the benefit of^ection four of article six of the Constitution of North Carolina, as ratified at the general election on the second day of August, one thousand nine hundred, and who shall be entitled to register upon the permanent record for registration provided for under said section four, shall prior to December first, one thousand nine hundred and eight, apply for registration to the officer charged with the registration of voters as prescribed by law in each regular election to be held in the State for members of the General Assembly, and such persons shall take and subscribe before such officer an oath in the following form, viz.:
“I am a citizen of the United States and of the'State of North Carolina; I am — years of age. I was, on the first day of January, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, or prior to said date, entitled to vote under the constitution and laws of the state of-, in which I then resided (or, I am a lineal descendant of-, who was, on January one, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, or prior,to that date, entitled to vote under the constitution and laws of the state of---, wherein he then resided.”
N. C. Laws 1957, c. 287, pp. 277, 278.
Section 163-31.2 provides:
“In counties having one or more municipalities with a population in excess of 10,000 and in which a modern loose-leaf and visible registration system has been established as permitted by G. S. 163-43, with a full time registrátioñ as authorized by. G. S. 163-31, such registration shall be a permanent public record of registration and qualification to vote, and the same shall not' thereafter be cancelled and a new registration ordered, either by precinct or countywide, unless such registration has been lost or destroyed by theft, fire or other hazard.”
World Illiteracy'at Mid-Century, Unesco (1957).
Nineteen States, including North Carolina,, have some sort of literacy requirement as a prerequisite to eligibility for voting. ' Five require that the voter be able to read a section of the State, or Federal Constitution and write his own name. Arizona Rev. Stat. § 16-101; Cal. Election Code § 220; Del. Code Ann., Tit. 15, § 1701; Me. Rev. Stat., c. 3, § 2; Mass. Gen. L. Ann., c. 51, § 1. Five require that the elector be able to read and write a section of the Federal or State Constitution. Ala. Code, 1940, Tit. 17, § 32; N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 55:10-55:12; N. C. Gen. Stat. § 163-28; Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 26, § 61; S. C. Code § 23-62. Alabama also requires that the voter be of “good character” and “embrace the duties and obligations of citizenship” under'the Federal and State Constitutions. Ala. Code, Tit. 17, § 32 (1955 Supp.).
Two States require that the voter be able to read and write English. N. Y. Election Code § 150; Ore. Rev. Stat. § 247.131. Wyoming (Wyo. Comp. Stat. Ann. § 31-113) and Connecticut (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 9-12) require that the voter read a constitutional provision in English, while Virginia (Va. Code § 24-68) requires that the voting application be written in the applicant’s hand before the registrar and without aid, suggestion or memoranda. Washington (Wash. Rev. Code § 29.07.070) has the requirement that the voter be able to read and speak the English language.
Georgia requires that the voter read intelligibly and write legibly a section.of the State or "Federal Constitution. If he is. physically unable to do so, he may qualify if he can give a reasonable interpretation of a section read to him. An alternative means of qualifying is provided: if one has good character and understands' the duties and obligations of citizenship under a republican government, and he can answer correctly 20 of 30 questions listed in the statute (e. g., How does the Constitution of Georgia provide that a county site may be changed?, what is treason against the State of Georgia?, who are the solicitor general and the judge of the State Judicial Circuit in which you live?) he is eligible to vote. Geo. Code Ann. §§ 34-117, 34-120.
In Louisiana one qualifies if he can read and write English or his mother tongue, is of good character, and understands the duties and obligations of citizenship under a republican form of government. If he cannot read and write, he can qualify if he can give a reasonable interpretation of a section of the State or Federal Constitution when read to him, and if he is attached to the principles of the Federal and State Constitutions. La. Rev. Stat., Tit. 18, § 31.
In Mississippi the applicant must be able to read and write a section of the State Constitution and give a reasonable interpretation of it. He must also demonstrate to the registrar a reasonable understanding of the duties and obligations of citizenship under a constitutional form of government. Miss. Code Ann. § 3213.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner and respondent entered, in to a written contract under which the petitioner was to transport goods for respondent by truck entirely within the State of Texas at “such rates, charges or tariffs as may be fixed by the Railroad Commission of the State of Texas.” Based on that contract petitioner applied to the Commission for a permit to operate as a contract carrier pursuant to rules of the Railroad Commission promulgated under Texas law which grants regulatory power over transportation to that Commission. Article 911b, §§ 1 to 22 (b), Rev. Stat. of Tex. Petitioner’s application stated that “the tariff to be charged for the service proposed to be rendered will be that as promulgated by the Railroad Commission of Texas.” After notice and hearing, at which petitioner and a representative of respondent testified, the Commission made an order which stated that “after carefully considering the evidence, the laws and its own rules and regulations,” the Commission was of the opinion that “the character of business proposed to be done by the applicant strictly conforms with the definition of a contract carrier.” The order directed that petitioner be granted a permit, which was later issued, to transport goods for respondent in Texas, but directed attention to the fact that the Commission’s “tariffs and orders prescribed as a minimum rate to be charged by contract carriers the rates prescribed for common carrier motor carriers.” Later, pursuant to a prearrangement, the parties entered into a supplemental agreement concerning which the Railroad Commission was kept uninformed, in accordance with which respondent actually paid petitioner for carriage of its goods less than the rates prescribed for common motor carriers. About three and a half years later the petitioner filed this suit, of which the District Court had jurisdiction by reason of diversity of citizenship, to recover the difference between the rate paid and the full rate fixed by prior general orders of the Commission prescribing common carrier rates as provided in the contract.
The respondent’s answer admitted that it had paid less than the tariff rate fixed in prior general orders, but denied legal liability to pay that rate on several grounds. It denied that respondent’s rates were governed by the Commission’s prior general rate orders or by the special order granting petitioner a permit as a contract carrier. It also claimed that a state two-year statute of limitations barred recovery for part of the amount claimed. It further alleged that petitioner had led respondent to believe that his type of transportation was not subject to regulation by the Railroad Commission, and that no prior general or special orders had fixed petitioner’s transportation rates. In reliance upon the petitioner’s representations, respondent alleged, it had entered into the supplemental agreement to pay less than the tariff rate here claimed. Respondent pleaded that by this conduct petitioner was estopped from claiming that the Commission had power to or had fixed a rate for petitioner’s transportation, or from predicating his cause of action upon the Commission’s tariffs.
The District Court rejected all of respondent’s contentions. Citing Texas statutes, court decisions, and the Commission’s practices, the District Court held that the cause of action was not barred by the statute of limitations; that the Commission’s prior general rate orders governed the charges to be fixed by contract carriers such as petitioner; that Texas law barred respondent from any collateral attack on the validity of the orders; that had the rate-fixing orders been directly attacked, as authorized by law, they would have been held valid; that shippers and carriers could not by private agreements defeat the State’s statutory purpose to require payments of uniform transportation rates; that the original agreement to pay the Commission-fixed rate was valid, and the supplemental agreement to pay less than that rate was void; and that, under Texas law, petitioner was not estopped to rely on the Commission’s tariff in order to recover the full tariff rate. Accordingly, the District Court directed the jury to return a verdict for petitioner for the balance due it under the Commission rate, and a judgment for the petitioner was entered on that verdict.
The Circuit Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, reversed. 154 F. 2d 367. The majority concluded that petitioner should not recover because the agreement to pay less than the full rates was a subterfuge, that neither party had any intention of living up to the agreement, and that their conduct amounted to a fraud upon the Railroad Commission, “contrary to good morals and that [it] tended ... to interfere with the purity of the administration of the law such as puts both parties in pari delicto with no right to seek advantage or recovery . . .” on the “spurious” contract. The dissenting judge did not agree that the records showed a deliberate purpose to evade the statutes. He further thought that under controlling Texas law and policy the doctrine of pari delicto could not be applied so as to have the goods of a Texas shipper hauled in Texas at a less rate than the others were compelled to pay by law. All the judges agreed, however, that the agreement to pay less than the Commission-fixed rates was void.
On petitioner’s motion for rehearing, the State Attorney General intervened. He contended that the court’s decision ran counter to the State’s long-established policy against discriminatory transportation rate-cutting, and that if the judgment stood, it would impair the integrity of the State’s regulatory system, a primary purpose of which was, he argued, to assure uniform rates to all shippers for substantially the same transportation service. In its opinion denying rehearing, the court reaffirmed its former holding and stated that this was “a suit by one party, in particeps criminis, against another in like situation, under a fully completed contract, wherein it was sought to penalize one party to the extent of $37,000.00 and to reward the prime offender in like amount.” Whether the Circuit Court of Appeals’ judgment does undermine the transportation policy of Texas is a question of such importance that we granted certiorari to review the case. 328 U. S. 830.
The District Court specifically held that no part of the claim sued on was barred by the Texas statute of limitations and the Circuit Court of Appeals did not discuss the question. Article 5526 of the Revised Statutes of Texas, on which respondent relies, by its language applies only to actions for debts not “evidenced by a contract in writing.” The contract here sued on was “in writing.” Respondent has cited no Texas decisions which have considered this statute to be a bar to suits on contracts such as the one here involved. We cannot say that the District Court sitting in Texas erred in holding that no part of the claim was barred by Article 5526. See Texarkana & Ft. S. R. Co. v. Houston Gas & Fuel Co., 121 Tex. 594, 51 S. W. 2d 284.
Nor can we say that the District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals erred in interpreting Texas law to render the supplemental agreement between petitioner and respondent, designed to circumvent payment of Commission-fixed rates, void and unenforceable. The District Court’s holdings that the Commission’s rate-fixing orders applied to petitioner’s business, that they were not subject under Texas law to the collateral attack here made, and that petitioner could not carry respondent’s goods at less than the rates fixed were well buttressed by state statutes and court decisions. No arguments here made by respondent, or state decisions on which it relies, refute the District Court’s reasoning or conclusion. The Circuit Court of Appeals has not disagreed with this holding-of the District Court sitting in Texas. Under these circumstances we shall leave undisturbed the interpretation placed upon purely local law by a Texas federal judge. MacGregor v. State Mutual Life Assurance Co., 315 U. S. 280; Henderson Co. v. Thompson, 300 U. S. 258, 266; Thompson v. Consolidated Gas Co., 300 U. S. 55, 74-75. Therefore we can proceed to consider whether the Circuit Court erred in holding that respondent could escape payment of the Commission-fixed rates by application of the doctrine of pari delicto.
Respondent does not refute what the Texas courts have frequently decided, that agreements by railroads to cut charges to below tariff rates are unlawful and that no doctrine of estoppel or pari delicto can be invoked to defeat payment of the full tariff rate. In Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Yates, 139 Tex. 89, 93, 161 S. W. 2d 1050, 1052, the Texas court said, “In a word the purpose of our statutes, as they relate to intrastate freight rates, is in every essential respect the same as that of the Federal statutes which we had under consideration in Houston & T. C. R. Co. v. Johnson, Tex. Com. App., 41 S. W. 2d 14, 83 A. L. R. 241.” Just as 49 U. S. C. § 41 (3) prohibits rebate and similar devices which might undermine interstate transportation rate systems, so Art. 1690 (b), § (i) of the Penal Code of Texas makes it unlawful for motor carriers to charge less than Commission-fixed rates, and Art. 1687 makes it unlawful for railroads to engage in the same practice. No Texas decisions referred to by the Circuit Court of Appeals or by the respondent here indicate that the State’s public policy is any different or less effective in protecting the integrity of motor carrier rates than railroad rates. The Texas motor carrier legislation was designed to be a part of a state transportation regulatory system applicable alike to all lines of transportation which represents a “studied effort ... to prevent, through regulation, unfair, discriminatory, or destructive competition between such authorized carriers as would ultimately impair their usefulness.” Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Railroad Comm’n (Tex. Civ. App.) 138 S. W. 2d 927, 931, reversed on other grounds, 138 Tex. 148, 157 S. W. 2d 622. Cf. Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U. S. 251, 272-273.
Under Texas law the payment of Commission-fixed carrier rates is not merely a private obligation between shippers and carriers. The duty to pay is a public one, Houston & T. C. R. Co. v. Johnson (Tex. Com. App.) 41 S. W. 2d 14. And, as said in the Yates case, supra, with reference to a railroad, no carrier can “by means of estoppel ‘or by any other device’ escape the performance of this public duty.” While the doctrine of pari delicto might be applied in Texas to some types of contracts so as to defeat recovery, see Wright v. Wight & Wight (Tex. Civ. App.) 229 S. W. 881, we are satisfied that the Circuit Court of Appeals erred in holding that Texas courts would apply it in this case. Application of the doctrine of pari delicto in this proceeding, therefore, where the federal court has jurisdiction by reason of diversity, would result in applying a rule of law in the federal courts different from the rule we believe has been applicable in the state courts. Such a result cannot be approved. Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed and that of the District Court is affirmed. It is so ordered.
Reversed.
The court permitted respondent to offer evidence intended to show that the petitioner’s contract carriage was neither in competition with common carriers nor substantially the same type of services as common carriers performed. This evidence was offered to support respondent’s contention that the Commission was without jurisdiction to fix petitioner’s rates because, as respondent urged, § 6 aa of the State motor carrier law limited its power to fix contract carrier rates to motor carriers that did compete with or perform substantially the same services as common carriers. These two questions were submitted to the jury, and they made special findings on the issues in respondent’s favor. The district court later directed the jury to find for petitioner despite these findings, holding, as set out in the opinion, that the Commission’s orders were valid and beyond collateral attack in this case.
The District Court cited the following authorities to support its position: Art. 911b Rev. Stat. of Tex.; General Order No. 25, R. R. Comin’n of Tex., Aug. 22,1931; Texas Steel Co. v. Ft. Worth & Denver C. R. Co., 120 Tex. 597, 40 S. W. 2d 78; Greer v. Railroad Comm’n (Tex. Civ. App.) 117 S. W. 2d 142; St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Landa & Storey (Tex. Civ. App.) 187 S. W. 358; Railroad Comm'n v. Uvalde Construction Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 49 S. W. 2d 1113; Alpha Petroleutn Co. v. Terrell, 122 Tex. 257, 59 S. W. 2d 364; Mingus v. Wadley, 115 Tex. 551, 285 S. W. 1084. It also cited the following federal cases: Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315; United Fuel Gas Co. v. Railroad Comm’n, 278 U. S. 300.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a defendant who is prosecuted in a single proceeding for multiple petty offenses has a constitutional right to a jury trial where the aggregate prison term authorized for the offenses exceeds six months. We are also asked to decide whether a defendant who would otherwise have a constitutional right to a jury trial may be denied that right because the presiding judge has made a pretrial commitment that the aggregate sentence imposed will not exceed six months.
We conclude that no jury trial right exists where a defendant is prosecuted for multiple petty offenses. The Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to a jury trial does not extend to petty offenses, and its scope does not change where a defendant faces a potential aggregate prison term in excess of six months for petty offenses charged. Because we decide that no jury trial right exists where a defendant is charged with multiple petty offenses, we do not reach the second question.
I
Petitioner Ray Lewis was a mail handler for the United States Postal Service. One day, postal inspectors saw him open several pieces of mail and pocket the contents. The next day, the inspectors routed “test” mail, containing marked currency, through petitioner’s station. After seeing petitioner open the mail and remove the currency, the inspectors arrested him. Petitioner was charged with two counts of obstructing the mail, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1701. Each count carried a maximum authorized prison sentence of six months. Petitioner requested a jury, but the Magistrate Judge granted the Government’s motion for a bench trial. She explained that because she would not, under any circumstances, sentence petitioner to more than six months’ imprisonment, he was not entitled to a jury trial.
Petitioner sought review of the denial of a jury trial, and the District Court affirmed. Petitioner appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. 65 F. 3d 252 (1995). The court noted that the Sixth Amendment jury trial right pertains only to serious offenses, that is, those for which the legislature has authorized a maximum penalty of over six months’ imprisonment. The court then addressed the question whether a defendant facing more than six months’ imprisonment in the aggregate for multiple petty offenses is nevertheless entitled to a jury trial. The Court of Appeals concluded that, for determination of the right to a jury trial, the proper focus is on the legislature’s determination regarding the character of the offense, as indicated by maximum penalty authorized, not on the length of the maximum aggregate sentence faced. Id., at 254-255. Because each offense charged here was petty in character, the court concluded that petitioner was not entitled to a jury trial.
The court explained in dictum that because the character of the offense as petty or serious determined the right to a jury trial, not the sentence faced, a trial judge’s self-imposed limitation on sentencing could not deprive a defendant of the right to a jury trial. Id., at 255-256.
We granted certiorari, 516 U. S. 1088 (1996), to resolve a conflict in the Courts of Appeals over whether a defendant prosecuted in a single proceeding for multiple petty offenses has a constitutional right to a jury trial, where the aggregate sentence authorized for the offenses exceeds six months’ imprisonment, and whether such jury trial right can be eliminated by a judge’s pretrial commitment that the aggregate sentence imposed will not exceed six months. See United States v. Coppins, 953 F. 2d 86 (CA4 1991); United States v. Bencheck, 926 F. 2d 1512 (CA10 1991); Rife v. Godbehere, 814 F. 2d 563 (CA9 1987).
II
The Sixth Amendment guarantees that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed . . . .” It is well established that the Sixth Amendment, like the common law, reserves this jury trial right for prosecutions of serious offenses, and that “there is a category of petty crimes or offenses which is not subject to the Sixth Amendment jury trial provision.” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 159 (1968).
To determine whether an offense is properly characterized as “petty,” courts at one time looked to the nature of the offense and whether it was triable by a jury at common law. Such determinations became difficult, because many statutory offenses lack common-law antecedents. Blanton v. North Las Vegas, 489 U. S. 538, 541, and n. 5 (1989). Therefore, more recently, we have instead sought “objective indications of the seriousness with which society regards the offense.” Frank v. United States, 395 U. S. 147, 148 (1969); accord, District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U. S. 617, 628 (1937). Now, to determine whether an offense is petty, we consider the maximum penalty attached to the offense. This criterion is considered the most relevant with which to assess the character of an offense, because it reveals the legislature’s judgment about the offense’s severity. “The judiciary should not substitute its judgment as to seriousness for that of a legislature, which is far better equipped to perform the task_” Blanton, 489 U. S., at 541 (internal quotation marks omitted). In evaluating the seriousness of the offense, we place primary emphasis on the maximum prison term authorized. While penalties such as probation or a fine may infringe on a defendant’s freedom, the deprivation of liberty imposed by imprisonment makes that penalty the best indicator of whether the legislature considered an offense to be “petty” or “serious.” Id., at 542. An offense carrying a maximum prison term of six months or less is presumed petty, unless the legislature has authorized additional statutory penalties so severe as to indicate that the legislature considered the offense serious. Id., at 543; Codispoti v. Pennsylvania, 418 U. S. 506, 512 (1974).
Here, the maximum authorized penalty for obstruction of mail is six months’ imprisonment — a penalty that presumptively places the offense in the “petty” category. We face the question whether petitioner is nevertheless entitled to a jury trial, because he was tried in a single proceeding for two counts of the petty offense so that the potential aggregated penalty is 12 months’ imprisonment.
Petitioner argues that, where a defendant is charged with multiple petty offenses in a single prosecution, the Sixth Amendment requires that the aggregate potential penalty be the basis for determining whether a jury trial is required. Although each offense charged here was petty, petitioner faced a potential penalty of more than six months’ imprisonment; and, of course, if any offense charged had authorized more than six months’ imprisonment, he would have been entitled to a jury trial. The Court must look to the aggregate potential prison term to determine the existence of the jury trial right, petitioner contends, not to the “petty” character of the offenses charged.
We disagree. The Sixth Amendment reserves the jury trial right to defendants accused of serious crimes. As set forth above, we determine whether an offense is serious by looking to the judgment of the legislature, primarily as expressed in the maximum authorized term of imprisonment. Here, by setting the maximum authorized prison term at six months, the Legislature categorized the offense of obstructing the mail as petty. The fact that petitioner was charged with two counts of a petty offense does not revise the legislative judgment as to the gravity of that particular offense, nor does it transform the petty offense into a serious one, to which the jury trial right would apply. We note that there is precedent at common law that a jury trial was not provided to a defendant charged with multiple petty offenses. See, e. g., Queen v. Matthews, 10 Mod. 26, 88 Eng. Rep. 609 (Q. B. 1712); King v. Swallow, 8 T. R. 285, 101 Eng. Rep. 1392 (K. B. 1799).
Petitioner nevertheless insists that a defendant is entitled to a jury trial whenever he faces a deprivation of liberty for a period exceeding six months, a proposition for which he cites our precedent establishing the six-months’ prison sentence as the presumptive cutoff for determining whether an offense is “petty” or “serious.” To be sure, in the cases in which we sought to determine the line between “petty” and “serious” for Sixth Amendment purposes, we considered the severity of the authorized deprivation of liberty as an indicator of the legislature’s appraisal of the offense. See Blanton, supra, at 542-543; Baldwin v. New York, 399 U. S. 66, 68-69 (1970) (plurality opinion). But it is now settled that a legislature’s determination that an offense carries a maximum prison term of six months or less indicates its view that an offense is “petty.” Blanton, supra, at 543. Where we have a judgment by the legislature that an offense is “petty,” we do not look to the potential prison term faced by a particular defendant who is charged with more than one such petty offense. The maximum authorized penalty provides an “objective indieatio[n] of the seriousness with which society regards the offense,” Frank, 395 U. S., at 148, and it is that indication that is used to determine whether a jury trial is required, not the particularities of an individual case. Here, the penalty authorized by Congress manifests its judgment that the offense is petty, and the term of imprisonment faced by petitioner by virtue of the second count does not alter that fact.
Petitioner directs our attention to Codispoti for support for the assertion that the “aggregation of multiple petty offenses renders a prosecution serious for jury trial purposes.” Brief for Petitioner 18. Codispoti is inapposite. There, defendants were each convicted at a single, nonjury trial for several charges of criminal contempt. The Court was unable to determine the legislature’s judgment of the character of that offense, however, because the legislature had not set a specific penalty for criminal contempt. In such a situation, where the legislature has not specified a maximum penalty, courts use the severity of the penalty actually imposed as the measure of the character of the particular offense. Codispoti, supra, at 511; Frank, supra, at 149. Here, in contrast, we need not look to the punishment actually imposed, because we are able to discern Congress’ judgment of the character of the offense.
Furthermore, Codispoti emphasized the special concerns raised by the criminal contempt context. Contempt “often strikes at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge’s temperament. Even where the contempt is not a direct insult to the court... it frequently represents a rejection of judicial authority, or an interference with the judicial process . . . .” Codispoti, 418 U. S., at 516 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U. S. 455, 465-466 (1971). In the face of courtroom disruption, a judge may have difficulty maintaining the detachment necessary for fair adjudication; at the same time, it is a judge who “determines which and how many acts of contempt the citation will cover,” “determine[s] guilt or innocence absent a jury,” and “impose[s] the sentence.” Codispoti, 418 U. S., at 515. Therefore, Codispoti concluded that the concentration of power in the judge in the often heated contempt context presented the “very likelihood of arbitrary action that the requirement of jury trial was intended to avoid or alleviate.” Ibid. The benefit of a jury trial, “‘as a protection against the arbitrary exercise of official power,’” was deemed particularly important in that context. Id., at 516 (quoting Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194, 202 (1968)).
The absence of a legislative judgment about the offense’s seriousness, coupled with the unique concerns presented in a criminal contempt ease, persuaded us in Codispoti that, in those circumstances, the jury trial right should be determined by the aggregate penalties actually imposed. Codis-poti was held to be entitled to a jury trial, because the sentence actually imposed on him for criminal contempt exceeded six months. By comparison, in Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U. S. 488 (1974), which similarly involved a defendant convicted of criminal contempt in a jurisdiction where the legislature had not specified a penalty, we determined that the defendant was not entitled to a jury trial, because the sentence actually imposed for criminal contempt did not exceed six months. Contrary to Justice Kennedy’s argument, see post, at 331-334, 338, Codispoti and Taylor do not stand for the sweeping proposition that, outside their narrow context, the jury trial right is determined by the aggregate penalties faced by a defendant.
Certainly the aggregate potential penalty faced by petitioner is of serious importance to him. But to determine whether an offense is serious for Sixth Amendment purposes, we look to the legislature’s judgment, as evidenced by the maximum penalty authorized. Where the offenses charged are petty, and the deprivation of liberty exceeds six months only as a result of the aggregation of charges, the jury trial right does not apply. As petitioner acknowledges, even if he were to prevail, the Government could properly circumvent the jury trial right by charging the counts in separate informations and trying them separately.
The Constitution’s guarantee of the right to a jury trial extends only to serious offenses, and petitioner was not charged with a serious offense. That he was tried for two counts of a petty offense, and therefore faced an aggregate potential term of imprisonment of more than six months, does not change the fact that the Legislature deemed this offense petty. Petitioner is not entitled to a jury trial.
Because petitioner is not entitled to a jury trial, we need not reach the question whether a judge’s self-imposed limitation on sentencing may affect the jury trial right.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 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: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A Cincinnati, Ohio, ordinance makes it a criminal offense for “three or more persons to assemble ... on any of the sidewalks . . . and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by . ...” The issue before us is whether this ordinance is unconstitutional on its face.
The appellants were convicted of violating the ordinance, and the convictions were ultimately affirmed by a closely divided vote in the Supreme Court of Ohio, upholding the constitutional validity of the ordinance. 21 Ohio St. 2d 66, 256 N. E. 2d 247. An appeal from that judgment was brought here under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), and we noted probable jurisdiction, 398 U. S. 902. The record brought before the reviewing courts tells us no more than that the appellant Coates was a student involved in a demonstration and the other appellants were pickets involved in a labor dispute. For throughout this litigation it has been the appellants’ position that the ordinance on its face violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. Cf. Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U. S. 43.
In rejecting this claim and affirming the convictions the Ohio Supreme Court did not give the ordinance any construction at variance with the apparent plain import of its language. The court simply stated:
“The ordinance prohibits, inter alia, 'conduct . . . annoying to persons passing by.’ The word ‘annoying’ is a widely used and well understood word; it is not necessary to guess its meaning. ‘Annoying’ is the present participle of the transitive verb ‘annoy’ which means to trouble, to vex, to impede, to incommode, to provoke, to harass or to irritate.
“We conclude, as did the Supreme Court of the United States in Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U. S. 611, 616, in which the issue of the vagueness of a statute was presented, that the ordinance ‘clearly and precisely delineates its reach in words of common understanding. It is a “precise and narrowly drawn regulatory statute [ordinance] evincing a legislative judgment that certain specific conduct be . . . proscribed.” ’ ” 21 Ohio St. 2d, at 69, 255 N. E. 2d, at 249.
Beyond this, the only construction put upon the ordinance by the state court was its unexplained conclusion that “the standard of conduct which it specifies is not dependent upon each complainant's sensitivity.” Ibid. But the court did not indicate upon whose sensitivity a violation does depend — the sensitivity of the judge or jury, the sensitivity of the arresting officer, or the sensitivity of a hypothetical reasonable man.
We are thus relegated, at best, to the words of the -ordinance itself. If three or more people meet together on a sidewalk or street corner, they must conduct themselves so as not to annoy any police officer or other person who should happen to pass by. In our opinion this ordinance is unconstitutionally vague because it subjects the exercise of the right of assembly to an unascer-tainable standard, and unconstitutionally broad because it authorizes the punishment of constitutionally protected conduct.
Conduct that annoys some people does not annoy others. Thus, the ordinance is vague, not in the sense that it requires a person to conform his conduct to an imprecise but comprehensible normative standard, but rather in the sense that no standard of conduct is specified at all. As a result, “men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning.” Connolly v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391.
It is said that the ordinance is broad enough to encompass many types of conduct clearly within the city’s constitutional power to prohibit. And so, indeed, it is. The city is free to prevent people from blocking sidewalks, obstructing traffic, littering streets, committing assaults, or engaging in countless other forms of antisocial conduct. It can do so through the enactment and enforcement of ordinances directed with reasonable specificity toward the conduct to be prohibited. Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U. S. 111, 118, 124-125 (Black, J., concurring). It cannot constitutionally do so through the enactment and enforcement of an ordinance whose violation may entirely depend upon whether or not a policeman is annoyed.
But the vice of the ordinance lies not alone in its violation of the due process standard of vagueness. The ordinance also violates the constitutional right of free assembly and association. Our decisions establish that mere public intolerance or animosity cannot be the basis for abridgment of these constitutional freedoms. See Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 592; Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 551-553; Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, 238; Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 311; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161. The First and Fourteenth Amendments do not permit a State to make criminal the exercise of the right of assembly simply because its exercise may be “annoying” to some people. If this were not the rule, the right of the people to gather in public places for social or political purposes would be continually subject to summary suspension through the good-faith enforcement of a prohibition against annoying conduct. And such a prohibition, in addition, contains an obvious invitation to discriminatory enforcement against those whose association together is “annoying” because their ideas, their lifestyle, or their physical appearance is resented by the majority of their fellow citizens.
The ordinance before us makes a crime out of what under the Constitution cannot be a crime. It is aimed directly at activity protected by the Constitution. We need not lament that we do not have before us the details of the conduct found to be annoying. It is the ordinance on its face that sets the standard of conduct and warns against transgression. The details of the offense could no more serve to validate this ordinance than could the details of an offense charged under an ordinance suspending unconditionally the right of assembly and free speech.
The judgment is reversed.
Mr. Justice Black.
First. I agree with the majority that this case is properly before us on appeal from the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Second. This Court has long held that laws so vague that a person of common understanding cannot know what is forbidden are unconstitutional on their face. Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451 (1939), United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81 (1921). Likewise, laws which broadly forbid conduct or activities which are protected by the Federal Constitution, such as, for instance, the discussion of political matters, are void on their face. Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940). On the other hand, laws which plainly forbid conduct which is constitutionally within the power of the State to forbid but also restrict constitutionally protected conduct may be void either on their face or merely as applied in certain instances. As my Brother White states in his opinion (with which I substantially agree), this is one of those numerous cases where the law could be held unconstitutional because it prohibits both conduct which the Constitution safeguards and conduct which the State may constitutionally punish. Thus, the First Amendment which forbids the State to abridge freedom of speech, would invalidate this city ordinance if it were used to punish the making of a political speech, even if that speech were to annoy other persons. In contrast, however, the ordinance could properly be applied to prohibit the gathering of persons in the mouths of alleys to annoy passersby by throwing rocks or by some other conduct not at all connected with speech. It is a matter of no little difficulty to determine when a law can be held void on its face and when such summary action is inappropriate. This difficulty has been aggravated in this case, because the record fails to show in what conduct these defendants had engaged to annoy other people. In my view, a record showing the facts surrounding the conviction is essential to adjudicate the important constitutional issues in this case. I would therefore vacate the judgment and remand the case with instructions that the trial court give both parties an opportunity to supplement the record so that we may determine whether the conduct actually punished is the kind of conduct which it is within the power of the State to punish.
“It shall be unlawful for three or more persons to assemble, except at a public meeting of citizens, on any of the sidewalks, street comers, vacant lots, or mouths of alleys, and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by, or occupants of adjacent buildings. Whoever violates any of the provisions of this section shall be fined not exceeding fifty dollars ($50.00), or be imprisoned not less than one (1) nor more than thirty (30) days or both.” Section 901-L6, Code of Ordinances of the City of Cincinnati (1956).
“Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court as follows:
“(2) By appeal, where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity.”
Cf. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, where this Court upheld a statute that punished “offensive, derisive or annoying” words. The state courts had construed the statute as applying only to such words “as have a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the persons to whom, individually, the remark is addressed.” The state court also said: "The word 'offensive' is not to be defined in terms of what a particular addressee thinks. . . . The test is what men of common intelligence would understand would be words likely to cause an average addressee to fight. . . . The English language has a number of words and expressions which by general consent are 'fighting words’ when said without a disarming smile. . . . Such words, as ordinary men know, are likely to cause a fight. So are threatening, profane or obscene revilings. Derisive and annoying words can be taken as coming within the purview of the statute as heretofore interpreted only when they have this characteristic of plainly tending to excite the addressee to a breach of the peace.” This Court was “unable to say that the limited scope of the statute as thus construed contravenes the Constitutional right of free expression.” 315 U. S., at 573.
In striking down a very similar ordinance of Cleveland, Ohio, as constitutionally invalid, the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County said:
“As it is written, the disorderly assembly ordinance could be used to incriminate nearly any group or individual. With little effort, one can imagine many . . . assemblages which, at various times, might annoy some persons in the city of Cleveland. Anyone could become an unwitting participant in a disorderly assembly, and suffer the penalty consequences. It has been left to the police and the courts to decide when and to what extent ordinance Section 13.1124 is applicable. Neither the police nor a citizen can hope to conduct himself in a lawful manner if an ordinance which is designed to regulate conduct does not lay down ascertainable rules and guidelines to govern its enforcement. This ordinance represents an unconstitutional exercise of the police power of the city of Cleveland, and is therefore void.” Cleveland v. Anderson, 13 Ohio App. 2d 83, 90, 234 N. E. 2d 304, 309-310.
In striking down a very similar ordinance of Toledo, Ohio, as constitutionally invalid, the Municipal Court of that city said:
“Under the provisions of Sections 17-5-10 and 17-5-11, arrests and prosecutions, as in the present instance, would have been effective as against Edmund Pendleton, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and others for loitering and congregating in front of Raleigh Tavern on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg, Virginia, at any time during the summer of 1774 to the great annoy-anee of Governor Dunsmore and his colonial constables.” City of Toledo v. Sims, 14 Ohio Op. 2d 66, 69, 169 N. E. 2d 516, 520.
The alleged discriminatory enforcement of this ordinance figured prominently in the background of the serious civil disturbances that took place in Cincinnati in June 1967. See Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 26-27 (1968).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Sections 301 and 316(a) of the Internal Revenue Code set the conditions for treating certain corporate distributions as returns of capital, nontaxable to the recipient. 26 U. S. C. §§ 301, 316(a) (2000 ed. and Supp. V). The question here is whether a distributee accused of criminal tax evasion may-claim return-of-capital treatment without producing evidence that either he or the corporation intended a capital return when the distribution occurred. We hold that no such showing is required.
I
“[T]he capstone of [the] system of sanctions... calculated to induce... fulfillment of every duty under the income tax law,” Spies v. United States, 317 U. S. 492, 497 (1943), is 26 U. S. C. § 7201, making it a felony willfully to “attemp[t] in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by” the Code. One element of tax evasion under § 7201 is “the existence of a tax deficiency,” Sansone v. United States, 380 U. S. 343, 351 (1965); see also Lawn v. United States, 355 U. S. 339, 361 (1958), which the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, see ibid. (“[0]f course, a conviction upon a charge of attempting to evade assessment of income taxes by the filing of a-fraudulent return cannot stand in the absence of proof of a deficiency”).
Any deficiency determination in this case will turn on §§ 301 and 316(a) of the Code. According to § 301(a), unless another provision of the Code requires otherwise, a “distributton of property” that is “made by a corporation to a shareholder with respect to its stock shall be treated in the manner provided in [§ 301(c)].” Under § 301(c), the portion of the distribution that is a “dividend,” as defined by § 316(a), must be included in the recipient’s gross income; and the portion that is not a dividend is, depending on the shareholder’s basis for his stock, either a nontaxable return of capital or a gain on the sale or exchange of stock, ordinarily taxable to the shareholder as a capital gain. Finally, § 316(a) defines “dividend” as
“any distribution of property made by a corporation to its shareholders—
“(1) out of its earnings and profits accumulated after February 28, 1913, or
“(2) out of its earnings and profits of the taxable year (computed as of the close of the taxable year without diminution by reason of any distributions made during the taxable year), without regard to the amount of the earnings and profits at the time the distribution was made.”
Sections 301 and 316(a) together thus make the existence of “earnings and profits” the decisive fact in determining the tax consequences of distributions from a corporation to a shareholder with respect to his stock. This requirement of “relating the tax status of corporate distributions to earnings and profits is responsive to a felt need for protecting returns of capital from tax.” 4 Bittker & Lokken ¶ 92.1.1, at 92-3.
II
In this criminal tax proceeding, petitioner Michael Boulware was charged with several counts of tax evasion and filing a false income tax return, stemming from his diversion of funds from Hawaiian Isles Enterprises (HIE), a closely held corporation of which he was the president, founder, and controlling (though not sole) shareholder. At trial, the United States sought to establish that Boulware had received taxable income by “systematically diverting] funds from HIE in order to support a lavish lifestyle.” 384 F. 3d 794, 799 (CA9 2004). The Government’s evidence showed that
“[Boulware] gave millions of dollars of HIE money to his girlfriend... and millions of dollars to his wife... without reporting any of this money on his personal income tax returns.... [H]e siphoned off this money primarily by writing checks to employees and friends and having them return the cash to him, by diverting payments by HIE customers, by submitting fraudulent invoices to HIE, and by laundering HIE money through companies in the Kingdom of Tonga and Hong Kong.” Ibid.
In defense, Boulware sought to introduce evidence that HIE had no retained or current earnings and profits in the relevant taxable years, with the consequence (he argued) that he in effect received distributions of property that must have been returns of capital, up to his basis in his stock. See § 301(c)(2). Because the return of capital was nontaxable, the argument went, the Government could not establish the tax deficiency required to convict him.
The Government moved in limine to bar evidence in support of Boulware’s return-of-capital theory, on the grounds of “irrelevance] in [this] criminal tax case,” App. 20. The Government relied on the Ninth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Miller, 545 F. 2d 1204 (1976), in which that court held that in a criminal tax evasion case, a diversion of funds may be deemed a return of capital only after “some demonstration on the part of the taxpayer and/or the corporation that such [a distribution was] intended to be such a return,” id., at 1215. Boulware, the Government argued, had offered to make no such demonstration. App. 21.
The District Court granted the Government’s motion, and when Boulware sought “to present evidence of [HIE’s] alleged over-reporting of income, and an offer of proof relating to the issue of... dividends,” id., at 135, the District Court denied his request. The court said that “[n]ot only would much of [his proffered] evidence be excludable as expert legal opinion, it is plainly insufficient under the Miller case,” id., at 138, and accordingly declined to instruct the jury on Boulware’s return-of-capital theory. The jury rejected his alternative defenses (that the diverted funds were nontaxable corporate advances or loans, or that he used the moneys for corporate purposes), and found him guilty on nine counts, four of tax evasion and five of filing a false return.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. 470 F. 3d 931 (2006). It acknowledged that “imposing an intent requirement creates a disconnect between civil and criminal liability,” but thought that under Miller, “the characterization of diverted corporate funds for civil tax purposes does not dictate their characterization for purposes of a criminal tax evasion charge.” 470 F. 3d, at 934. The court held the test in a criminal case to be “whether the defendant has willfully attempted to evade the payment or assessment of a tax.” Ibid. Because Boulware “‘presented no concrete proof that the amounts were considered, intended, or recorded on the corporate records as a return of capital at the time they were made,’ ” id., at 935 (quoting Miller, supra, at 1215), the Ninth Circuit held that Boulware’s proffer was “properly rejected... as inadequate,” 470 F. 3d, at 935.
Judge Thomas concurred because the panel was bound by Miller, but noted that “Miller — and now the majority opinion — hold that a defendant may be criminally sanctioned for tax evasion without owing a penny in taxes to the government.” 470 F. 3d, at 938. That, he said, not only “indicate[s] a logical fallacy, but is in flat contradiction with the tax evasion statute’s requirement... of a tax deficiency.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted).
We granted certiorari, 551 U. S. 1191 (2007), to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeals over the application of §§ 301 and 316(a) to informally transferred or diverted corporate funds in criminal tax proceedings. We now vacate and remand.
III
A
The colorful behavior described in the allegations requires a reminder that tax classifications like “dividend” and “return of capital” turn on “the objective economic realities of a transaction rather than... the particular form the parties employed,” Frank Lyon Co. v. United States, 435 U. S. 561, 573 (1978); a “given result at the end of a straight path is not made a different result... by following a devious path,” Minnesota Tea Co. v. Helvering, 302 U. S. 609, 613 (1938). As for distributions with respect to stock, in economic reality a shareholder’s informal receipt of corporate property “may be as effective a means of distributing profits among stockholders as the formal declaration of a dividend,” Palmer v. Commissioner, 302 U. S. 63, 69 (1937), or as effective a means of returning a shareholder’s capital, see ibid. Accordingly, “[a] distribution to a shareholder in his capacity as such... is subject to §301 even though it is not declared in formal fashion.” B. Bittker & J. Eustice, Federal Income Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders ¶ 8.05[1], pp. 8-36 to 8-37 (6th ed. 1999) (hereinafter Bittker & Eustice); see also Gardner, The Tax Consequences of Shareholder Diversions in Close Corporations, 21 Tax L. Rev. 223, 239 (1966) (hereinafter Gardner) (“Sections 316 and 301 do not require any formal path to be taken by a corporation in order for those provisions to apply”).
There is no reason to doubt that economic substance remains the right touchstone for characterizing funds received when a shareholder diverts them before they can be recorded on the corporation’s books. While they “never even pass through the corporation’s hands,” Bittker & Eustice ¶ 8.05[9], at 8-51, even diverted funds may be seen as dividends or capital distributions for purposes of §§301 and 316(a), see Truesdell v. Commissioner, 89 T. C. 1280 (1987) (treating diverted funds as “constructive” distributions in civil tax proceedings). The point, again, is that “taxation is not so much concerned with the refinements of title as it is with actual command over the property taxed — the actual benefit for which the tax is paid.” Corliss v. Bowers, 281 U. S. 376, 378 (1930); see also Griffiths v. Commissioner, 308 U. S. 355, 358 (1939).
B
Miller’s view that a criminal defendant may not treat a distribution as a return of capital without evidence of a eorresponding contemporaneous intent sits uncomfortably not only with the tax law’s economic realism, but with the particular wording of §§ 301 and 316(a), as well. As those sections are written, the tax consequences of a “distribution by a corporation with respect to its stock” depend, not on anyone’s purpose to return capital or to get it back, but on facts wholly independent of intent: whether the corporation had earnings and profits, and the amount of the taxpayer’s basis for his stock. Cf. Truesdell v. Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Action on Decision 1988-25, 1988 WL 570761 (Sept. 12, 1988) (recommendation regarding acquiescence), IRS Non Docketed Service Advice Review, 1989 WL 1172952 (Mar. 15,1989) (reply to request for reconsideration) (“[Ijntent is irrelevant.... [E]very distribution made with respect to a shareholder’s stock is taxable as ordinary income, capital gain, or not at all pursuant to section 301(c) dependent upon the corporation’s earnings and profits and the shareholder’s stock basis. The determination is computational and not dependent upon intent”).
When the Miller court went the other way, needless to say, it could claim no textual hook for the contemporaneous intent requirement, but argued for it as the way to avoid two supposed anomalies. First, the court thought that applying §§301 and 316(a) in criminal cases unnecessarily emphasizes the exact amount of deficiency while “completely ignoring] one essential element of the crime charged: the willful intent to evade taxes....” 545 F. 2d, at 1214. But there is an analytical mistake here. Willfulness is an element of the crimes charged because the substantive provisions defining tax evasion and filing a false return expressly require it, see § 7201 (“[a]ny person who willfully attempts... ”); § 7206(1) (“[w]illfully makes and subscribes... ”). The element of willfulness is addressed at trial by requiring the Government to prove it. Nothing in §§ 301 and 316(a) as written (that is, without an intent requirement) relieves the Government of this burden of proving willfulness or impedes it from doing so if evidence of willfulness is there. Those two sections as written simply address a different element of criminal evasion, the existence of a tax deficiency, and both deficiency and willfulness can be addressed straightforwardly (in jury instructions or bench findings) without tacking an intent requirement onto the rule distinguishing dividends from capital returns.
Second, the Miller court worried that if a defendant could claim capital treatment without showing a corresponding and contemporaneous intent,
“[a] taxpayer who diverted funds from his close corporation when it was in the midst of a financial difficulty and had no earnings and profits would be immune from punishment (to the extent of his basis in the stock) for failure to report such sums as income; while that very same taxpayer would be convicted if the corporation had experienced a successful year and had earnings and profits.” 545 F. 2d, at 1214.
“Such a result,” said the court, “would constitute an extreme example of form over substance.” Ibid. The Circuit thus assumed that a taxpayer like Boulware could be convicted of evasion with no showing of deficiency from an unreported dividend or capital gain.
But the acquittal that the author of Miller called form trumping substance would in fact result from the Government’s failure to prove an element of the crime. There is no criminal tax evasion without a tax deficiency, see supra, at 424, and there is no deficiency owing to a distribution (received with respect to a corporation’s stock) if a corporation has no earnings and profits and the value distributed does not exceed the taxpayer-shareholder’s basis for his stock. Thus the fact that a shareholder distributee of a successful corporation may have different tax liability from a shareholder of a corporation without earnings and profits merely follows from the way §§301 and 316(a) are written (to distinguish dividend from capital return), and from the requirement of tax deficiency for a § 7201 crime. Without the deficiency there is nothing but some act expressing the will to evade, and, under § 7201, acting on “bad intentions, alone, [is] not punishable,” United States v. D’Agostino, 145 F. 3d 69, 73 (CA2 1998).
It is neither here nor there whether the. Miller court was justified in thinking it would improve things to convict more of the evasively inclined by dropping the deficiency requirement and finding some other device to exempt returns of capital. Even if there were compelling reasons to extend § 7201 to cases in which no taxes are owed, it bears repeating that “[t]he spirit of the doctrine which denies to the federal judiciary power to create crimes forthrightly admonishes that we should not enlarge the reach of enacted crimes by constituting them from anything less than the incriminating components contemplated by the words used in the statute,” Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952) (opinion for the Court by Jackson, J.) (footnote omitted). If §301, § 316(a), or § 7201 could stand amending, Congress will have to do the rewriting.
C
Not only is Miller devoid of the support claimed for it, but it suffers the demerit of some anomalies of its own. First and most obviously, §§ 301 and 316 are odd stalks for grafting a contemporaneous intent requirement, given the fact that the correct application of their rules will often become known only at the end of the corporation’s tax year, regardless of the shareholder’s or corporation’s understanding months earlier when a particular distribution may have been made. Section 316(a)(2) conditions treating a distribution as a constructive dividend by reference to earnings and profits, and earnings and profits are to be “computed as of the close of the taxable year... without regard to the amount of the earnings and profits at the time the distribution was made.” A corporation may make a deliberate distribution to a shareholder, with everyone expecting a profitable year and considering the distribution to be a dividend, only to have the shareholder end up liable for no tax if the company closes out its tax year in the red (so long as the shareholder’s basis covers the distribution); when such facts are clear at the time the reporting forms and returns are filed, the shareholder does not violate § 7201 by paying no tax on the moneys received, intent being beside the point. And since intent to make a distribution a taxable one cannot control, it would be odd to condition nontaxable return-of-capital treatment on contemporaneous intent, when the statute says nothing about intent at all.
The intent interpretation is strange for another reason, too (a reason in some tension with the Ninth Circuit’s assumption that an unreported distribution without contemporaneous intent to return capital will support a conviction for evasion). The text of § 301(a) ostensibly provides for all variations of tax treatment of distributions received with respect to a corporation’s stock unless a separate provision of the Code requires otherwise. Yet Miller effectively converts the section into one of merely partial coverage, with the result of leaving one class of distributions in a tax status limbo in criminal cases. That is, while § 301(a) expressly provides that distributions made by a corporation to a shareholder with respect to its stock “shall be treated in the manner provided in [§ 301(c)],” under Miller, a distribution from a corporation without earnings and profits would fail to be a return of capital for lack of contemporaneous intent to treat it that way; but to the extent that distribution did not exceed the taxpayer’s basis for the stock (and thus become a capital gain), § 301(a) would leave the distribution unaccounted for.
It is no answer to say that § 61(a) of the Code would step in where § 301(a) has been pushed out. Although § 61(a) defines gross income, “[e]xcept as otherwise provided,” as “all income from whatever source derived,” the plain text of § 301(a) does provide otherwise for distributions made with respect to stock. So using § 61(a) as a stopgap would only sanction yet another eccentricity: § 301(a) would be held not to cover what its text says it “shall” (the class of distributions made with respect to stock for which no other more specific provision is made), while § 61(a) would need to be applied to what by its terms it should not be (a receipt of funds for which tax treatment is “otherwise provided” in § 301(a)).
The implausibility of a statutory reading that either creates a tax limbo or forces resort to an atextual stopgap is all the clearer from the Ninth Circuit’s discussion in this case of its own understanding of the consequences of Miller’s rule: the court openly acknowledged that “imposing an intent requirement creates a disconnect between civil and criminal liability,” 470 F. 3d, at 934. In construing distribution rules that draw no distinction in terms of criminal or civil consequences, the disparity of treatment assumed by the Court of Appeals counts heavily against its contemporaneous intent construction (quite apart from the Circuit’s understanding that its interpretation entails criminal liability for evasion without any showing of a tax deficiency).
Miller erred in requiring a contemporaneous intent to treat the receipt of corporate funds as a return of capital, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals here, relying on Miller, is likewise erroneous.
IV
The Government has raised nothing that calls for affirmance in the face of the Court of Appeals’s reliance on Miller. The United States does not defend differential treatment of criminal and civil cases, see Brief for United States 24, and it thus stops short of fully defending the Ninth Circuit’s treatment. The Government’s argument, instead, is that we should affirm under the rule that before any distribution may be treated as a return of capital (or, by a parity of reasoning, a dividend), it must first be distributed to the shareholder “with respect to... stock.” Id., at 19 (internal quotation marks omitted). The taxpayer’s intent, the Government says, may be relevant to this limiting condition, and Boulware never expressly claimed any such intent. See ibid. (“[I]ntent is... relevant to whether a payment is a ‘distribution... with respect to [a corporation’s] stock’ ”); but see Tr. of Oral Arg. 44 (“[J]ust to be clear, the Government is arguing for an objective test here”).
The Government is of course correct that “with respect to... stock” is a limiting condition in § 301(a). See supra, at 424-425. As the Government variously says, it requires that “the distribution of property by the corporation be made to a shareholder because of his ownership of its stock,” Brief for United States 16; and that “ ‘an amount paid by a corporation to a shareholder [be] paid to the shareholder in his capacity as such,”’ ibid,, (quoting 26 CFR §1.301-l(c) (2007); emphasis deleted).
This, however, is not the time or place to home in on the “with respect to... stock” condition. Facts with a bearing on it may range from the distribution of stock ownership to conditions of corporate employment (whether, for example, a shareholder’s efforts on behalf of a corporation amount to a good reason to treat a payment of property as salary). The facts in this case have yet to be raked over with the stock ownership condition in mind, since Miller seems to have pretermitted a full consideration of the defensive proffer, and if consideration is to be given to that condition now, the canvas of evidence and Boulware’s proffer should be made by a court familiar with the whole evidentiary record.
As a more specific version of its “with respect to... stock” position, the Government says that the diversions of corporate funds to Boulware were in fact unlawful, see Brief for United States 34-37; see also n. 5, supra, and it argues that §§301 and 316(a) are inapplicable to illegal transfers, see Brief for United States 34—37; see also D’Agostino, 145 F. 3d, at 73 (“[T]he 'no earnings and profits, no income’ rule would not necessarily apply in a case of unlawful diversion, such as embezzlement, theft, a violation of corporate law, or an attempt to defraud third party creditors” (emphasis in original)); see also n. 8, supra. The Government goes so far as to claim that “[t]he only rational basis for the jury’s judgment was a conclusion that [Boulware] unlawfully diverted the funds.” Brief for United States 37.
But we decline to take up the question whether an unlawful diversion may ever be deemed a “distribution... with respect to [a corporation’s] stock,” a question which was not considered by the Ninth Circuit. We do, however, reject the Government’s current characterization of the jury verdict in Boulware’s case. True, the jurors were not moved by Boulware’s suggestion that the diversions were corporate advances or loans, or that he was using the funds for corporate purposes. But the jury was not asked, and cannot be said to have answered, whether Boulware breached any fiduciary duty as a controlling shareholder, unlawfully diverted corporate funds to defraud his wife, or embezzled HIE’s funds outright.
V
Sections 301 and 316(a) govern the tax consequences of constructive distributions made by a corporation to a shareholder with respect to its stock. A defendant in a criminal tax case does not need to show a contemporaneous intent to treat diversions as returns of capital before relying on those sections to demonstrate no taxes are owed. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the ease is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
A related provision, 26 U. S. C. §7206(1), criminalizes the willful filing of a tax return believed to be materially false. See n. 9, infra.
“[T]he elements of § 7201 are willfulness[,] the existence of a tax deficiency,... and an affirmative act constituting an evasion or attempted evasion of the tax.” Sansone v. United States, 380 U. S. 343, 351 (1965). The Courts of Appeals have divided over whether the Government must prove the tax deficiency is “substantial,” see United States v. Daniels, 387 F. 3d 636, 640-641, and n. 2 (CA7 2004) (collecting cases); we do not address that issue here.
Although the Code does not “comprehensively define ‘earnings and profits,’ ” 4 B. Bittker & L. Lokken, Federal Taxation of Income, Estates and Gifts ¶ 92.1.3, p. 92-6 (3d ed. 2003) (hereinafter Bittker & Lokken), the “[provisions of the Code and regulations relating to earnings and profits ordinarily take taxable income as the point of departure,” id,., at 92-9.
The trial at issue in this case was actually Boulware’s second trial on §§ 7201 and 7206(1) charges, his convictions on those counts in an earlier trial having been vacated by the Ninth Circuit for reasons not at issue here, see 384 F. 3d 794 (2004). In that earlier trial, Boulware was also convicted of conspiracy to make false statements to a federally insured financial institution, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 371. The Ninth Circuit affirmed Boulware’s conspiracy conviction that first time around, however, so the present trial did not include a conspiracy charge.
Judge Thomas went on to say that the Government would prevail even without Miller’s rule because, in his view, Boulware’s diversions were “unlawful,” and the return-of-eapital rules would not apply to diversions made for unlawful purposes. See 470 F. 3d, at 938-939.
As noted, the Ninth Circuit holds that §§301 and 316(a) are not to be consulted in a criminal tax evasion case until the defendant produces evidence of an intent to treat diverted funds as a return of capital at the time it was made. See 470 F. 3d 931 (2006) (case below). By contrast, the Second Circuit allows a criminal defendant to invoke §§301 and 316(a) without evidence of a contemporaneous intent to treat such moneys as returns of capital. See United States v. Bok, 156 F. 3d 157, 162 (1998) (“[I]n return of capital eases, a taxpayer’s intent is not determinative in defining the taxpayer’s conduct”). Meanwhile, the Third, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits arguably have taken the position that §§ 301 and 316(a) are altogether inapplicable in criminal tax eases involving informal distributions. See United States v. Williams, 875 F. 2d 846,850-852 (CA11 1989); United States v. Goldberg, 330 F. 2d 30, 38 (CA3 1964); Davis v. United States, 226 F. 2d 331, 334-335 (CA6 1955); but see Brief for Petitioner 16 (“[T]hese cases can be read to address the allocation of the burden of proof on the return of capital issue, rather than the applicable substantive principles”).
We have also recognized that “[t]he legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted.” Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U. S. 465, 469 (1935). The rule is a two-way street: “while a taxpayer is free to organize his affairs as he chooses, nevertheless, once having done so, he must accept the tax consequences of his choice, whether contemplated or not,... and may not enjoy the benefit of some other route he might have chosen to follow but did not,” Commissioner v. National Alfalfa Dehydrating & Milling Co., 417 U. S. 134, 149 (1974); see also id., at 148 (referring to “the established tax principle that a transaction is to be given its tax effect in accord with what actually occurred and not in accord with what might have occurred”); Founders Gen. Corp. v. Hoey, 300 U. S. 268, 275 (1937) (“To make the taxability of the transaction depend upon the determination whether there existed an alternative form which the statute did not tax would create burden and uncertainty”). The question here, of course, is not whether alternative routes may have offered better or worse tax consequences, see generally Isenbergh, Review: Musings on Form and Substance in Taxation, 49 U. Chi. L. Rev. 859 (1982); rather, it is “whether what was done... was the thing which the statute[, here §§301 and 316(a),] intended,” Gregory, supra, at 469.
Thus in the period between this Court’s decisions in Commissioner v. Wilcox, 327 U. S. 404 (1946) (holding embezzled funds to be nontaxable to the embezzler), and James v. United States, 366 U. S. 213 (1961) (overruling Wilcox, holding embezzled funds to be taxable income), the Government routinely argued that diverted funds were “constructive distributions,” taxable to the recipient as dividends. See generally Gardner 237 (‘While Wilcox was good law, the safest way to insure that both the corporation and the shareholder would be taxed on their respective gain from the diverted funds was to label them dividends”); 4 Bittker & Lokken ¶ 92.2(7), at 92-23, n. 37.
Boulware was also convicted of violating § 7206(1), which makes it a felony “[w]illfully [to] mak[e] and subscribe] any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which [the taxpayer] does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter.” He argues that if the Ninth Circuit erred, its error calls into question not only his § 7201 conviction, but his § 7206(1) conviction as well. Brief for Petitioner 15-16. Although the Courts of Appeals are unanimous in holding that § 7206(1) “does not require the prosecution to prove the existence of a tax deficiency,” United States v. Tarwater, 308 F. 3d 494, 504 (CA6 2002); see also United States v. Peters, 153 F. 3d 445, 461 (CA7 1998) (collecting cases), it is arguable that “the nature and character of the funds received can be critical in determining whether... §7206(1) has been violated, [even if] proof of a tax deficiency is unnecessary,” 11. Comisky, L. Feld, & S. Harris, Tax Fraud & Evasion ¶ 2.03[5], p. 21 (2007); see also Brief for Petitioner 15-16. The Government does not argue that Boulware’s §§ 7201 and 7206(1) convictions should be treated differently at this stage of the proceedings, however, and we will accede to the Government’s working assumption here that the §§ 7201 and 7206(1) convictions stand or fall together.
“A better [method of exempting returns of capital from taxation] could no doubt be devised.” 4 Bittker & Lokken ¶ 92.1.1, at 92-3; see ibid. (suggesting, for example, that “all receipts from a corporation could be treated as taxable income, and a correction for any resulting overtaxation could be made in computing gain or loss when stock is sold, exchanged, or becomes worthless”); see also Andrews, “Out of its Earnings and Profits”: Some Reflections on the Taxation of Dividends, 69 Harv. L. Rev. 1403, 1439 (1956) (criticizing the earnings and profits concept “[a]s a device for separating income from return of capital,” and suggesting that “[distributions which ought to be treated as return of capital [could] be brought within the concept of a partial liquidation by special provision”).
Sometimes these facts are not clear, and in certain circumstances a corporation may be required to assume it is profitable. For example, the instructions to IRS Form 1099-DIV provide that when a corporation is unsure whether it has sufficient earnings and profits at the end of the taxable year to cover a distribution to shareholders, “the entire payment must be reported as a dividend.” See http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/ il099div.pdf (as visited Feb. 15, 2008, and available in Clerk of Court’s ease file).
Another limiting condition is that the diversion of funds must be a “distribution” in the first place (regardless of the “with respect to stock” limitation), see supra, at 429-430, though the Government is content to assume that § 301(a)’s “distribution” language is capacious enough to cover the diversions involved here, and that if Boulware bears the burden of production in going forward with the defense that the funds he received constituted a “distribution” within the meaning of § 301(a), see n. 14, infra, that burden has been met. Nor does the Government dispute that Boulware offered sufficient evidence of his basis and HIE’s lack of earnings and profits. See Brief for United States 34, n. 11.
See, e. g., Truesdell v. Commissioner, IRS Non Docketed Service Advice Review, 1989 WL 1172952 (Mar. 15, 1989) (“We believe a corporation and its shareholders have a common objective — to earn a profit for the corporation to pass onto its shareholders. Especially where the corporation is wholly owned by one shareholder, the corporation becomes the alter ego of the shareholder in his profit making capacity.... [B]y passing corporate funds to himself as shareholder, a sole shareholder is acting in pursuit of these common objectives”). We note, however, that although Boulware was not a sole shareholder, the Tax Court has taken it as “well settled that a distribution of corporate earnings to shareholders may constitute a dividend,” and so a return of capital as well, “notwithstanding that it is not in proportion to stockholdings.” Dellinger v. Commissioner, 32 T.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 present problems in the interpretation of § 456 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, a section of the Excess Profits Tax Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 1137. The Act, which is intended to tax at high rates unusually high profits earned during the Korean War, imposes a tax on profits in excess of an amount deemed to represent the taxpayer’s normal profits. Recognizing, however, that some profits otherwise subject to tax under this scheme might stem from causes other than the inflated wartime economy, Congress enacted § 456. This section grants relief in certain cases of “abnormal income” as defined in § 456 (a) by allocating some of this income to years other than those in which it was received for purposes of computing the tax.
The dispute in these cases is whether income from the sales of certain new products falls within the statutory definition of “abnormal income.” Taxpayers claim that the income from the sales of their products is income resulting from “discovery.” They claim it is therefore “abnormal income” within the class defined by § 456 (a) (2) (B) as
“Income resulting from exploration, discovery, or prospecting, or any combination of the foregoing, extending over a period of more than 12 months.”
Taxpayer in No. 151 is a corporation engaged in the manufacture and marketing of drugs. As a result of research extending for more than 12 months, it produced two new drugs, “Banthine,” used in the treatment of peptic ulcers, and “Dramamine,” for relief from motion sickness. Taxpayer received patents on both drugs, and it asserts that both were new products and not merely improvements on pre-existing compounds. Taxpayer received income from the sale of “Banthine” and “Dramamine” in the years 1950 through 1952. It paid its tax without claiming relief under § 456, and then claimed a refund. On denial of its claim, taxpayer filed a complaint in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The District Court dismissed the complaint, but the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed. It held that “discovery” might include the preparation of new products and that the case must be remanded for a trial on the issue of whether taxpayer’s drugs “were actually discoveries.” 274 F. 2d 129,131.
Taxpayer in No. 169 is the inventor and producer of the “Polaroid Land Process,” a camera and film which produce a photograph in 60 seconds, and the “Polaroid 3-D Synthetic Polarizer,” a device incorporated in the “viewers” through which audiences watched the three dimensional motion pictures in vogue some years ago. These inventions, each the product of more than 12 months’ research, are novel, according to taxpayer, and each has been patented. The Polaroid Land equipment was the subject of 238 patents by the end of 1958, and taxpayer characterizes this invention as “revolutionary.” Its production was a new departure in the business of taxpayer, which had hitherto been engaged primarily in manufacturing and selling such optical products as polarizing sunglasses, visors and camera filters. In its returns for 1951 through 1953 taxpayer utilized the provisions of § 456 in computing its tax on income from the sales of its photographic equipment and 3-D polarizers. The Commissioner determined that § 456 was not applicable, and the Tax Court upheld his determination of a deficiency. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed, holding that taxpayer’s inventions were not “discoveries” and its income from their sale not “abnormal income.” 278 F. 2d 148.
We granted certiorari in each case to resolve the conflict between the decisions of the First and Seventh Circuits. 364 U. S. 812, 813.
I.
For present purposes we accept, as did the First Circuit, taxpayers’ assertions of the novelty of their products. But we also agree with that court that taxpayers’ inventions are not “discoveries” as that word is used in § 456 (a) (2) (B) and that income from sales of the new products may not receive the special treatment provided by § 456.
We look first to the face of the statute. “Discovery” is a word usable in many contexts and with various shades of meaning. Here, however, it does not stand alone, but gathers meaning from the words around it. These words strongly suggest that a precise and narrow application was intended in § 456. The three words in conjunction, “exploration,” “discovery” and “prospecting,” all describe income-producing activity in the oil and gas and mining industries, but it is difficult to conceive of any other industry to which they all apply. Certainly the development and manufacture of drugs and cameras are not such industries. The maxim noscitur a sociis, that a word is known by the company it keeps, while not an inescapable rule, is often wisely applied where a word is capable of many meanings in order to avoid the giving of unintended breadth to the Acts of Congress. See, e. g., Neal v. Clark, 95 U. S. 704, 708-709. The application of the maxim here leads to the conclusion that “discovery” in § 456 means only the discovery of mineral resources.
When we examine further the construction of §456 (a)(2) and compare subparagraphs (B) and (C), it becomes unmistakably clear that “discovery” was not meant to include the development of patentable products. If “discovery” were so wide in scope, there would be no need for the provision in subparagraph (C) for “Income from the sale of patents, formulae, or processes.” All of this income, under taxpayers’ reading of “discovery,” would also be income “resulting from . . . discovery” within subparagraph (B). To borrow the homely metaphor of Judge Aldrich in the First Circuit, “If there is a big hole in the fence for the big cat, need there be a small hole for the small one?” The statute admits a reasonable construction which gives effect to all of its provisions. In these circumstances we will not adopt a strained reading which renders one part a mere redundancy. See, e. g., United States v. Menasche, 348 U. S. 528, 538-539.
Taxpayers assert that it is the “ordinary meaning” of “discovery” which must govern. We find ample evidence both on the face of the statute and, as we shall show, in its legislative history that a technical usage was intended. But even if we were without such evidence we should find it difficult to believe that Congress intended to apply the layman’s meaning of “discovery” to describe the products of research. To do so would lead to the necessity of drawing a line between things found and things made, for in ordinary present-day usage things revealed are discoveries, but new fabrications are inventions. It would appear senseless for Congress to adopt this usage, to provide relief for income from discoveries and yet make no provision for income from inventions. Perhaps in the patent law “discovery” has the uncommonly wide meaning taxpayers suggest, but the fields of patents and taxation are each lores unto themselves, and the usage in the patent law (which is by no means entirely in taxpayers’ favor) is unpersuasive here. All the evidence is to the effect that Congress did not intend to introduce the difficult distinction between inventions and discoveries into the excess profits tax law.
The relevant legislative history fortifies the conclusions to which the words of the statute lead us. The word “discovery” has been used for many years in the tax laws, and has always been used with the limited meaning of the finding of mineral deposits. In the Revenue Act of 1918, enacting one of the earliest excess profits tax laws, a limit was placed on the excess profits tax on income from “a bona fide sale of mines, oil or gas wells, or any interest therein, where the principal value of the property has been demonstrated by prospecting or exploration and discovery work done by the taxpayer.” Revenue Act of 1918, § 337, 40 Stat. 1096. An identical limitation was imposed on the income tax levied under that Act, and the same usage of “discovery” obtained in the allowance of depletion deductions. The limitation on the income tax on the proceeds of the sale of mineral deposits was re-enacted without significant change in the Revenue Acts of 1921, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1932, 1936 and 1938. It remains in the income tax provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 as § 105 and has been carried forward as § 632 of the 1954 Code. In each re-enactment “discovery” is linked with “exploration” and “prospecting,” and in each the word is restrictively applied to extractive industries. A correspondingly narrow use of “discovery” has continued since 1918 in the depletion allowance sections and appears in § 114 (b) (2) of the 1939 Code. In the more than 30 years preceding the enactment of the section here at issue, during which time “discovery” was used and re-used in successive taxing statutes, the .word developed into a term of art of precise and limited meaning.
The Excess Profits Tax Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 975, made specific mention of more types of “abnormal income” qualifying for relief than did the earlier excess profits tax statutes, but there is no indication that it worked any transformation in the meaning of “discovery.”- Section 721, 54 Stat. 986, as amended, 55 Stat. 21, classified six types of “abnormal income.” Among them was the following, at § 721 (a) (2) (C):
“Income resulting from exploration, discovery, prospecting, research, or development of tangible property, patents, formulae, or processes, or any combination of the foregoing, extending over a period of more than 12 months.”
This was the first time specific provision was made for income from invention, relief in cases of such income having previously been obtainable, if at all, only under the “general relief” provisions, of the earlier Acts. It is instructive that the formula “exploration, discovery, or prospecting” was not considered broad enough to cover invention and that the words “research” and “development” were added to cover that source of income. Plainly, “discovery” retained in the World War II excess profits Act the limited meaning which it had had in the previous Acts and which it continued to have in the income tax provisions of the then-current code.
The relief provisions of the Excess Profits Tax Act of 1950, which we here construe, were modeled in part on § 721 of the World War II Act, but were different in significant respects. In the classifications of income in the new § 456, Congress gave separate treatment to income from discovery of minerals and income from invention. It provided relief in subparagraph (B) for “Income resulting from exploration, discovery, or prospecting,” but provided in subparagraph (C) only for “Income from the sale of patents, formulae, or processes.” (Emphasis added.) Subparagraph (C) does not encompass all income from inventions. It does not cover income from the sale of products made under a new patent, the sort of income at issue here. Taxpayers assert that the income from their inventions is, realistically speaking, as “abnormal” in their businesses as the discovery of a new mine would be in the business of a prospector. Their income is within the spirit of § 456, they say, and should be held to be within the letter of subparagraph (B). It is clear, however, that Congress, while it may have recognized the abnormal nature of this sort of income, chose deliberately to deny relief for it and to limit relief in cases of research and development to that provided in subparagraph (C).
The relief provisions of the World War II Act had been intended to provide “flexible rules,” and their application had often been an uncertain affair. In administering § 721 the Commissioner often faced the difficult task of separating income which was the product of “research, or development” from that resulting merely from improved management or sales efforts." The difficulty of distinction led the Tax Court to hold that the distinction must be made “by exercising common sense and judgment,” and that “It is entirely possible that the allocation made by one person would never match that made by another.” Ramsey Accessories Mfg. Corp. v. Commissioner, 10 T. C. 482, 489. Congress in 1950 recognized the delay and uncertainty caused by the element of administrative discretion in this and other sections and set about drafting an excess profits tax law on the principle that “subjective judgments . . . should be avoided in the new law.” H. R. Rep. No. 3142, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 20. This principle was expressly followed in the drafting of § 456. Thb Senate Committee reported on § 456 as follows:
“The equivalent provision in the World War II law (sec. 721) also permitted adjustments with reference to certain other types of income, particularly that resulting from the sale of tangible property arising out of research and development which extended over a period of more than 12 months. This provision in the old law was a potential loophole of major dimensions. Because there appeared to be no means of restricting such an adjustment to truly meritorious cases other than by the introduction of a large degree of administrative discretion of the type required by the general relief clause of the World War II law (sec. 722), and because the need for a reallocation of such income seemed to be materially less than for' the other classes of income described above, the bill omits this item from the list of abnormal types of income for which a reallocation can be made.” S. Rep. No. 2679, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 14.
The House Committee Report was virtually identical. H. R. Rep. No. 3142, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 13.
Taxpayers recognize, as they must, that Congress intended its change in language to limit the kinds of income eligible for relief. They say, however, that not all income from research and development was excluded. That which comes from inventions not merely patentable but also sufficiently revolutionary to be called “genuine discoveries” is still within the protection of § 456. We find it impossible to believe that an amendment designed to eliminate uncertainty and administrative discretion would introduce into the law — without a congressional word of warning or explanation — a distinction as vague, as dependent upon nuances of scientific opinion, and as unprecedented as that urged by taxpayers.
II.
Taxpayers have another argument, which the First Circuit rejected and which the Seventh Circuit did not reach. Paragraph (1) of § 456 (a) defines “abnormal income” as “income of any class described in paragraph (2)” which meets certain requirements. Paragraph (2) lists four classes of income and provides in its concluding sentence:
“The classification of income of any class not described in subparagraphs (A) to (D), inclusive, shall be subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary.”
Taxpayers argue that even if the income here at issue was not provided for under any of the subparagraphs of paragraph (2), it is nevertheless included within this final sentence and is hence eligible for relief.
We need not decide the precise effect of the sentence relied on. In light of the clear purpose of Congress in enacting § 456 to cut down not only the amount of administrative discretion which had prevailed under the predecessor section but also the scope of available relief, the power of the Secretary to extend relief far beyond the four corners of the statute may be doubted. It is sufficient to note that, unlike its predecessor (which made relief available for all “abnormal income,” whether or not specified in a particular class), § 456 applies only to those classes specified in §456 (a)(2). Section 456 does not apply in terms to all abnormal income and contains no indication that the Secretary should create administrative classifications embracing all such income. And even if the sentence relied on gives the Secretary power to expand the classes of abnormal income somewhat beyond the four enumerated in the statute, he has clearly not done so here. The regulations specifically provide that “Income from the sale of tangible property arising out of research and development which extended over a period of more than 12 months is not included in the list of abnormal types of income to which section 456 is applicable, and such income may not constitute a class of income for purposes of that section.” This specific exclusion is clearly in furtherance of the purpose of Congress in deleting “research” and “development” income from its classification of abnormal income. The Commissioner, effecting the will of Congress, has barred relief for the type of income here at issue.
The last sentence of the regulation, on which taxpayers also rely, does not aid them. It provides merely that “research” and “development” income is eligible for relief if it is properly includible in a class of income to which § 456 otherwise applies. As we have held, however, taxpayers’ income does not fall within any such class.
Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit must be reversed and the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed.
It is so ordered.
See H. R. Rep. No. 3142, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 2; S. Rep. No. 2679, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 2.
Section 456 (a) provides in part:
“(a) DEFINITIONS. — For the purposes of this section—
“(1) Abnormal income. — The term ‘abnormal income’ means income of any class described in paragraph (2) includible in the gross income of the taxpayer for any taxable year under this subchapter if it is abnormal for the taxpayer to derive income of such class, or, if the taxpayer normally derives income of such class but the amount of such income of such class includible in the gross income of the taxable year is in excess of 115 per centum of the average amount of the gross income of the same class for the four previous taxable years, or, if the taxpayer was not in existence for four previous taxable years, the taxable years during which the taxpayer was in existence.
“(2) Separate classes of income. — Each of the following sub-paragraphs shall be held to describe a separate class of income:
“(A) Income arising out of a claim, award, judgment, or decree, or interest on any of the foregoing; or
“(B) Income resulting from exploration, discovery, or prospecting, or any combination of the foregoing, extending over a period of more than 12 months; or
“(C) Income from the sale of patents, formulae, or processes, or any combination of the foregoing, developed over a period of more than 12 months; or
“(D) Income includible in gross income for the taxable year rather than for a different taxable year by reason of a change in the taxpayer’s method of accounting.
“All the income which is classifiable in more than one of such subparagraphs shall be classified under the one which the taxpayer irrevocably elects. The classification of income of any class not described in subparagraphs (A) to (D), inclusive, shall be subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary.”
In lay terms, Polaroid’s photographic equipment and Searle’s drugs are probably better called inventions than discoveries. Webster’s New International Dictionary, Unabridged (2d ed.) p. 745, makes this distinction: “One discovers what existed before, but had remained unknown; one invents by forming combinations which are either entirely new, or which attain their end by means unknown before; as, Columbus discovered America; Newton discovered the law of gravitation; Edison invented the phonograph
The United States Constitution, Art. I, § 8, cl. 8 gives Congress the power to secure to “Inventors the exclusive Right to their . . . Discoveries.” While the terms “discover” and “discovery” are used throughout the patent statutes, they seem generally to appear with “invent” and “invention” as if the terms have separate meanings. See, e. g., 35 U. S. C. §101: “Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter .. . may obtain a patent therefor . . . .” And see Dolbear v. American Bell Telephone Co. (Telephone Cases), 126 U. S. 1, 532-533.
This section was re-enacted by the Revenue Act of 1921, § 337, 42 Stat. 277.
Revenue Act of 1918, §211 (b), 40 Stat. 1064.
Revenue Act of 1918, §§ 214 (a) (10), 234 (a) (9), 40 Stat. 1067, 1078, providing “That in the ease of mines, oil and gas wells, discovered by the taxpayer . . . where the fair market value of the property is materially disproportionate to the cost, the depletion allowance shall be based upon the fair market value of the property at the date of discovery . . . .”
Revenue Act of 1921, §211 (b), 42 Stat. 237; Revenue Act of 1924, §211 (b), 43 Stat. 267; Revenue Act of 1926, §211 (b), 44 Stat. 23; Revenue Act of 1928, § 102 (a), 45 Stat. 812; Revenue Act of 1932, §102 (a), 47 Stat. 192; Revenue Act of 1936, §105, 49 Stat. 1678; Revenue Act of 1938, § 105, 52 Stat. 484.
Revenue Act of 1921, §§214 (a) (10), 234 (a)(9), 42 Stat. 241, 256; Revenue Act of 1924, §204 (c), 43 Stat. 260; Revenue Act of 1926, § 204 (c) (1), 44 Stat. 16; Revenue Act of 1928, § 114 (b) (2), 45 Stat. 821; Revenue Act of 1932, § 114 (b) (2), 47 Stat. 202; Revenue Act of 1934, §114 (b)(2), 48 Stat. 710; Revenue Act of 1936, § 114 (b) (2), 49 Stat. 1686; Revenue Act of 1938, § 114 (b) (2), 52 Stat. 495.
Section 327 (d) of the Revenue Act of 1918, 40 Stat. 1093, gave the Commissioner power to grant relief in any case in which “the tax . . . would, owing to abnormal conditions affecting the capital or income of the corporation, work upon the corporation an exceptional hardship . . . Section 721 of the World War II law classified specific types of abnormal income for purposes of computing the tax, and, while it provided relief for all abnormal income of whatever class, was not considered a “general relief” section.
I. R. C. of 1939, §§ 105, 114 (b) (2). It "was expressly provided by § 728 of the World War II excess profits tax statute, 54 Stat. 989, that the words used in that statute should have the same meaning as when used in the income tax chapter of the Code.
H. R. Rep. No. 146, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. 2.
The “general relief” section of the World War II Act, § 722, 54 Stat. 986, as amended, 55 Stat. 23, 701, 56 Stat. 914, 57 Stat. 56, 601, 58 Stat. 55, provided for adjustments in the computation of base period income if the taxpayer established, among other things, “what would be a fair and just amount representing normal earnings” during the base period.
In fact, the Committee reports state that “Adjustments . . . [under § 456] are limited to income arising out of” the four classes specified in subparagraphs (A) through (D). H. R. Rep. No. 3142, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 13; S. Rep. No. 2679, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 14.
Excess Profits Tax Act of 1940, § 721, 54 Stat. 986, as amended, 55 Stat. 21. Section 721 (a)(1) defines “abnormal income” as “income of any class includible in the gross income of the taxpayer ... .”
Treas. Reg. 130, §40.456-2 (b) (1951), as amended, T. D. 6026, 1953-2 Cum. Bull. 235: “Other income, not within a class described in subparagraphs (A)-(D) of section 456 (a)(2), to which section 456 is applicable may be grouped by the taxpayer, subject to approval by the Commissioner on the examination of the taxpayer’s return, in such classes similar to those specified in subparagraphs (A)-(D) of section 456 (a) (2) as are reasonable in a business of the type which the taxpayer conducts, and as are appropriate in the light of the taxpayer’s business experience and accounting practice. Income from the sale of tangible property arising out of research and development which extended over a period of more than 12 months is not included in the list of abnormal types of income to which section 456 is applicable, and such income may not constitute a class of income for purposes of that section. However, section 456 is applicable to such income if the income is otherwise properly includi-ble within a class of income to which such section is applicable for example, the class described in section 456 (a) (2) (D).”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Burton join.
This appeal involves the validity of a provision of Ordinance No. 430 of the City of Trenton, New Jersey. It reads as follows:
“4. That it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation, either as principal, agent or employee, to play, use or operate for advertising purposes, or for any other purpose whatsoever, on or upon the public streets, alleys or thoroughfares in the City of Trenton, any device known as a sound truck, loud speaker or sound amplifier, or radio or phonograph with a loud speaker or sound amplifier, or any other instrument known as a calliope or any instrument of any kind or character which emits therefrom loud and raucous noises and is attached to and upon any vehicle operated or standing upon said streets or public places aforementioned.”
The appellant was found guilty of violating this ordinance by the appellee, a police judge of the City of Trenton. His conviction was upheld by the New Jersey Supreme Court, Kovacs v. Cooper, 135 N. J. L. 64, 50 A. 2d 451, and the judgment was affirmed without a majority opinion by the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals in an equally divided court. The dissents are printed. 135 N. J. L. 584, 52 A. 2d 806.
We took jurisdiction to consider the challenge made to the constitutionality of the section on its face and as applied on the ground that § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was violated because the section and the conviction are in contravention of rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assemblage and freedom to communicate information and opinions to others. The ordinance is also challenged as violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment on the ground that it is So obscure, vague, and indefinite as to be impossible of reasonably accurate interpretation. No question was raised as to the sufficiency of the complaint.
At the trial in the Trenton police court, a city patrolman testified that while on his post he heard a sound truck broadcasting music. Upon going in the direction of said sound, he located the truck on a public street near the municipal building. As he approached the truck, the music stopped and he heard a man’s voice broadcasting from the truck. The appellant admitted that he operated the mechanism for the music and spoke into the amplifier. The record from the police court does not show the purpose of the broadcasting but the opinion in the Supreme Court suggests that the appellant was using the sound apparatus to comment on a labor dispute then in progress in Trenton.
The contention that the section is so vague, obscure and indefinite as to be unenforceable merits only a passing reference. This objection centers around the use of the words “loud and raucous.” While these are abstract words, they have through daily use acquired a content that conveys to any interested person a sufficiently accurate concept of what is forbidden. Last term, after thorough consideration of the problem of vagueness in legislation affecting liberty of speech, this Court invalidated a' conviction under a New York statute construed and applied to punish the distribution of magazines “principally made up of criminal news or stories of deeds of bloodshed or lust, so massed as to become vehicles for inciting violent and depraved crimes against the person.” Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 518. As thus construed we said that the statute was so vague that an honest distributor of tales of war horrors could not know whether he was violating the statute. P. 520. But in the Winters case we pointed out that prosecutions might be brought under statutes punishing the distribution of “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting” magazines. P. 511. We said, p. 518:
“The impossibility of defining the precise line between permissible uncertainty in statutes caused by describing crimes by words well understood through long use in the criminal law — obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting — and the unconstitutional vagueness that leaves a person uncertain as to the kind of prohibited conduct — massing stories to incite crime — has resulted in three arguments of this case in this Court.”
We used the words quoted above from page 511 as examples of permissible standards of statutes for criminal prosecution. P. 520. There we said:
“To say that a state may not punish by such a vague statute carries no implication that it may not punish circulation of objectionable printed matter, assuming that it is not protected by the principles of the First Amendment, by the use of apt words to describe the prohibited publications. ... Neither the states nor Congress are prevented by the requirement of specificity from carrying out their duty of eliminating evils to which, in their judgment, such publications give rise.”
We think the words of § 4 of this Trenton ordinance comply with the requirements of definiteness and clarity, set out above.
The scope of the protection afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment, for the right of a citizen to play music and express his views on matters which he considers to be of interest to himself and others on a public street through sound amplification devices mounted on vehicles, must be considered. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to communicate information and opinion to others are all comprehended on this appeal in the claimed right of free speech. They will be so treated in this opinion.
The use of sound trucks and other peripatetic or stationary broadcasting devices for advertising, for religious exercises and for discussion of issues or controversies has brought forth numerous municipal ordinances. The avowed and obvious purpose of these ordinances is to prohibit or minimize such sounds on or near the streets since some citizens find the noise objectionable and to some degree an interference with the business or social activities in which they are engaged or the quiet that they would like to enjoy. A satisfactory adjustment of the conflicting interests is difficult as those who desire to broadcast can hardly acquiesce in a requirement to modulate their sounds to a pitch that would not rise above other street noises nor would they deem a restriction to sparsely used localities or to hours after work and before sleep — say 6 to 9 p. m. — sufficient for the exercise of their claimed privilege. Municipalities are seeking actively a solution. National Institute of Municipal Law Officers, Report No. 123, 1948. Unrestrained use throughout a municipality of all sound amplifying devices would be intolerable. Absolute prohibition within municipal limits of all sound amplification, even though reasonably regulated in place, time and volume, is undesirable and probably unconstitutional as an unreasonable interference with normal activities.
We have had recently before us an ordinance of the City of Lockport, New York, prohibiting sound amplification whereby the sound was cast on public places so as to attract the attention of the passing public to the annoyance of those within the radius of the sounds. The ordinance contained this exception:
“Section 3. Exception. Public dissemination, through radio loudspeakers, of items of news and matters of public concern and athletic activities shall not be deemed a violation of this section provided that the same be done under permission obtained from the Chief of Police.”
This Court held the ordinance “unconstitutional on its face,” Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558, because the quoted section established a “previous restraint” on free speech with “no standards prescribed for the exercise” of discretion by the Chief of Police. When ordinances undertake censorship of speech or religious practices before permitting their exercise, the Constitution forbids their enforcement. The Court said in the Saia case at 560-61:
“The right to be heard is placed in the uncontrolled discretion of the Chief of Police. He stands athwart the channels of communication as an obstruction which can be removed only after criminal trial and conviction and lengthy appeal. A more effective previous restraint is difficult to imagine.”
This ordinance is not of that character. It contains nothing comparable to the above-quoted § 3 of the ordinance in the Saia case. It is an exercise of the authority-granted to the city by New Jersey “to prevent disturbing noises,” N. J. Stat. Ann., tit. 40, § 48-1 (8), nuisances well within the municipality’s power to control. The police power of a state extends beyond health, morals and safety, and comprehends the duty, within constitutional limitations, to protect the well-being and tranquility of a community. A state or city may prohibit acts or things reasonably thought to bring evil or harm to its people.
In this case, New Jersey necessarily has construed this very ordinance as applied to sound amplification. The Supreme Court said, 135 N. J. L. 64, 66, 50 A. 2d 451, 452:
“The relevant provisions of the ordinance apply only to (1) vehicles (2) containing an instrument in the nature of a sound amplifier or any other instrument emitting loud and raucous noises and (3) such vehicle operated or standing upon the public streets, alleys or thoroughfares of the city.”
If that means that only amplifiers that emit, in the language of the ordinance, “loud and raucous noises” are barred from the streets, we have a problem of regulation. The dissents accept that view. So did the appellant in his Statement as to Jurisdiction and his brief. Although this Court must decide for itself whether federal questions are presented and decided, we must accept the state courts’ conclusion as to the scope of the ordinance. We accept the determination of New Jersey that § 4 applies only to vehicles with sound amplifiers emitting loud and raucous noises. Courts are inclined to adopt that reasonable interpretation of a statute which removes it farthest from possible constitutional infirmity. Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 575-76; cf. United States v. C. I. O., 335 U. S. 106, 120. We need not determine whether this ordinance so construed is regulatory or prohibitory. All regulatory enactments are prohibitory so far as their restrictions are concerned, and the prohibition of this ordinance as to a use of streets is merely regulatory. Sound trucks may be utilized in places such as parks or other open spaces off the streets. The constitutionality of the challenged ordinance as violative of appellant’s right of free speech does not depend upon so narrow an issue as to whether its provisions are cast in the words of prohibition or regulation. The question is whether or not there is a real abridgment of the rights of free speech.
Of course, even the fundamental rights of the Bill of Rights are not absolute. The Saia case recognized that in this field by stating “The hours and place of public discussion can be controlled.” It was said decades ago in an opinion of this Court delivered by Mr. Justice Holmes, Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52, that:
“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force.”
Hecklers may be expelled from assemblies and religious worship may not be disturbed by those anxious to preach a doctrine of atheism. The right to speak one’s mind would often be an empty privilege in a place and at a time beyond the protecting hand of the guardians of public order.
While this Court, in enforcing the broad protection the Constitution gives to the dissemination of ideas, has invalidated an ordinance forbidding a distributor of pamphlets or handbills from summoning householders to their doors to receive the distributor’s writings, this was on the ground that the home owner could protect himself from such intrusion by an appropriate sign “that he is unwilling to be disturbed.” The Court never intimated that the visitor could insert a foot in the door and insist on a hearing. Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 143, 148. We do not think that the Struthers case requires us to expand this interdiction of legislation to include ordinances against obtaining an audience for the broadcaster’s ideas by way of sound trucks with loud and raucous noises on city streets. The unwilling listener is not like the passer-by who may be offered a pamphlet in the street but cannot be made to take it. In his home or on the street he is practically helpless to escape this interference with his privacy by loud speakers except through the protection of the municipality.
City streets are recognized as a normal place for the exchange of ideas by speech or paper. But this does not mean the freedom is beyond all control. We think it is a permissible exercise of legislative discretion to bar sound trucks with broadcasts of public interest, amplified to a loud and raucous volume, from the public ways of municipalities. On the business streets of cities like Trenton, with its more than 125,000 people, such distractions would be dangerous to trafile at all hours useful for the dissemination of information, and in the residential thoroughfares the quiet and tranquility so desirable for city dwellers would likewise be at the mercy of advocates of particular religious, social or political persuasions. We cannot believe that rights of free speech compel a municipality to allow such mechanical voice amplification on any of its streets.
The right of free speech is guaranteed every citizen that he may reach the minds of willing listeners and to do so there must be opportunity to win their attention. This is the phase of freedom of speech that is involved here. We do not think the Trenton ordinance abridges that freedom. It is an extravagant extension of due process to say that because of it a city cannot forbid talking on the streets through a loud speaker in a loud and raucous tone. Surely such an ordinance does not violate our people’s “concept of ordered liberty” so as to require federal intervention to protect a citizen from the action of his own local government. Cf. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325. Opportunity to gain the public’s ears by objectionably amplified sound on the streets is no more assured by the right of free speech than is the unlimited opportunity to address gatherings on the streets. The preferred position of freedom of speech in a society that cherishes liberty for all does not require legislators to be insensible to claims by citizens to comfort and convenience. To enforce freedom of speech in disregard of the rights of others would be harsh and arbitrary in itself. That more people may be more easily and cheaply reached by sound trucks, perhaps borrowed without cost from some zealous supporter, is not enough to call forth constitutional protection for what those charged with public welfare reasonably think is a nuisance when easy means of publicity are open. Section 4 of the ordinance bars sound trucks from broadcasting in a loud and raucous manner on the streets. There is no restriction upon the communication of ideas or discussion of issues by the human voice, by newspapers, by pamphlets, by dodgers. We think that the need for reasonable protection in the homes or business houses from the distracting noises of vehicles equipped with such sound amplifying devices justifies the ordinance.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Murphy dissents.
See Judicial Code § 237 (a), 28 U. S. C. § 344 (a), now 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2); Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; New Orleans Water Works Co. v. New Orleans, 164 U. S. 471.
Ordinances regulating or prohibiting sound devices were upheld in People v. Phillips, 147 N. Y. Misc. 11, 263 N. Y. Supp. 158; Maupin v. City of Louisville, 284 Ky. 195, 144 S. W. 2d 237; Hamilton v. City of Montrose, 109 Colo. 228, 124 P. 2d 757.
Injunctions have also dealt with nuisances from the playing of mechanical music for advertising purposes. Weber v. Mann, 42 S. W. 2d 492 (Tex. Ct. of Civ. App.); Stodder v. Rosen Talking Machine Co., 241 Mass. 245, 135 N. E. 251; 247 Mass. 60, 141 N. E. 569.
Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296.
Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Drainage Comm’rs, 200 U. S. 561, 592; Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502, 525; Queenside Hills Realty Co. v. Saxl, 328 U. S. 80, 82.
The Court of Errors and Appeals was cognizant of the difficulties. Evening Times Printing Co. v. American Newspaper Guild, 124 N. J. Eq. 71, 78, 199 A. 598, 602-603.
135 N. J. L. 584, 52 A. 2d 809:
“Colie, J. (For reversal.) I am of the opinion that the judgment under review should be reversed but I do not agree that section 4 of the ordinance is an unconstitutional exercise of the police power. The privilege of a citizen to use the streets for the communication of ideas is not absolute but must be exercised in subordination to the general comfort and convenience. Most assuredly the prohibition against making ‘loud and raucous’ noises is a reasonable regulation.”
Id,., at 585: “There is not a scintilla of evidence that the music or voice was loud or raucous, and under the wording of section 4 such proof is an essential prerequisite to a finding of guilt of a violation.”
The New Jersey courts may have concluded that the necessity of search by the patrolman to locate the sound truck on a street was sufficient evidence of loudness and raucousness.
135 N. J. L. 584, 52 A. 2d 808, Eastwood, J., for reversal, speaking for himself and three other members, said, pp. 588-89: “It appears to us, and we so hold, that the primary aim of section 4 of the ordinance, under review, is to prohibit ‘loud and raucous noises,’ at all times and in all places in the City of Trenton, emanating from sound trucks, loud speakers, sound amplifiers, radios or phonographs, equipped with loud speakers or sound amplifiers, or other similar instruments. It is thus clear that section 4 of the ordinance is not regulatory within a proper exercise of the police power of the municipality.”
Id., at 590: “We conclude that section 4 of the ordinance under attack represents an attempt by the municipality under the guise of regulation, to prohibit and outlaw, under all circumstances and conditions, the use of sound amplifying systems.”
Perhaps the last-quoted paragraph assumes that all sound trucks emit loud and raucous noises.
He wrote: “Section 4 of the Ordinance, under which appellant was charged, prohibits any person from using for any purpose whatsoever, a loud speaker or sound amplifier which emits therefrom ‘loud and raucous noises’ and is attached to any vehicle operated or standing upon the streets of the City of Trenton.”
In the brief this appears:
“This ordinance does not purport to prohibit loud and raucous noises. It attempts to prohibit sound devices which emit therefrom loud and raucous noises. This does not validate the ordinance or save it. In order to be a valid regulation the law must deal with the abuse and not with the use of the thing.”
Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U. S. 444, 450.
Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558; Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 574; Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 514.
In the exercise of the police power acts or things which could not be barred completely from use may be prohibited under some conditions and circumstances when they interfere with the rights of others. Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 574; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568; Sage Stores Co. v. Kansas, 323 U. S. 32, 36; Hutchinson Ice Cream Co. v. Iowa, 242 U. S. 153, 159, compare 160; Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678, 682-83; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 657-663. For examples of federal prohibitions, see Carolene Products Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 18, 27, Third; United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 113, 116; Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., 299 U. S. 334, 348; Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U. S. 470, 492-93.
Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558, 562; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 109; Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303; Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 371, 373; Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 166.
See Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 162.
Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 160-61:
“Municipal authorities, as trustees for the public, have the duty to keep their communities’ streets open and available for movement of people and property, the primary purpose to which the streets are dedicated. So long as legislation to this end does not abridge the constitutional liberty of one rightfully upon the street to impart information through speech or the distribution of literature, it may lawfully regulate the conduct of those using the streets. For example, a person could not exercise this liberty by taking his stand in the middle of a crowded street, contrary to traffic regulations, and maintain his position to the stoppage of all traffic; a group of distributors could not insist upon a constitutional right to form a cordon across the street and to allow no pedestrian to pass who did not accept a tendered leaflet; nor does the guarantee of freedom of speech or of the press deprive a municipality of power to enact regulations against throwing literature broadcast in the streets. Prohibition of such conduct would not abridge the constitutional liberty since such activity bears no necessary relationship to the freedom to speak, write, print or distribute information or opinion.”
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308:
“When clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, appears, the power of the State to prevent or punish is obvious. Equally obvious is it that a State may not unduly suppress free communication of views, religious or other, under the guise of conserving desirable conditions.”
Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 527, note 12, 530; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Once again we are presented with a nice question concerning the scope of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as amended. 63 Stat. 912, 29 U. S. C. § 207. The respondent, a construction contractor, was engaged by the Lower Nueces River Water Supply District (hereafter to be called the District) to construct a dam and impounding facilities on the lower Nueces River in Texas at a cost of about $6,000,000, in order to increase roughly tenfold the District’s then-existing reservoir capacity. The dam is not a multi-purpose project; its sole purpose is to create an expanded reservoir for the District. The water impounded by the District is supplied to consumers locally, within the State of Texas. The site of the new dam was chosen 1,400 feet downstream from the old, with the expectation that upon completion of the new construction the old dam would be inundated and thus replaced by the greatly expanded reservoir. In the interim until completion, the old facilities could serve to assure a continuing water supply.
The District, though for some purposes an independent governmental agency under Texas law, may here be dealt with simply as the water supply system of the included City of Corpus Christi. Its contract with the City requires it to supply the City with the entire water output; and the City in turn agrees to operate and maintain the completed dam and impounding facilities and to supply water to consumers within the District, but outside city limits. It is conceded that between 40% and 50% of all water consumption from the system is accounted for by industrial (as distinguished from residential, commercial, hospital, municipal and other) users, most of whom produce goods for commerce, and that water is essential to their operations. Nor is it contested that an unspecified amount of the water supplied by the District is consumed by facilities and instrumentalities of commerce.
It is agreed that as to the employees here involved— those actually engaged in construction work on the dam— the respondent failed to comply with the requirements of § 7 of the Act, if it is applicable.
On the basis of its applicability the Secretary of Labor sought an injunction in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. That court granted the injunction, on two grounds of coverage: (1) since water from the system is supplied to facilities and instru-mentalities of commerce, those engaged in building the dam are engaged in the production of goods — water—for commerce; and (2) since the water supplied is essential to industries in Corpus Christi producing goods for commerce, construction of the dam is an occupation “closely related” and “directly essential” to the production of goods for commerce. While the District Court conceded “that Congress intended to narrow the scope of coverage” by the 1949 amendment of the statutory definition of “produced” in § 3 (j), 63 Stat. 911, it concluded that this employment remained within the coverage of the Act.
On appeal the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. 262 F. 2d 546. It disposed of the first ground of the District Court’s decision by holding that the building of a dam could not itself constitute the production of goods for commerce, whatever the use to which the impounded water might be put. In disposing of the second, it invoked a rule that “those engaged in building a plant to be used for the manufacturing of goods do not even come within . . . the . . . statutory definition . . . .” It concluded that under such a rule there could be no coverage of employees engaged in construction of a facility which was not to engage in, but merely to support, the manufacture of goods for commerce. It con-eluded further that the “remoteness” of these jobs from production justified their exclusion from coverage. Both conclusions reflected its general view that “the amendment of 1949 made even more restrictive the definition of production of goods” than it was under the Act of 1938, when it substituted the words “directly essential” for the word “necessary,” and added the requirement that the employment be “closely related” to production.
We brought the case here, 361 U. S. 807, because of an asserted conflict between circuits. (See Chambers Construction Co. v. Mitchell, 233 F. 2d 717, and Mitchell v. Chambers Construction Co., 214 F. 2d 515.)
The court below, in applying its rule excluding “construction,” relied on our per curiam decision in Murphey v. Reed, 335 U. S. 865, and distinguished the more detailed decision in Mitchell v. Vollmer & Co., 349 U. S. 427, which expressly rejected the “new construction” rule and held construction of a new lock on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to be covered employment. It did so by holding that Vollmer concerned only coverage under the “in commerce” provision of the Act. The Vollmer decision cannot be so confined. It rejected an inflexible “new construction” rule, which had developed in cases under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, see 349 U. S., at 429, 431-432, as inconsistent with the more pragmatic test of coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As early as Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517, we recognized that the penetrating and elusive duty which this Act casts upon the courts to define in particular cases the less-than-constitutional reach of its scope, cannot be adequately discharged by talismanic or abstract tests, embodied in tags or formulas. No exclusion of construction work from coverage can be derived from the per curiam disposition of Murphey v. Reed, supra. There, as here, whether construction work is covered depends upon all the circumstances of the relation of the particular activity to “commerce” in the statutory sense and setting, the question to which we now turn.
By confining the Act to employment “in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce,” Congress has impliedly left to the States a domain for regulation. For want of a provision for an administrative determination, by an agency like the National Labor Relations Board, the primary responsibility has been vested in courts to apply, and so to give content to, the guiding yet undefined and imprecise phrases by which Congress has designated the boundaries of that domain.
Before 1949 the boundary of “production” coverage was indicated by the statutory requirement that to be included an activity not “in” production must be “necessary” to it. 52 Stat. 1061. The interaction and interdependence of the processes and functions of the industrial society within which these definitions must be applied, could easily lead courts to find few activities that were discernibly related to production not to be “necessary” to it, in a logical sense of that requirement. The statute, as illuminated by its history, see Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, supra, at 522, demanded that such merely logical deduction be eschewed. Courts were to be on the alert “not to absorb by adjudication essentially local activities that Congress did not see fit to take over by legislation.” 10 East 40th St. Co. v. Callus, 325 U. S. 578, 582-583.
In Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, supra, we added what was deemed a compelled gloss to suggest the limitations of “necessary.” We found that the jobs of building-maintenance employees, ranging in responsibility from electrician to porter, of a loft building locally owned but tenanted by production facilities of producers for commerce, had “such a close and immediate tie with the process of production for commerce, and [were] therefore so much an essential part of it,” that the employees’ occupations were “necessary” to production. In Borden Co. v. Borella, 325 U. S. 679, precisely the same formulation expressed our conclusion that maintenance employees of a producer-owned office building which was tenanted in part by the producer’s central offices, but not by any production facilities, were also within the Act’s coverage. In 10 East 40th St. Co. v. Callus, 325 U. S. 578, however, maintenance employees of an office building were held not to be covered. Although the building contained offices of some producers, it was locally owned, held out for general tenancy, and in fact tenanted by a miscellany of tenants. Regardful of the governing principle that coverage turns upon the nature of the employees’ duties, and not upon the nature, local or interstate, of the employer’s general business, we held the case distinguishable from Borden and Kirschbaum because the employment, since part of an enterprise which “spontaneously satisfies the common understanding of what is local business,” was itself sufficiently different, despite identical employee duties, from prior cases to justify regarding it as separate from the “necessary parts of a commercial process” which are within the Act. These decisions and distinctions were not exercises in lexicography. No niceties in phrasing or formula of words could do service for judgment, could dispense with painstaking appraisal of all the variant elements in the different situations presented by successive cases in light of the purpose of Congress to limit coverage short of the exercise by it of its full power under the Commerce Clause.
While attempted formulas of the relationship to production required for coverage cannot furnish automatic or spontaneous answers to specific problems of application as they arise in their protean diversity, general principles of the Act’s scope afford direction of inquiry by defining the broad bounds within which decision must move. In Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, supra, we found that limits on coverage cannot be understood merely in terms of the social purposes of the Act, in light of which any limitations must appear inconsistent. For the Act also manifests the competing concern of Congress to avoid undue displacement of state regulation of activities of a dominantly local character. Accommodation of these interests was sought by the device of confinement of coverage to employment in activities of traditionally national concern. The focus of coverage became “commerce,” not in the broadest constitutional sense, but in the limited sense of § 3 (b) of the statute: “trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States . . . .” Employment “in” such activities is least affected by local interests. A step removed from employment “in commerce” is employment “in” production which is “for” commerce. Under this clause we have sustained coverage whether the product is to be consumed primarily by commerce in the statutory sense, by its “facilities and instrumentalities,” see Alstate Construction Co. v. Durkin, 345 U. S. 13, or, as in the case of the products of the industrial consumers of water here, to move in it. Furthest removed from “commerce” is employment not “in” production “for” commerce but in an activity which is only “related” to such production. In applying this provision, we have necessarily borne in mind that it is furthest removed in the scheme of the statute from the hub of the national interest in “commerce” upon which a limited displacement of state power is predicated.
The amendment of §3 (j) in 1949 did not alter the basic statutory scheme of coverage, but did reinforce the requirement that in applying the last clause of the section its position at the periphery of coverage be taken into account as a relevant factor in the determination. In revising coverage Congress turned only to the last clause of the section, which it evidently continued to regard as marking the outer limits of applicability. The amendment substantially adopts the gloss of Kirschbaum to indicate the scope of coverage of activities only “related” to production. But examination of its history discloses that in adopting that gloss the purpose of Congress was not simply to approve everything done here and in the lower courts in what purported to be specific applications of that inevitably elusive formulation. While the approach of Kirschbaum was confirmed, the change manifests the view of Congress that on occasion courts, including this Court, had found activities to be covered, which the law-defining body deemed too remote from commerce or too incidental to it.
The House, overriding the contrary action of its Labor Committee which had left § 3 (j) unchanged, see H. R. 5856, as reported, and H. R. Rep. No. 267, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 1949, adopted an amendment proposed by Committee member Lucas from the floor (95 Cong. Rec. 11000), which did amend § 3 (j). Representative Lucas made it plain that it was his purpose to constrict coverage. 95 Cong. Rec. 11001. As passed by the House, § 3 (j) was identical with the present Act except that for “directly essential” the House version used “indispensable.”
The Senate substituted its own bill, S. 653, for the House draft, and its version left § 3 (j) unchanged. The resulting conference adopted the House bill insofar as it amended § 3 (j), with only the change already noted.
While the reports presented to the House and Senate by their respective conferees manifest some disagreement as to degree, it is apparent that some restraint on coverage was intended by both. In the House, for example, Kirschbaum was approved and our decision in Martino v. Michigan Window Cleaning Co., 327 U. S. 173, was disapproved (H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1453, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 15); while the Senate conferees, with different emphasis, noted only that the standard applied in “most” of our decisions was adopted. 95 Cong. Rec. 14874.
Both reports use as illustrations of coverage which remains unchanged by the amendment, employment in utilities supplying water to the producers of goods for commerce. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1453, p. 14; 95 Cong. Rec. 14875. But no illustration in either statement deals with construction of a dam designed solely for use as an impounding facility for a local water distribution system. The House Report does expressly state that the case of Schroeder Co. v. Clifton, 153 F. 2d 385 (C. A. 10th Cir.), is an instance of an activity not within the amended Act. But the activity there involved was one in support of construction of a dam; it was not the construction of the dam itself. Thus, even were we to accept the illustrations in the House Report as authoritative, we would not be relieved of the duty of deciding where between these boundaries of approval and disapproval the present facts lie. To do so requires that we once again apply the formulation set down in Kirschbaum, which, in light of the 1949 amendment, we must do with renewed awareness of the purpose of Congress to avoid intrusion into withdrawn local activities.
To establish coverage the Secretary relies upon Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 337 U. S. 755, which, he asserts, establishes that employees are covered who are engaged not merely in operation of, but in maintenance and repair of, the facilities of a company distributing water for consumption by producers for commerce. He urges that once it is recognized — as the court below failed to do — that construction work is not excluded from the Act’s coverage, this concededly essential expansion of facilities is not distinguishable from maintenance and repair in any characteristic made relevant by the standard of “closely related” and “directly essential” to production. We do not agree.
Assuming arguendo that maintenance and repair of the completed dam would be covered employment, it does not follow that construction of the dam therefore is. The activities are undoubtedly equally “directly essential” to the producers of goods who depend upon the water supply; but they are not equally remote from production or from the “commerce” for which production is intended. The distinction between maintenance and repair on the one hand, and replacement or new construction on the other, may often be difficult to delineate but is a practical distinction to which law must hot be indifferent. Its relevance here, where our purpose must be to isolate primarily local activities from the flow of commerce to which they invariably relate, lies in the close relation of maintenance and repair to operation, as opposed to replacement or new construction which is a separate undertaking necessarily prior to operation and therefore more remote from the end result of the process. As we held in Vollmer, that an activity is rightly called construction and is therefore distinct from operation, does not per se remove it from coverage. Construction may be sufficiently “closely related” to production to place it in that proximity to “commerce” which the Act demands as a predicate to coverage. Here, however, neither a facility of “commerce” nor a facility of “production” is under construction. Operation of the completed dam will merely support production facilities; and construction of the dam is yet another step more remote.
The Secretary relies upon Mitchell v. Lublin, McGaughy & Associates, 358 U. S. 207, and Mitchell v. Vollmer & Co., supra, to establish that this construction is closely enough related to “production of goods for commerce” to be within the coverage of the Act. In each of those cases a construction activity was found “directly and vitally related” to “commerce” and therefore “in commerce,” and what we have already said demonstrates that they are not useful guides here. As Lublin, supra, manifests, an activity sufficiently “directly related” to commerce to be “in” it is, at most, no further removed from “commerce” than is the employment “in production” itself which the Act expressly covers. Compare Mitchell v. Lublin, McGaughy & Associates, supra, with Alstate Construction Co. v. Durkin, 345 U. S. 13. For this reason, although the Act has never contained even a general definition of the relationship of an activity to commerce necessary to justify its inclusion, such a relationship has been extrapolated by the courts in conformity with the statutory scheme, so as to displace state regulation “throughout the farthest reaches of the channels of interstate commerce.” Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564, 567. No independent vitality attaches to conclusory phrases such as “directly” or “vitally related.” What is finally controlling in each case is the relationship of the employment to “commerce,” in the sense of the statute, and it needs no argument that as to that relationship this case is significantly different from Lublin or Vollmer.
Moreover, though construction and operation of this dam are equally “directly essential” to the producers who require the water impounded and distributed, neither the construction nor the operation of the dam is designed for their use. Water is supplied by the District to a miscellany of users throughout its geographical area, and somewhat less than half of the consumption is by producers. These facilities, and their construction, are thus to be differentiated from the irrigation system in the Farmers Reservoir case, which was dedicated exclusively to supply water to farmers producing for commerce.
These are no doubt matters of the nicest degree. They are inevitably so in the scheme and mode of enforcement of this statute. Bearing in mind the cautionary revision in 1949, and that the focal center of coverage is “commerce,” the combination of the remoteness of this construction from production, and the absence of a dedication of the completed- facilities either exclusively or primarily to production, persuades us that the activity is not “closely related” or “directly essential” to production for commerce.”
The Secretary alternatively urges that because some of the water supplied by the District is consumed by facilities and instrumentalities of commerce, the water should be regarded as “goods” produced “for commerce” and the construction of the dam should be found sufficiently related to such production to be within the Act's coverage. He relies on Alstate Construction Co. v. Durkin, supra, and compares the water here to the construction materials there produced primarily for use in road construction. It is a sufficient, answer to this contention that the record is devoid of evidence of a purposeful and substantial dedication of otherwise local production to consumption by “commerce” which was the basis of our decision in Alstate. Indeed, it appears that the water supplied to the facilities and instrumentalities of commerce is but an insignificant portion of the total.
Affirmed.
With exceptions not relevant here, § 7, the hours provision, directs an employer to comply with its provisions as to “any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce . . .
Only the last clause of § 3 (j) was amended in 1949. Before the amendment it was provided that “an employee shall be deemed to have been engaged in the production of goods if such employee was employed in producing, manufacturing, mining, handling, transporting, or in any other manner working on such goods, or in any process or occupation necessary to the production thereof, in any State.” 52 Stat. 1061. (Emphasis added.) The amended last clause provides: “or in any closely related process or occupation directly essential to the production thereof, in any State.” 63 Stat. 911. (Emphasis added.)
The views of a minority of the Senate conferees emphasize the apparent inconsistencies between the reports delivered to the House and Senate. 95 Cong. Rec. 14880.
The Secretary, similarly relies on the approval in general terms of such coverage in.the reports of the House and Senate conferees. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1453, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 14; 95 Cong. Rec. 14875.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Goldberg,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We deal here today with the question, of great importance to the public and the financial community, of whéther and to what extent the federal antitrust laws apply to securities exchanges regulated by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. More particularly, the question is whether the New York Stock Exchange is to be held liable to a nonmember broker-dealer under the antitrust laws or regarded as impliedly immune therefrom when, pursuant to rules the Exchange has adopted under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, it orders a number of its members to remove private direct telephone wire connections previously in operation between their offices and those of the nonmember, without giving the nonmember notice, assigning him any reason for the action, or affording him an opportunity to be heard.
I.
The facts material to resolution of this question are not in 'dispute. Harold J. Silver, who died during the pend-ency of this action, entered the securities business in Dallas, Texas, in 1955, by establishing the predecessor of petitioner Municipal Securities (Municipal) to deal primarily in municipal bonds. The business of Municipal having increased steadily, Silver, in June 1958, established petitioner Municipal Securities, Inc.' (Municipal, Inc.), to trade in corporate over-the-counter securities. Both-firms are registered broker-dealers and members of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD); neither is a member of the respondent Exchange.
Instantaneous communication with firms in the mainstream of the securities business is of great significance to a broker-dealer not a member of the Exchange, and Silver took steps to see that this was established for his firms. Municipal obtained direct private telephone wire connections with the municipal bond departments of a number of securities firms (three of which were members of the Exchange) and banks, and Municipal, Inc-., arranged for private wires to the corporate securities trad-, ing departments of 10 member firms of the Exchange, as well as to the trading desks of a number of nonmember firms.
Pursuant to the requirements of the Exchange’s.rules, all but one of the member firms which had granted private wires to Municipal, Inc., applied to the Exchange for approval of the connections. During the summer of 1958 the Exchange granted “temporary approval” for these, as well as for a direct teletype connection to. a member firm in New York City and for stock ticker service to be furnished to petitioners directly from the floor of the Exchange.
On February 12, 1959, without prior notice to Silver, his firms, or anyone connected with them, the Exchange’s Department of Member Firms decided to disapprove the private wire and related applications. Notice was sent to the member firms involved, instructing them to discontinue the wires, a directive with which compliance was ‘ required by the Exchange’s Constitution and rules. These firms in turn notified Silver that the private wires would have to be discontinued, and the Exchange advised' him • directly of the discontinuance of the stock ticker service. The wires and ticker were all removed by the beginning of March. By telephone calls, letters, and a personal trip to New York, Silver sought an explanation from the Exchange of the reason for its decision, but was repeatedly told it was the policy of the Exchange not to disclose the reasons for such action.
Petitioners contend that their volume of business dropped substantially thereafter and that their profits fell, due to a combination of forces all stemming from the removal of the private wires — their consequent inability to obtain quotations quickly, the inconvenience to other traders in calling petitioners, and the stigma attaching to the disapproval. ■ As a result of this change in fortunes, petitioners contend, Municipal, Inc., soon ceased functioning as an operating business organization, and Municipal has remained in business only on a greatly diminished scale.
The present litigation was commenced by Silver as proprietor of Municipal and by Municipal, Inc., against the Exchange in April 1959, in the Southern District of New York. Three causes of action were asserted. The first, seeking an injunction and treble damages, alleged that the Exchange had, in violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, conspired with its member firms to deprive petitioners of their private wire connections and stock ticker service. The second alleged that the Exchange had tortiously induced its member firms to breach their contracts for wire connections with petitioners, and the third asserted that the Exchange’s action constituted a tort of intentional and wrongful harm inflicted without reasonable cause.
Petitioners moved for summary judgment on the antitrust claim, and for an accompanying permanent injunction against the Exchange’s coercion of its members into refusing to provide private wire connections and against the Exchange’s refusal to reinstate the stock ticker service. The district judge, after considering the respective affidavits of the parties, granted summary judgment and a permanent injunction as to the private wire connections, 196 F. Supp. 209, holding that the antitrust laws applied to the Exchange, and that its directive and the ensuing compliance by its members constituted a collective refusal to continue the wires and was a per se violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. The judge so held on the basis that, although the Exchange had the power to regulate the conduct of its members in dealing with listed securities, its members’ relations with nonmembers with regard to. over-the-counter securities were not sufficiently germane to the fulfillment of its duties of ^self-regulation under the Securities Exchange Act to warrant its being excused from having to answer for restraints of trade such as occurred here by removal of the private wires. He left the issues of treble damages and costs to a later trial. With reference to the stock ticker service, the judge held that there were triable issues of fact as to whether the Exchange’s action could be considered to have. ■been the concerted action of its members and as to whether, if the Exchange was to be regarded as. having acted by itself, any violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act had occurred. He therefore denied summary judgment as to that aspect of petitioners’ claims.
On the Exchange’s appeal from the grant of partial summary judgment, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed over the dissent of one judge. 302 F. 2d 714. The court held that the Securities Exchange Act “gives the Commission and the Exchange disciplinary powers over members of the Exchange with respect to their transactions in over-the-counter securities, and that the policy of the statute requires that the Exchange exercise these powers fully.” Id., at 720. This meant that “the action of the Exchange in bringing about the cancellation of the private wire connections... was within the general scope of the authority of the Exchange as defined by the 1934 Act,” id., at 716, and dictated a conclusion that “[t]he Exchange is exempt from the restrictions of the Sherman Act because it is exercising a power which it is required to exercise by thé Securities Exchange.Act,” id., at 72L The court, however, did not exclude the possibility that the Exchange might be liable on some other theory, and remanded the case for consideration of petitioners’ second and third causes of action.
This Court granted certiorari. 371 U. S. 808. What is before us is only' so much of the first cause of action as relates to the collective refusal to continue the private wire connections, since petitioners did not attempt to appeal from the denial of summary judgment as to the portion relating to the discontinuance of the stock ticker service. Summary judgment was never sought as to the second and third causes of action, hence those are also not in issue at the present time.
II.
The fundamental issue confronting us is whether the Securities Exchange Act has created a duty of exchange.self-regulation so pervasive as to constitute an implied repealer of our antitrust laws, thereby exempting the Exchange from liability in this and similar cases.
A.
It is plain, to begin with, that removal of the wires by collective action of the Exchange and its members would, had it occurred in a context free from other federal regulation, constitute a per se violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. ■ The concerted action of the Exchange and its members here was, in simple terms, a group boycott depriving petitioners of a valuable business service which they needed in order to compete effectively as broker-dealers in the over-the-counter securities market. Fashion Originators’ Guild v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 312 U. S. 457; Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1; Klor’s, Inc., v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U. S. 207; Radiant Burners, Inc., v. Peoples Gas Light & Coke Co., 364 U. S. 656. Unlike listed securities, there is no central trading place for securities traded over the counter. The market is established by traders in the numerous firms all over the country through a process of constant communication to one another of the latest offers to buy and sell.. The private wire connection, which allows communication to occur with a flip of a switch, is an essential part of this process. Without the instantaneously available market information provided by private wire connections, an over-the-counter dealer is hampered substantially in. his crucial endeavor — to buy, whether it be for customers or on his own account, at the lowest quoted price and sell at the highest quoted price. Without membership in thp. network' of simultaneous communication, the over-the-counter dealer loses a significant volume of trading with 'other members of the network which would come to him as a result of his easy accessibility. These important business advantages were taken away from petitioners by the group action of the Exchange and its members. Such “concerted refusals by traders to deal with other traders... have long been held to be in the forbidden category,” Klor’s, Inc., v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U. S., at 212, of restraints which “because of their inherent nature or effect... injuriously restrained trade,” United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106, 179. Hence, absent ány justification derived from the policy of another statute or otherwise, the Exchange acted in violation of the Sherman Act. In this case, however, the presence of another statutory scheme, that of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, means that such a conclusion is only the beginning, not the end, of inquiry.
B.
The difficult problem here arises from the need to reconcile pursuit of the antitrust aim of eliminating restraints on competition with the effective operation of a public policy contemplating that securities exchanges will engage in self-regulation which may well have anti-competitive effects in general and in specific applications.
The need for statutory regulation of securities exchanges and the nature of the duty of self-regulation imposed by the Securities Exchange Act are properly understood in the context of a consideration of both the economic role played by exchanges and the historical setting of the Act. Stock exchanges perform an important function in the economic life of this country. They serve, first of all, as an indispensable mechanism through which corporate securities can be bought and sold. To corporate enterprise such a market mechanism is a fundamental element in facilitating the successful marshaling of large aggregations of funds that would otherwise be extremely difficult of access. To the public the exchanges are an investment channel which promises ready convertibility of stock holdings into cash. The. importance of these functions in dollar terms is vast — in 1962 the New York- Stock Exchange, by far the largest of the 14 exchanges which are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, had $47.4 billion of transactions in stocks, rights, and warrants (a figure which represented 86% of the total dollar volume on registered exchanges). Report of the Special Study of Securities Markets (1963), c. IB, p. 6. Moreover, because trading on the exchanges, in. addition to establishing the price level of listed securities, affects securities prices in general, and because such transactions are often regarded as- an indicator of our national economic health,, the significance of 'the exchanges in our economy cannot be measured only in terms of the dollar volume of trading. Recognition of the importance of the exchanges’ role led the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce to declare in its report preceding the enactment of the Securities. Exchange Act of 1934 that “The great exchanges of this country upon which millions of dollars of securities are sold are affected with a public interest in the same degree as any other great utility.” H. R. Rep. No. 1383, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 15 (1934).
The exchanges are by their nature bodies with a limited number of members, each of which plays a certain role in the carrying out of an exchange’s activities. The limited-entry feature of exchanges led historically to their being treated by the courts as' private clubs, Belton v. Hatch, 109 N. Y. 593,. 17 N. E. 225 (1888), and to their being given great latitude by the courts in disciplining errant members, see Westwood and Howard, Self-Government in the Securities Business, 17 Law and Contemp. Prob. 518-525 (1952). As exchanges became a moré and more important element in our Nation’s economic and financial system, however, the private-club analogy became increasingly inapposite and the ungoverned self-regulation became more and more obviously inadequate, with accel-eratingly grave consequences. This impotency ultimately led to the enactment of the 1934 Act. The House Committee Report summed up the long-developing problem in discussing the general purposes of the bill:
“The fundamental fact behind the necessity for this bill is that the leaders of private business, whether because of inertia, pressure, of vested interests, lack of organization, or otherwise, have not since the war been able to act to protect themselves by compelling a continuous and orderly program of change in methods and- standards of doing business to match the degree to which the economic system has itself been constantly changing.... The repetition in the summer of 1933 of the blindness and abuses of 1929 has convinced a patient public that enlightened self-interest in private leadership is not sufficiently powerful.to effect the necessary changes alone — that private leadership seeking to make changes must be given Government help and protection.” H. R. Rep. No. 1383, supra, at 3.
It was, therefore, the combination of the enormous growth-in the power and impact of exchanges in our economy, and their inability and unwillingness to curb abuses which had increasingly grave implications because of this growth, that moved Congress to enact the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. S. Rep. No. 792, 73d Cong'., 2d Sess. 2-5 (1934); H. R. Rep. No. 1383, supra, at 2-5.
The pattern of governmental entry, however, was by no means one of total displacement of the exchanges’ traditional process of self-regulation.. The intention was rather, as Mr. Justice Douglas said, while Chairman of the S. E. C., one of “letting the exchanges take the leadership with Government playing a residual role. Government would- keep the shotguii, so to speak, behind the door, loaded, well oiled, cleaned, ready for. use but with the hope it would never have to be used.” Douglas, Democracy and Finance (Allen ed. 1940), 82. Thus the Senate Committee Report stressed that “the initiative and responsibility for promulgating regulations pertaining to the administration of their ordinary affairs remain, with the exchanges themselves. It is only where they fail adequately to provide protection to investors that the Commission is authorized to step in and compel them to do so.” S. Rep. No. 792, supra, at 13. The House Committee Report added the hope that the bill would give the exchanges sufficient power to reform themselves without intervention by the Commission. H. R. Rep. No. 1383, supra, at 15. See also 2 Loss, Securities Regulation (2d ed. 1961), 1175-1178, 1180-1182.
Thus arose the federally mandated duty of self-policing by exchanges. Instead of giving the Commission the power to curb specific instances of abuse, the Act placed in the exchanges a duty to register with the Commission, § 5, 15 U. S. C. § 78e, and decreed that registration could not be granted unless the exchange submitted copies of its rules, § 6 (a)(3), 15 U. S. C. § 78f (a) (3), and unless such rules were “just and adequate to insure fair dealing and to protect investors,” § 6 (d), 15 U. S. C. § 78f (d). The general dimensions of the duty of self-regulation are suggested by § 19 (b) of the Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78s (b), which gives the Commission power to order changes in exchange rules respecting a number of subjects, which are set forth in the margin.
One aspect of the statutorily imposed duty of self-regulation is the obligation to formulate rules governing the conduct of exchange members. The Act specifically requires that registration cannot be granted “unless the rules of the exchange include provision for the expulsion, suspension, or disciplining of a member for conduct or proceeding inconsistent with just and equitable principles of trade...,” § 6 (b), 15 U. S. C. § 78f (b). In addition, the general requirement of § 6 (d) that an exchange’s rules be “just and adequate to insure fair dealing and to protect investors” has obvious relevance to the area of rules regulating the conduct of an exchange’s members.
The § 6 (b) and § 6 (d) duties taken together have the broadest implications in relation to the present problem, for members inevitably trade on the over-the-counter market in addition to dealing in listed securities, and such trading inexorably brings contact and dealings with nonmember firms which deal in or specialize in over-the-counter securities.. It is no accident that the Exchange’s Constitution and rules are permeated with instances of regulation of members’ relationships with nonmembers including nonmember broker-dealers. A member’s purchase of unlisted securities for itself or on behalf of its customer from a boiler-shop operation creates an 6b-vious danger of loss to the principal in the transaction, and sale of sécurities to a nonmember insufficiently capitalized to protect customers’ rights creates similar risks. In addition to the potential financial injury to the.investing public and Exchange members that is inherent in these transactions as well ás in dealings with nonmembers who are unreliable for any other reason, all such, intercourse carries with it the gravest danger of engendering in the public a loss of confidence in the Exchange and its members, a kind of damage which can significantly impair fulfillment of the Exchange’s function in our economy. Rules which regulate Exchange members’ doing of business with nonmembers in the over-the-counter market are therefore very much pertinent to the aims of self-regulation under the 1934 Act. Transactions with nonmembers under the circumstances mentioned can only be described as “inconsistent with. just and equitable principles of trade,” and rules regulating such dealing are indeed “just and adequate to insure fair dealing and to protect investors.”
The Exchange’s constitutional provision and rules relating to private wire connections are unquestionably part of this fulfillment of the § 6 (b) and § 6 (d) duties, for such wires between members and nonmembers facilitate trading in and exchange of information about unlisted securities, and such contact with an unreliable nonmember not only may further his business undesirably, but may injure the member or the member’s customer on whose behalf the contact is made and ultimately imperil the future status of the Exchange by sapping public confidence. In light of the important role of exchanges in our economy and the 1934 Act’s design of giving the exchanges a major part in curbing abuses by obligating them to regulate themselves, it appears conclusively — contrary to the District Court’s conclusion — that the rules applied in the present case are germane to performance of the duty, implied by § 6 (b) and § 6 (d), to have rules governing members’ transactions and relationships with nonmembers. The Exchange’s enforcement of such rules inevitably affects the nonmember involved, often (as here) far more seriously than it affects the members in question. The sweeping of the nonmembers into the currents of the Exchange’s process of self-regulation is therefore unavoidable; the case cannot be disposed of by holding as the district judge did that the substantive act of regulation engaged in here was outside the boundaries of the public policy established by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
C.
But, it does not follow that the case can be disposed of, as the Court of Appeals did, by holding that since the Exchange has a general power to adopt rules governing its members’ relations with nonmembers, particular applications of such rules are therefore outside the purview of the antitrust laws. Contrary to the conclusions reached by the courts below, the proper approach to this case, in our view, is an analysis which reconciles the operation of both statutory schemes with one another rather than holding one completely ousted.
The Securities Exchange Act contains no express exemption from the antitrust laws or, for that matter, from any other statute. This means that any repealer of the antitrust, laws must be discerned as a matter of implication, and “ [i] t is a cardinal principle of construction that repeals by implication are not favored.” United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 198; see Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439, 456-457; California v. Federal Power Comm’n, 369 U. S. 482, 485. Repeal is to be regarded as implied only if necessary to make the Securities Exchange Act work, and even then only to the minimum extent necessary. This is the guiding principle to reconciliation of the two statutory schemes.
Although the Act gives to the Securities and Exchange Commission the power to request exchanges to make changes in their rules, § 19 (b), 15 U. S. C. § 78s (b), and impliedly, therefore, to disapprove any rules adopted by an exchange, see also §6 (a)(4), 15 U. S. C. § 78f (a) (4), it does not give the Commission jurisdiction to review particular instances of enforcement of exchange rules. See 2 Loss, op. cit., supra, at 1178; Westwood and Howard, supra, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob., at 525. This aspect of the statute, for one thing, obviates any need to consider whether petitioners were required to resort to the Commission for relief before coming into court. Compare Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S., at 455. Moreover, the Commission’s lack of jurisdiction over particular applications of exchange rules means that the question of antitrust exemption does not involve any problem of conflict or coextensiveness of coverage with the agency’s regulatory power. See Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra; United States v. Radio Corp. of America, 358 U. S. 334; California v. Federal Power Comm’n, supra; Pan American World Airways, Inc., v. United States, 371 U. S. 296. The issue is only that of the extent to which the character and objectives of the duty of exchange self-regulation contemplated by the Securities Exchange Act are incompatible with the maintenance of an antitrust action. Compare Maryland & Va. Milk Producers Assn. v. United States, 362 U. S. 458.
The absence of Commission jurisdiction, besides defining the limits of the inquiry, contributes' to its solution. There is nothing built into the regulatory scheme which performs the antitrust function of insuring that an exchange will not in some cases apply its rules so as to do injury to competition which cannot.be justified as furthering legitimate self-regulative ends. By providing no agency check on exchange behavior in particular cases, Congress left the regulatory scheme subject to "the influences of... [improper collective action] over which the Commission has no authority but which if proven to exist can only hinder the Commission in the tasks with which it is confronted,” Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S., at 460. See United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S., at 200; Maryland & Va. Milk Producers Asm. v. United States, 362 U. S., at 465-466. Enforcement of exchange rules, particularly those of the New York.Stock Exchange with its immense economic power, may well, in given cases, result in competitive injury to an issuer, a nonmember broker-dealer, or another when the imposition of such injury is not within the scope of the-great purposes of the Securities Exchange Act. Such unjustified self-regulatory activity can only diminish public respect for and confidence in the integrity and efficacy of the exchange mechanism. Some form of review of exchange self-policing, whether by administrative agency or by the courts, is therefore not at all incompatible with the fulfillment of the aims of the Securities Exchange Act. Only this year S. E. C. Chairman Cary observed that “some government oversight is warranted, indeed necessary, to-insure that action in the name of self-regulation is neither discriminatory nor capricious.” Cary, Self-Regulation in the Securities Industry, 49 A. B. A. J. 244, 246 (1963). Since the antitrust laws serve, among other things, to protect competitive freedom,.i. e., the freedom of individual business units to compete unhindered by the group action of others, it follows that the antitrust laws are peculiarly appropriate as a check upon anticompetitive acts of exchanges which conflict with their duty to keep their operations and those of their members honest and viable. Applicability of the antitrust laws, therefore, rests on the need for vindication of their positive aim of insuring' competitive freedom. Denial of their applicability would defeat the congressional policy reflected in the antitrust laws without serying the policy of the Secu-ritiés Exchange Act. Should review of exchange self-regulation be provided through a vehicle other than the antitrust laws, a different case as to antitrust exemption would be presented. See note 12, supra.
Yet it is only frank to acknowledge that the absence of power in the Commission to review particular exchange exercises of self-regulation does create problems for the Exchange. The entire public policy of self-regulation, beginning with the idea that the Exchange may set up barriers to membership, contemplates that the Exchange will engage in restraints, of trade which might well be unreasonable absent sanction by the Securities Exchange Act. Without the oversight of the Commission to elaborate from time to time on the propriety of various acts of self-regulation, the Exchange is left without guidance and without warning as to what regulative action would be viewed as excessive by an antitrust court possessing power to proceed based upon the considerations enumerated in the preceding paragraphs. But, under the aegis' of the rule of reason, traditional' antitrust concepts are flexible enough to permit the Exchange sufficient breathing space within which to carry out the mandate of the Securities Exchange Act. See United States v. Terminal R. Assn. of St. Louis, 224 U. S. 383, 394-395; Board of Trade of the City of Chicago v. United States, 246 U. S. 231, 238. Although, as we have seen, the statutory scheme of that Act is not sufficiently pervasive to create a total exr emption from the antitrust laws, compare Hale and Hale, Competition or Control' VI: Application of Antitrust Laws.to Regulated Industries, 111 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 46,48, 57-59 (1962), it is also true that particular instances of exchange self-regulation which fall within the scope and purposes of the Securities Exchange Act may be regarded as justified in answer to the assertion of an antitrust claim.
III.
The final question here is, therefore; whether the act of self-regulation in this case was so justified. The answer to that question is that it was not, because the collective refusal'to continue the private wires occurred under totally unjustifiable circumstances.. Notwithstanding their prompt and repeáted requests, petitioners were not informed of the charges underlying the decision to invoke the Exchange rules and were not afforded an appropriate opportunity to explain or refute the charges against them.
Given the principle that exchange self-regulation is to be regarded as'justified in response to antitrust charges only to the extent necéssary to protect the achievement of the aims of the Securities Exchange Act, it is clear that no justification can be offered for self-regulation conducted without provision for some method of telling a protesting nonmember why a rule is being invoked so as to harm him and allowing him to reply in' explanation of his position.. No. policy reflected in the Securities Exchange Act is, to begin with, served by denial of notice and.an opportunity for hearing. Indeed, the aims of the statutory scheme of self-policing — to protect investors and promote fair dealing — are defeated when an exchange exercises its tremendous economic power, without explaining its basis for acting, for the absence of an obligation to give some form of notice and, if timely requested, a hearing creates a great danger of perpetration of injury that will damage public confidence in the exchanges. The requirement of. such a hearing will, by contrast, help in effectuating antitrust policies by discouraging anticom-petitive applications of exchange rules which are not justifiable as within.the scope of the purposes of the Securities Exchange Act. In addition to the general impetus to refrain from making unsupportable accusations that is pres.-ent when it is required that the basis of charges be laid bare, the explanation or rebuttal offered by the nonmem.ber will in many instances dissipate the force of the ex parte information upon which an exchange proposes to act. The duty to explain and afford an opportunity to answer will, therefore, be of extremely beneficial effect in.keeping exchange action from straying into areas wholly foreign to the purposes of the Securities Exchange Act. And, given the possibility of antitrust liability for anti-competitive acts of self-regulation which fall too far outside the scope of the Exchange Act, the utilization of a notice and hearing procedure with its inherent check upon unauthorized exchange action will diminish rather than enlarge the likelihood that such liability will be incurred and hence will not interfere with the Exchange’s ability to engage efficaciously in legitimate substantive self-regulation. Provision of such a hearing will, moreover, contribute to the effective functioning of the antitrust court, which would be severely impeded in providing the review of exchange action which we deem essential if the exchange could obscure rather than illuminate the circumstances under which it háá acted. Hence the affording of procedural-safeguards not only will substantively encourage the lessening of anticompetitive behavior outlawed-by the Sherman Act but will allow the antitrust court to perform its function effectively.
Our decision today recognizes that the action here taken by the Exchange would, clearly be in violation of the Sherman Act unless justified by reference to the purposes of the Securities Exchange Act, and holds that that statute affords no justification for anticompetitive collective action- taken without according fair procedures. Congress in effecting a scheme of self-regulation designed to insure fair dealing cannot be thought to have sanctioned and protected self-regulative activity when carried out in a fundamentally unfair manner. The point is not that the antitrust laws impose the requirement of notice and a hearing here, but rather that, in acting without according petitioners these safeguards in response to their request, the Exchange has plainly exceeded the scope of its authority under the Securities Exchange Act to engage in self-regulation and therefore has not even reached the threshold of justification under that statute for what would otherwise be an antitrust violation.. Since it is perfectly clear that the Exchange can offer no justification under the Securities Exchange Act for its collective action in denying petitioners the private wire connections without notice and an opportunity for hearing, and that the Exchange has therefore violated § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1, and is thus liable to ■petitioners under §§ 4 and 16 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 15, 26, there is no occasion for us to pass upon the sufficiency of the reasons which the Exchange later assigned, for its action. Thus there is also no need for us to define further whether the interposing of a substantive justification in an antitrust suit brought to challenge a particular enforcement of the rules on its merits is to be governed by a standard of arbitrariness, good faith, reasonableness, or some other measure. It will be time enough to deal with that problem if and when the occasion arises. Experience teaches, however, that the affording of procedural safeguards, which by their nature serve to illuminate the underlying facts, in itself often operates to prevent erroneous decisions on the merits from occurring. There is no reason to believe that the experience of the Exchange will be different from that of other institutions, both public and.private. The benefits which a guarantee of procedural safeguards brings about are, moreover, of particular importance here. It requires but little appreciation of the extent of the Exchange’s economic power and of what happened in this country during the 1920’s and 1930’s to realize how essential it is that' the highest ethical standards prevail as to every aspect of the Exchange’s activities. What is basically at issue here is whether the type of partnership between government and private enterprise that marks the design of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 can operate effectively to insure the maintenance of such standards in the long run. We have today provided not a brake upon the private partner executing the public policy of self-regulation but a balance wheel to insure that it can perform this necessary activity in a setting compatible with the objectives of both the antitrust laws and the Securities Exchange Act.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Clark concurs in the result on the grounds stated in the opinion of the District Court, 196 F. Supp. 209, and the dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals, 302 F. 2d 714.
Exchange approval was never sought for Municipal’s private wires to the municipal bond departments of member firms.
Ultimately, during the pretrial stages of this litigation, the Exchange- disclosed most of the reasons for its action, and these are summarized and discussed in the opinions of both the District Court, 198 F. Supp. 209, 216-217, 225-227, and the Court of Appeals, 302 F. 2d 714, 716. In view, however, of the disposition we make of the case hereafter, there is no need to set forth these reasons in detail in this opinion.
Silver died while the case was pending in the Court of Appeals, and his widow, Evelyn B. Silver, as executrix of his estate, was substituted for him.
These forms of relief are provided by §§ 4 and 16 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 15, 26.
The fact that the consensus underlying the collective action was arrived at when the members bound themselves to comply with Exchange directives upon being admitted to membership rather than when the specific.issue of Silver’s qualifications arose does not diminish the collective nature of the action. A blanket subscription to possible future restraints does not excuse the restraints when they occur. Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1. Nor does any excuse derive from the fact that the collective refusal to deal was only with reference to the private wires, the member firms remaining willing to deal with petitioners for the purchase and sale of securities. See Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 327 U. S. 251; United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S. 131, 167. A valuable service germane to' petitioners’ business and important to their effective competition with others was withheld from them by collective action. That is enough to create 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.
Per Curiam.
In Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S. 1, 4 (1992), this Court held that “the use of excessive physical force against a prisoner may constitute cruel and unusual punishment [even] when the inmate does not suffer serious injury.” In this ease, the District Court dismissed a prisoner’s excessive force claim based entirely on its determination that his injuries were “de minimis.” Because the District Court’s approach, affirmed on appeal, is at odds with Hudson’s direction to decide excessive force claims based on the nature of the force rather than the extent of the injury, the petition for certiorari is granted, and the judgment is reversed.
I
In March 2008, petitioner Jamey Wilkins, a North Carolina state prisoner, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina pursuant to Rev. Stat. § 1979,42 U. S. C. § 1983. Wilkins’ pro se complaint alleged that, on June 13,2007, he was “maliciously and sadistically” assaulted “[without any provocation” by a corrections officer, respondent Gaddy. App. to Pet. for Cert. C-4. According to the complaint, Gaddy, apparently angered by Wilkins’ request for a grievance form, “snatched [Wilkins] off the ground and slammed him onto the concrete floor.” Ibid. Gaddy “then proceeded to punch, kick, knee and choke [Wilkins] until another officer had to physically remove him from [Wilkins].” Ibid. Wilkins further alleged that, “[a]s a result of the excessive force used by [Gaddy], [he] sustained multiple physical injuries including a bruised heel, lower back pain, increased blood pressure as well as migraine headaches and dizziness” and “psychological trauma and mental anguish including depression, panic attacks and nightmares of the assault.” Ibid.
The District Court, on its own motion and without a response from Gaddy, dismissed Wilkins’ complaint for failure to state a claim. Citing Circuit precedent, the court stated that, “[i]n order to state an excessive force claim under the Eighth Amendment, a plaintiff must establish that he received more than a de minimus [sic] injury.” No. 3:08-cv-00138 (WDNC, Apr. 16, 2008), pp. 1, 2 (footnote omitted; citing Taylor v. McDuffie, 155 F. 3d 479, 483 (CA4 1998); Riley v. Dorton, 115 F. 3d 1159, 1166 (CA4 1997) (en banc)). According to the eourt, Wilkins’ alleged injuries were no more severe than those deemed de minimis in the Circuit’s Taylor and Riley decisions. Indeed, the court noted, Wilkins nowhere asserted that his injuries had required medical attention.
In a motion for reconsideration, Wilkins stated that he was unaware that the failure to allege medical treatment might prejudice his claim. He asserted that he had been prescribed, and continued to take, medication for his headaches and back pain, as well as for depression. And he attached medical records purporting to corroborate his injuries and course of treatment.
Describing reconsideration as “‘an extraordinary remedy,”' the court declined to revisit its previous ruling. No. 3:08-cv-00138. (WDNC, Aug. 25, 2008), p. 1. The medical records, the court observed, indicated that some of Wilkins’ alleged injuries “were pre-existing conditions.” Id., at 3. Wilkins had sought treatment for high blood pressure and mental health issues even before the assault. The court acknowledged that Wilkins received an X ray after the incident “to examine his ‘bruised heel,’” but it “note[d] that bruising is generally considered a de minimus [sic] injury.” Id., at 4. The court similarly characterized as de minimis Wilkins’ complaints of back pain and headaches. The court denied Wilkins leave to amend his complaint. In a summary disposition, the Court of Appeals affirmed “for the reasons stated by the district court.” 308 Fed. Appx. 696, 697 (CA4 2009) (per curiam).
II
In requiring what amounts to a showing of significant injury in order to state an excessive force claim, the Fourth Circuit has strayed from the clear holding of this Court in Hudson. Like Wilkins, the prisoner in Hudson filed suit under § 1983 alleging that corrections officers had used excessive force in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Evidence indicated that the officers had punched Hudson in the mouth, eyes, chest, and stomach without justification, resulting in “minor bruises and swelling of his face, mouth, and lip” as well as loosened teeth and a cracked partial dental plate. 503 U. S., at 4. A Magistrate Judge entered judgment in Hudson’s favor, but the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that an inmate must prove “a significant injury” in order to state an excessive force claim. Hudson v. McMillian, 929 F. 2d 1014, 1015 (1990) (per curiam). According to the Court of Appeals, Hudson’s injuries, which had not required medical attention, were too “minor” to warrant relief. Ibid.
Reversing the Court of Appeals, this Court rejected the notion that “significant injury” is a threshold requirement for stating an excessive force claim. The “core judicial inquiry,” we held, was not whether a certain quantum of injury was sustained, but rather “whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm.” 503 U. S., at 7; see also Whitley v. Albers, 475 U. S. 312, 319-321 (1986). “When prison officials maliciously and sadistically use force to cause harm,” the Court recognized, “contemporary standards of decency always are violated . . . whether or not significant injury is evident. Otherwise, the Eighth Amendment would permit any physical punishment, no matter how diabolic or inhuman, inflicting less than some arbitrary quantity of injury.” Hudson, 503 U. S., at 9; see also id., at 13-14 (Black-mun, J., concurring in judgment) (“The Court today appropriately puts to rest a seriously misguided view that pain inflicted by an excessive use of force is actionable under the Eighth Amendment only when coupled with ‘significant injury,’ e. g., injury that requires medical attention or leaves permanent marks”).
This is not to say that the “absence of serious injury” is irrelevant to the Eighth Amendment inquiry. Id., at 7 (opinion of the Court). “[T]he extent of injury suffered by an inmate is one factor that may suggest ‘whether the use of force could plausibly have been thought necessary’ in a particular situation.” Ibid, (quoting Whitley, supra, at 321). The extent of injury may also provide some indication of the amount of force applied. As we stated in Hudson, not “every malevolent touch by a prison guard gives rise to a federal cause of action.” 503 U. S., at 9. “The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of ‘cruel and unusual’ punishments necessarily excludes from constitutional recognition de mini mis uses of physical force, provided that the use of force is not of a sort repugnant to the conscience of mankind.” Id., at 9-10 (some internal quotation marks omitted). An inmate who complains of a “‘push or shove’” that causes no discernible injury almost certainly fails to state a valid excessive force claim. Id., at 9 (quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F. 2d 1028, 1033 (CA2 1973)).
Injury and force, however, are only imperfectly correlated, and it is the latter that ultimately counts. An inmate who is gratuitously beaten by guards does not lose his ability to pursue an excessive force claim merely because he has the good fortune to escape without serious injury. Accordingly, the Court concluded in Hudson that the supposedly “ ‘minor’ ” nature of the injuries “provide[d] no basis for dismissal of [Hudson’s] §1983 claim” because “the blows directed at Hudson, which caused bruises, swelling, loosened teeth, and a cracked dental plate, are not de minimis for Eighth Amendment purposes.” 503 U. S., at 10.
The allegations made by Wilkins in this case are quite similar to the facts in Hudson, and the District Court’s analysis closely resembles the approach Hudson disavowed. Wilkins alleged that he was punched, kicked, kneed, choked, and body slammed “maliciously and sadistically” and “[without any provocation.” Dismissing Wilkins’ action sua sponte, the District Court did not hold that this purported assault, which allegedly left Wilkins with a bruised heel, back pain, and other injuries requiring medical treatment, involved de minimis force. Instead, the court concluded that Wilkins had failed to state a claim because “he simply has not alleged that he suffered anything more than a de minimus [sic] injury.” No. 3:08-cv-00138 (WDNC, Apr. 16, 2008), at 2.
In giving decisive weight to the purportedly de minimis nature of Wilkins’ injuries, the District Court relied on two Fourth Circuit cases. See Riley, 115 F. 3d, at 1166-1168; Taylor, 155 F. 3d, at 483-485. Those cases, in turn, were based upon the Fourth Circuit’s earlier decision in Norman v. Taylor, 25 F. 3d 1259 (1994) (en banc), which approved the practice of using injury as a proxy for force. According to the Fourth Circuit, Hudson “does not foreclose and indeed is consistent with [the] view . . . that, absent the most extraordinary circumstances, a plaintiff cannot prevail on an Eighth Amendment excessive force claim if his injury is de minimis.” 25 F. 3d, at 1263.
The Fourth Circuit’s strained reading of Hudson is not defensible. This Court’s decision did not, as the Fourth Circuit would have it, merely serve to lower the injury threshold for excessive force claims from “significant” to “non-de minimis” — whatever those ill-defined terms might mean. Instead, the Court aimed to shift the “core judicial inquiry” from the extent of the injury to the nature of the force— specifically, whether it was nontrivial and “was applied . . . maliciously and sadistically to cause harm.” 503 U. S., at 7. To conclude, as the District Court did here, that the absence of “some arbitrary quantity of injury” requires automatic dismissal of an excessive force claim improperly bypasses this core inquiry. Id, at 9.
In holding that the District Court erred in dismissing Wilkins’ complaint based on the supposedly de minimis nature of his injuries, we express no view on the -underlying merits of his excessive force claim. In order to prevail, Wilkins will ultimately have to prove not only that the assault actually occurred but also that it was carried out “maliciously and sadistically” rather than as part of “a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline.” Id., at 7. Moreover, even if Wilkins succeeds, the relatively modest nature of his alleged injuries will no doubt limit the damages he may recover.
* * *
The petition for certiorari and the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis 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.
The materials in the record do not disclose Gaddy’s full name.
Most Circuits to consider the issue have rejected the Fourth Circuit’s de minimis injury requirement. See, e. g., Wright v. Goord, 554 F. 3d 255, 269-270 (CA2 2009) (“[O]ur Court has reversed summary dismissals of Eighth Amendment claims of excessive force even where the plaintiff’s evidence of injury was slight____ [T]he absence of any significant injury to [the plaintiff] does not end the Eighth Amendment inquiry, for our standards of decency are violated even in the absence of such injury if the defendant’s use of force was malicious or sadistic”); Smith v. Mensinger, 293 F. 3d 641, 648-649 (CA3 2002) (“[T]he Eighth Amendment analysis must be driven by the extent of the force and the circumstances in which it is applied; not by the resulting injuries. . . . [D]e minimis injuries do not necessarily establish de minimis force”); Oliver v. Keller, 289 F. 3d 623, 628 (CA9 2002) (rejecting the view “that to support an Eighth Amendment excessive force claim a prisoner must have suffered from the excessive force a more than de minimis physical injury” (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. LaVallee, 439 F. 3d 670, 687 (CA10 2006) (same).
The Fifth Circuit has sometimes used language indicating agreement with the Fourth Circuit’s approach. See, e. g., Gomez v. Chandler, 163 F. 3d 921, 924 (1999) (“[T]o support an Eighth Amendment excessive force claim a prisoner must have suffered from the excessive force a more than de minimis physical injury”). But see Brown v. Lippard, 472 F. 3d 384, 386 (2006) (“This Court has never directly held that injuries must reach beyond some arbitrary threshold to satisfy an excessive force claim”). Even in the Fifth Circuit, however, Wilkins likely would have survived dismissal for failure to state a claim because that court’s precedents have classified the sort of injuries alleged here as non-cfe minimis. See, e. g., ibid, (permitting a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment excessive force claim to proceed to trial where evidence indicated that the prisoner suffered “one-centimeter abrasions on both his left knee and left shoulder, pain in his right knee, and tenderness around his left thumb,” as well as “back problems”); Gomez, supra, at 922 (refusing to grant summary judgment on de minimis injury grounds where the prisoner alleged “physical pain [and] bodily injuries in the form of cuts, scrapes, [and] contusions to the face, head, and body”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
In Dunn v. United States, 284 U. S. 390, 393 (1932), the Court, speaking through Justice Holmes, held that a logical inconsistency between a guilty verdict and a verdict of acquittal does not impugn the validity of either verdict. The question presented in this case is whether an apparent inconsistency between a jury’s verdict of acquittal on some counts and its failure to return a verdict on other counts affects the preclusive force of the acquittals under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. We hold that it does not.
I
In 1997, Enron Corporation (Enron) acquired a telecommunications business that it expanded and ultimately renamed Enron Broadband Services (EBS). Petitioner F. Scott Yeager served as Senior Vice President of Strategic Development for EBS from October 1, 1998, until his employment was terminated a few months before Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001. During his tenure, petitioner played an active role in EBS’s attempt to develop a nationwide fiber-optic telecommunications system called the Enron Intelligent Network (EIN).
In the summer of 1999, Enron announced that EBS would become a “‘core’” Enron business and a major part of its overall strategy. App. 11. Thereafter, Enron issued press releases touting the advanced capabilities of EIN and claiming that the project was “‘lit,’” or operational. Id., at 10. On January 20, 2000, at the company’s annual equity analyst conference, petitioner and others allegedly made false and misleading statements about the value and performance of the EIN project. On January 21, 2000, the price of Enron stock rose from $54 to $67. The next day it reached $72. At that point petitioner sold more than 100,000 shares of Enron stock that he had received as part of his compensation. During the next several months petitioner sold an additional 600,000 shares. All told, petitioner’s stock sales generated more than $54 million in proceeds and $19 million in personal profit. As for the EIN project, its value turned out to be illusory. The “intelligent” network showcased to the public in the press releases and at the analyst conference was riddled with technological problems and never fully developed.
On November 5, 2004, a grand jury returned a “Fifth Superseding Indictment” charging petitioner with 126 counts of five federal offenses: (1) conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud; (2) securities fraud; (3) wire fraud; (4) insider trading; and (5) money laundering. The Government’s theory of prosecution was that petitioner — acting in concert with other Enron executives — purposefully deceived the public about the EIN project in order to inflate the value of Enron’s stock and, ultimately, to enrich himself. Id., at 6.
Count 1 of the indictment described in some detail the alleged conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud and included as overt acts the substantive offenses charged in counts 2 through 6. Count 2, the securities fraud count, alleged that petitioner made false and misleading statements at the January 20, 2000, analyst conference or that he failed to state facts necessary to prevent statements made by others from being misleading. Counts 3 through 6 alleged that petitioner and others committed four acts of wire fraud when they issued four EBS-related press releases in 2000. Counts 27 through 46, the insider trading counts, alleged that petitioner made 20 separate sales of Enron stock “while in the possession of material non-public information regarding the technological capabilities, value, revenue and business performance of [EBS].” Id., at 31. And counts 67 through 165, the money laundering counts, described 99 financial transactions involving petitioner’s use of the proceeds of his sales of Enron stock, which the indictment characterized as “criminally derived property.” Id., at 37. To simplify our discussion, we shall refer to counts 1 through 6 as the “fraud counts” and the remaining counts as the “insider trading counts.”
The trial lasted 13 weeks. After four days of deliberations, the jury notified the court that it had reached agreement on some counts but had deadlocked on others. The judge then gave the jury an Allen charge, see Allen v. United States, 164 U. S. 492, 501-502 (1896), urging the jurors to reexamine the grounds for their opinions and to continue deliberations “until the end of the day” to achieve a final verdict on all counts. 56 Tr. 13724 (July 20, 2005). When the jury failed to break the deadlock, the court told the jurors that it would “take their verdict” instead of prolonging deliberations. Id., at 13725. The jury acquitted petitioner on the fraud counts but failed to reach a verdict on the insider trading counts. The court entered judgment on the acquittals and declared a mistrial on the hung counts.
On November 9, 2005, the Government obtained a new indictment against petitioner. This “Eighth Superseding Indictment” recharged petitioner with some, but not all, of the insider trading counts on which the jury had previously hung. App. 188. The new indictment refined the Government’s ease: Whereas the earlier indictment had named multiple defendants, the new indictment dealt exclusively with petitioner. And instead of alleging facts implicating a broader fraudulent scheme, the new indictment focused on petitioner’s knowledge of the EIN project and his failure to disclose that information to the public before selling his Enron stock.
Petitioner moved to dismiss all counts in the new indictment on the ground that the acquittals on the fraud counts precluded the Government from retrying him on the insider trading counts. He argued that the jury’s acquittals had necessarily decided that he did not possess material, nonpublic information about the performance of the EIN project and its value to Enron. In petitioner’s view, because re-prosecution for insider trading would require the Government to prove that critical fact, the issue-preclusion component of the Double Jeopardy Clause barred a second trial of that issue and mandated dismissal of all of the insider trading counts.
The District Court denied the motion. After reviewing the trial record, the court disagreed with petitioner’s reading of what the jury necessarily decided. In the court’s telling, the jury likely concluded that petitioner “did not knowingly and willfully participate in the scheme to defraud described in the conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud counts.” 446 F. Supp. 2d 719,735 (SD Tex. 2006). The court therefore concluded that the question whether petitioner possessed insider information was not necessarily resolved in the first trial and could be litigated anew in a second prosecution.
The Court of Appeals disagreed with the District Court’s-analysis of the record, but nevertheless affirmed. It reasoned that petitioner “did not dispute” the Government’s theory that he “helped shape the message” of the allegedly fraudulent presentations made at the analyst conference, and therefore rejected the District Court’s conclusion that the jury had “acquitted [petitioner] on the groun[d] that he did not participate in the fraud.” 521 F. 3d 367, 377 (CA5 2008). Based on its independent review of the record, the Court of Appeals instead concluded that “the jury must have found when it acquitted [petitioner] that [he] did not have any insider information that contradicted what was presented to the public.” Id., at 378. The court acknowledged that this factual determination would normally preclude the Government from retrying petitioner for insider trading or money laundering.
The court was nevertheless persuaded that a truly rational jury, having concluded that petitioner did not have any insider information, would have acquitted him on the insider trading counts. That the jury failed to acquit, and instead hung on those counts, was pivotal in the court’s issue-preclusion analysis. Considering “the hung counts along with the acquittals,” the court found it impossible “to decide with any certainty what the jury necessarily determined.” Ibid. Relying on Circuit precedent, United States v. Larkin, 605 F. 2d 1360 (1979), the court concluded that the conflict between the acquittals and the hung counts barred the application of issue preclusion in this case. 521 F. 3d, at 378-379.
Several courts have taken the contrary view and have held that a jury’s failure to reach a verdict on some counts should play no role in determining the preclusive effect of an acquittal. See United States v. Ohayon, 483 F. 3d 1281 (CA11 2007); United States v. Romeo, 114 F. 3d 141 (CA9 1997); United States v. Bailin, 977 F. 2d 270 (CA7 1992); United States v. Frazier, 880 F. 2d 878 (CA6 1989). Others have sided with the Fifth Circuit. See United States v. Howe, 538 F. 3d 820 (CA8 2008); United States v. Aguilar-Aranceta, 957 F. 2d 18 (CA1 1992); United States v. White, 936 F. 2d 1326 (CADC 1991). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 555 U. S. 1028 (2008), and now reverse.
II
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides: “[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”
While we have decided an exceptionally large number of cases interpreting this provision, see, e. g., United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U. S. 117, 126-127 (1980) (collecting cases), most of our decisions have found more guidance in the common-law ancestry of the Clause than in its brief text. Thus, for example, while the risk of being fined or imprisoned implicates neither “life” nor “limb,” our early cases held that double jeopardy protection extends to punishments that are not “positively covered by the language of [the] amendment.” Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, 170 (1874). As we explained, “[i]t is very clearly the spirit of the instrument to prevent a second punishment under judicial proceedings for the same crime, so far as the common law gave that protection.” Ibid.
Our cases have recognized that the Clause embodies two vitally important interests. The first is the “deeply in-, grained” principle that “the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.” Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 187-188 (1957); see Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784, 795 (1969); DiFrancesco, 449 U. S., at 127-128. The second interest is the preservation of “the finality of judgments.” Crist v. Bretz, 437 U. S. 28, 33 (1978).
The first interest is implicated whenever the State seeks a second trial after its first attempt to obtain a conviction results in a mistrial because the jury has failed to reach a verdict. In these circumstances, however, while the defendant has an interest in avoiding multiple trials, the Clause does not prevent the Government from seeking to reprosecute. Despite the argument’s textual appeal, we have held that the second trial does not place the defendant in jeopardy “twice.” Richardson v. United States, 468 U. S. 317, 323 (1984); see 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution §1781, pp. 659-660 (1833). Instead, a jury’s inability to reach a decision is the kind of “manifest necessity” that permits the declaration of a mistrial and the continuation of the initial jeopardy that commenced when the jury was first impaneled. See Arizona v. Washington, 434 U. S. 497, 505-506 (1978); United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579, 580 (1824). The “interest in giving the prosecution one complete opportunity to convict those who have violated its laws” justifies treating the jury’s inability to reach a verdict as a nonevent that does not bar retrial. Washington, 434 U. S., at 509.
While the case before us involves a mistrial on the insider trading counts, the question presented cannot be resolved by asking whether the Government should be given one complete opportunity to convict petitioner on those charges. Rather, the case turns on the second interest at the core of the Clause. We must determine whether the interest in preserving the finality of the jury’s judgment on the fraud counts, including the jury’s finding that petitioner did not possess insider information, bars a retrial on the insider trading counts. This requires us to look beyond the Clause’s prohibition on being put in jeopardy “twice”; the jury’s acquittals unquestionably terminated petitioner’s jeopardy with respect to the issues finally decided in those counts. The proper question, under the Clause’s text, is whether it is appropriate to treat the insider trading charges as the “same offence” as the fraud charges. Our opinion in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U. S. 436 (1970), provides the basis for our answer.
In Ashe, we squarely held that the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes the Government from relitigating any issue that was necessarily decided by a jury’s acquittal in a prior trial. In that case, six poker players were robbed by a group of masked men. Ashe was charged with — and acquitted of — robbing Donald Knight, one of the six players. The State sought to retry Ashe for the robbery of another poker player only weeks after the first jury had acquitted him. The second prosecution was successful: Facing “substantially stronger” testimony from “witnesses [who] were for the most part the same,” id., at 439-440, Ashe was convicted and sentenced to a 35-year prison term. We concluded that the subsequent prosecution was constitutionally prohibited. Because the only contested issue at the first trial was whether Ashe was one of the robbers, we held that the jury’s verdict of acquittal collaterally estopped the State from trying him for robbing a different player during the same criminal episode. Id., at 446. We explained that “when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment” of acquittal, it “cannot again be litigated” in a second trial for a separate offense. Id., at 443. To decipher what a jury has necessarily decided, we held that courts should “examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.” Id., at 444 (internal quotation marks omitted). We explained that the inquiry “must be set in a practical frame and viewed with an eye to all the circumstances of the proceedings.” Ibid. (quoting Sealfon v. United States, 332 U. S. 575, 579 (1948); internal quotation marks omitted).
Unlike Ashe, the case before us today entails a trial that included multiple counts rather than a trial for a single offense. And, while Ashe involved an acquittal for that single offense, this case involves an acquittal on some counts and a mistrial declared on others. The reasoning in Ashe is nevertheless controlling because, for double jeopardy purposes, the jury’s inability to reach a verdict on the insider trading counts was a nonevent and the acquittals on the fraud counts are entitled to the same effect as Ashe’s acquittal.
As noted above, see supra, at 116, the Court of Appeals reasoned that the hung counts must be considered to determine what issues the jury decided in the first trial. Viewed in isolation, the court explained, the acquittals on the fraud charges would preclude retrial because they appeared to support petitioner’s argument that the jury decided he lacked insider information. 521 F. 3d, at 378. Viewed alongside the hung counts, however, the acquittals appeared less decisive. The problem, as. the court saw it, was that, if “the jury found that [petitioner] did not have insider information, then the jury, acting rationally, would also have acquitted [him] of the insider trading counts.” Ibid. The fact that the jury hung was a logical wrinkle that made it impossible for the court “to decide with any certainty what the jury necessarily determined.” Ibid. Because petitioner failed to show what the jury decided, id., at 380, the court refused to find the Government precluded from pursuing the hung counts in a new prosecution.
The Court of Appeals’ issue-preclusion analysis was in error. A hung count is not a “relevant” part of the “record of [the] prior proceeding.” See Ashe, 397 U. S., at 444 (internal quotation marks omitted). Because a jury speaks only through its verdict, its failure to reach a verdict cannot — by negative implication — yield a piece of information that helps put together the trial puzzle. A mistried count is therefore nothing like the other forms of record material that Ashe suggested should be part of the preclusion inquiry. Ibid.; see also Black’s Law Dictionary 1301 (8th ed. 2004) (defining “record” as the “official report of the proceedings in a case, including the filed papers, a verbatim transcript of the trial or hearing (if any), and tangible exhibits”).. Unlike the pleadings, the jury charge, or the evidence introduced by the parties, there is no way to decipher what a hung count represents. Even in the usual sense of “relevance,” a hung count hardly “make[s] the existence of any fact . . . more probable or less probable.” Fed. Rule Evid. 401. A host of reasons — sharp disagreement, confusion about the issues, exhaustion after a long trial, to name but a few — could work alone or in tandem to cause a jury to hang. To ascribe meaning to a hung count would presume an ability to identify which factor was at play in the jury room. But that is not reasoned analysis; it is guesswork. Such conjecture about possible reasons for a jury’s failure to reach a decision should play no part in assessing the legal consequences of a unanimous verdict that the jurors did return.
A contrary conclusion would require speculation into what transpired in the jury room. Courts properly avoid such explorations into the jury’s sovereign space, see United States v. Powell, 469 U. S. 57, 66 (1984); Fed. Rule Evid. 606(b), and for good reason. The jury’s deliberations are secret and not subject to outside examination. If there is to be an inquiry into what the jury decided, the “evidence should be confined to the points in controversy on the former trial, to the testimony given by the parties, and to the questions submitted to the jury for their consideration.” Packet Co. v. Sickles, 5 Wall. 580, 593 (1867); see also Vaise v. Delaval, 99 Eng. Rep. 944 (K. B. 1785) (Lord Mansfield, C. J.) (refusing to rely on juror affidavits to impeach a verdict reached by a coin flip); J. Wigmore, Evidence §2349 (McNaughton rev. 1961 and Supp. 1991).
Accordingly, we hold that the consideration of hung counts has no place in the issue-preclusion analysis. Indeed, if it were relevant, the fact that petitioner has already survived one trial should be a factor cutting in favor of, rather than against, applying a double jeopardy bar. To identify what a jury necessarily determined at trial, courts should scrutinize a jury’s decisions, not its failures tó decide. A jury’s verdict of acquittal represents the community’s collective judgment regarding all the evidence and arguments presented to it. Even if the verdict is “based upon an egregiously erroneous foundation,” Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U. S. 141, 143 (1962) (per curiam), its finality is unassailable. See, e. g., Washington, 434 U. S., at 503; Sanabria v. United States, 437 U. S. 54, 64 (1978). Thus, if the possession of insider information was a critical issue of ultimate fact in all of the charges against petitioner, a jury verdict that necessarily decided that issue in his favor protects him from prosecution for any charge for which that is an essential element.
Ill
The Government relies heavily on two of our cases, Richardson v. United States, 468 U. S. 317, and United States v. Powell, 469 U. S. 57, to argue that it is entitled to retry petitioner on the insider trading counts. Neither precedent can bear the weight the Government places on it.
In Richardson, the defendant was indicted on three counts of narcotics violations. The jury acquitted him on one count but hung on the others. Richardson moved to bar retrial on the hung counts, insisting that reprosecution would place him twice in jeopardy for the same offense. Unlike petitioner in this case, Richardson did not argue that retrial was barred because the jury’s verdict of acquittal meant that it necessarily decided an essential fact in his favor. He simply asserted that the hung counts, standing alone, shielded him from reprosecution. We disagreed and held that “the protection of the Double Jeopardy Clause by its terms applies only if there has been some event, such as an acquittal, which terminates the original jeopardy.” 468 U. S., at 325. “[T]he failure of the jury to reach a verdict,” we explained, “is not an event which terminates jeopardy.” Ibid. From this the Government extrapolates the altogether different principle that retrial is always permitted whenever a jury convicts on some counts and hangs on others. Brief for United States 23-24. But Richardson was not so broad. Rather, our conclusion was a rejection of the argument— similar to the one the Government urges today — that a mistrial is an event of significance. In so holding, we did not open the door to using a mistried count to ignore the preclusive effect of a jury’s acquittal.
The Government next contends that an acquittal can never preclude retrial on a mistried count because it would impute irrationality to the jury in violation of the rule articulated in Powell, 469 U. S. 57. In Powell, the defendant was charged with various drug offenses. The jury acquitted Powell of the substantive drug charges but convicted her of using a telephone in “ ‘committing and in causing and facilitating’ ” those same offenses. Id., at 59-60. Powell attacked the verdicts on appeal as irrationally inconsistent and urged the reversal of her convictions. She insisted that “collateral estoppel should apply to verdicts rendered by a single jury, to preclude acceptance of a guilty verdict on a telephone facilitation count where the jury acquits the defendant of the predicate felony.” Id., at 64. We rejected this argument, reasoning that issue preclusion is “predicated on the assumption that the jury acted rationally.” Id., at 68.
Arguing that a jury that acquits on some counts while inexplicably hanging on others is not rational, the Government contends that issue preclusion is as inappropriate in this case as it was in Powell. There are two serious flaws in this line of reasoning. First, it takes Powell’s treatment of inconsistent verdicts and imports it into an entirely different context involving both verdicts and seemingly inconsistent hung counts. But the situations are quite dissimilar. In Powell, respect for the jury’s verdicts counseled giving each verdict full effect, however inconsistent. As we explained, the jury’s verdict “brings to the criminal process, in addition to the collective judgment of the community, an element of needed finality.” Id., at 67. By comparison, hung counts have never been accorded respect as a matter of law or history, and are not similar to jury verdicts in any relevant sense. By equating them, the Government’s argument fails. Second, the Government’s reliance on Powell assumes that a mistried count can, in context, be evidence of irrationality. But, as we explained above, see supra, at 121-122, the fact that a jury hangs is evidence of nothing — other than, of course, that it has failed to decide anything. By relying on hung counts to question the basis of the jury’s verdicts, the Government violates the very assumption of rationality it invokes for support.
At bottom, the Government misreads our cases that have rejected attempts to question the validity of a jury’s verdict. In Powell and, before that, in Dunn, 284 U. S. 390, we were faced with jury verdicts that, on their face, were logically inconsistent and yet we refused to impugn the legitimacy of either verdict. In this case, there is merely a suggestion that the jury may have acted irrationally. And instead of resting that suggestion on a verdict, the Government relies on a hung count, the thinnest reed of all. If the Court in Powell and Dunn declined to use a clearly inconsistent verdict to second-guess the soundness of another verdict, then, a fortiori, a potentially inconsistent hung count could not command a different result.
IV
One final matter requires discussion. The Government argues that even if we conclude (as we do) that acquittals can preclude retrial on counts on which the same jury hangs, we should nevertheless affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals because petitioner failed to show that the jury necessarily resolved in his favor an issue of ultimate fact that the Government must prove in order to convict him of insider trading and money laundering. See Brief for United States 41-45. Given the length and complexity of the proceedings, this factual dispute is understandable. The District Court and Court of Appeals each read the record differently, disagreeing as to what the jury necessarily decided in its acquittals. Compare 446 F. Supp. 2d, at 735 (“[T]he jury necessarily determined that Defendant Yeager did not knowingly and willfully participate or agree to participate in a scheme to defraud in connection with the alleged false statements or material omissions made at the analyst conference and press releases”), with 521 F. 3d, at 378 (“[T]he jury must have found when it acquitted Yeager that Yeager himself did not have any insider information that contradicted what was presented to the public”). Our grant of certiorari was based on the assumption that the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the record was correct. We recognize the Government’s right, as the prevailing party in the Court of Appeals, to “defend its judgment on any ground properly raised below whether or not that ground was relied upon, rejected, or even considered by the District Court or the Court of Appeals.” Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of Yakima Nation, 439 U. S. 463, 476, n. 20 (1979). But we decline to engage in a fact-intensive analysis of the voluminous record, an undertaking unnecessary to the resolution of the narrow legal question we granted certiorari to answer. If it chooses, the Court of Appeals may revisit its factual analysis in light of the Government’s arguments before this Court.
V
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
See 18 U. S. C. § 371 (conspiracy to commit fraud against the United States); 15 U. S. C. §78j(b) (1994 ed.), §78ff (2000 ed.), and 17 CFR §240.10b-5 (2004) (securities fraud); 18 U. S. C. §1343 (2000 ed.) (wire fraud); 15 U. S. C. §78j(b) (1994 ed.), §78ff (2000 ed.), and 17 CFR § 240.10b5-l (insider trading); 18 U. S. C. § 1957 (money laundering).
While petitioner was charged with 126 counts, the indictment included 176 counts in all, covering conduct by executives purportedly involved in the alleged fraud.
Petitioner had also moved to dismiss the relevant counts in the earlier indictment in response to the Government’s assertion that it could reprosecute petitioner for the previously hung counts under that indictment as well. See 521 F. 3d 367, 370, n. 4 (CA5 2008).
Although the doctrine of collateral estoppel had developed in civil litigation, we had already extended it to criminal proceedings when Ashe was decided. The justification for this application was first offered by Justice Holmes, who observed that “[i]t cannot be that the safeguards of the person, so often and so rightly mentioned with solemn reverence, are less than those that protect from a liability in debt.” United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U. S. 85, 87 (1916). Currently, the more descriptive term “issue preclusion” is often used in lieu of “collateral estoppel.” See Restatement (Second) of Judgments §27 (1980).
Indeed, there were many indications that the jury in this case could have been exhausted after the 13-week trial. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 9-10 (cataloging numerous “statements on the record [that] reveal the very real possibility that the jurors cut their deliberations short out of exhaustion”).
It would also require too much of the defendant. To preclude retrial, he must show that the jury necessarily decided an issue in his favor. Yet, to borrow from the Court of Appeals, “[b]ecause it is impossible to determine why [a] jury hung,” 521 F. 3d, at 379, the defendant will have to rebut all inferences about what may have motivated the jury to hang without the ability to seek conclusive proof. See Fed. Rule Evid. 606(b). There is no reason to impose such a burden on a defendant.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Carey Act of 1894, ch. 301, § 4, 28 Stat. 422, 43 U. S. C. § 641, “to aid public-land States” in the reclamation of desert lands, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior upon proper application “to contract and agree, from time to time . . . binding the United States to donate, grant, and patent” such desert lands, not exceeding a specified acreage, as the State should cause to be irrigated, reclaimed, and occupied, provided, however, that the lands would be restored to the public domain if reclamation had not begun and plans were not carried out within stated time limits. Originally, each State covered by the Act was limited to one million acres; but in 1908, the ceiling for Idaho was raised to three million acres. Also, in 1910, upon request of a State, the Secretary was authorized to withdraw desert lands temporarily from the public domain prior to the State’s submission of a formal plan under the Carey Act. 36 Stat. 237, 43 U. S. C. § 643 (1970 ed.).
Of all Carey Act patents issued, a large majority were issued early in the century, the scarcity of water for irrigation being primarily responsible for the absence of patents in the past 30 years. Improved technology for pumping from deep water sources, however, .among other things, has revived interest in reclaiming arid lands.
In 1974, the State of Idaho, acting pursuant to 43 U. S. C. § 643, requested that an identified tract of some 27,400 acres be temporarily withdrawn from the public domain pending the submission of a proposed development plan as required by the Carey Act. In January 1975, the Idaho State Office, Bureau of Land Management, rejected the application in part because some of the lands requested had already been withdrawn for other purposes, including a portion being used as a stock driveway. Idaho appealed to the Interior Board of Land Appeals with respect to the lands previously withdrawn for stock-driveway purposes. Idaho also filed with the Board a petition under § 7 of the Taylor Grazing Act, 48 Stat. 1272, as amended, 49 Stat. 1976, 43 U. S. C. § 315f, for reclassification of the stock-driveway lands as suitable for use under the Carey Act.
The Board, in its decision issued on July 31, 1975, found that the applicable regulations prevented it from withholding action on the Carey Act application pending a decision on the Taylor Act reclassification petition. The Board then rejected Idaho’s assertion that its Carey Act application took precedence over any withdrawal subsequent to the date of the Act because the Act was a grant in praesenti or because the grant, when the specified conditions were fulfilled, related back to the date of the Act. The Board adhered to its prior decision in State of Wyoming, 36 L. D. 399 (1908), which held that under the Carey Act “the acceptance of the offer of the State is a matter wholly within the discretion of the Department.” That being so, the State had no rights whatsoever to have any application approved. The Board further repeated Wyoming’s statement that if lands had been withdrawn for other purposes, the presumption that the withdrawal was proper is “conclusive,” the lands were not available for a claim under the Carey Act, and the State was not entitled to a hearing “for the purpose of determining whether or not [the Secretary’s] discretion has been properly exercised.” Id., at 400. The’ Board, therefore, affirmed the rejection of Idaho’s Carey Act application. The case was returned to the Bureau of Land Management for initial action on the petition for reclassification of the stock-driveway lands and for further action on the remaining lands covered by the application for temporary withdrawal.
Meanwhile, in February 1975, the State of Idaho, through its appropriate officials, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho against the Secretary of the Interior. The State alleged that by virtue of the Carey Act, the United States “has bound itself to donate, grant and patent to the State of Idaho . . . three million acres of desert lands,” that “these lands are subject to temporary withdrawal and/or segregation upon [the State’s] request,” that the Secretary is “without any discretion to deny desert lands once requested,” and that the Secretary now asserts that “he will not allow the requests for segregation or withdrawal under the Carey Act as a matter of right.” The State prayed for a declaration of its rights under the Carey Act. The Secretary’s answer admitted that he would not allow requests for segregation or withdrawal as a matter of right but denied the remainder of the foregoing allegations.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, Idaho submitted that the Carey Act had been an immediately effective grant, or at least that the United States was firmly obligated to contract with and patent the statutory acreage to Idaho when and if Idaho satisfied the statutory preconditions. In the State’s view, Carey Act applications took precedence over prior withdrawals. The Secretary, therefore, had been wrong to deny Idaho’s request for temporary withdrawal, even though the specified lands had already been withdrawn for other purposes. The United States, to the contrary, asserted that the Carey Act granted nothing to Idaho, had not obligated the Secretary to contract with Idaho with respect to any desert lands selected by the State, but had merely authorized the Secretary to contract if he, in his unbridled discretion, saw fit to do so. The Secretary, therefore, had committed no error and had not exceeded his authority under the Carey Act or any other law when he denied the petition for temporary withdrawal.
The District Court, in its memorandum opinion and decision of July 15, 1976, rejected the State’s claim that the Carey Act was an in praesenti grant giving the State an absolute right to the acreage specified in the Act. The District Court went on to hold, however, (1) that Idaho was “guaranteed a maximum entitlement of three million acres of suitable desert land . . . which it cannot be deprived of by the Secretary of the Interior, if the State meets the conditions of the Carey Act”; (2) that “[t]he Secretary is under an obligation to, preserve enough desert land suitable for Carey Act development to fulfill the State’s right of entitlement, which the Federal Government must contract to donate to the State in accordance with the Act”; and (3) that “[t]o the extent the land has been withdrawn for other purposes” and the State desires the land for Carey Act development, “its remedy is to petition the Secretary to reclassify the lands suitable for Carey Act entry,” in which event “[t]he Secretary may not arbitrarily deny the State’s application for reclassification,” his ruling thereon being subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 706. 417 F. Supp. 873, 881 (1976). The District Court went on to indicate its affirmance of the Interior Board of Land Appeals’ decision and to this extent granted the Secretary’s motion for summary judgment.
The Secretary moved for reconsideration and modification of the decision. The District Court again heard oral argument. After first suggesting that the District Court had erred in construing the Carey Act instead of merely sustaining the administrative action, the Secretary then agreed that the case had proceeded as a declaratory judgment action, or at least that it had a declaratory judgment dimension. The Secretary again presented his position that the Carey Act placed no obligation whatsoever on him to enter into any contract with Idaho or to approve any Carey Act application filed by the State.
In this respect, the judge expressed his disagreement and on August 26, 1976, entered his judgment, which, as amended in minor respects on November 15, (1) rejected the State’s prayer for declaration of its absolute right to demand three million acres of the public domain without regard to any previous classifications and withdrawals and affirmed the decision of the Interior Board of Land Appeals; (2) declared that Idaho is “entitled to have withdrawn and patented three million acres of the desert lands in the public domain,” provided that there are sufficient desert lands within the State of Idaho and provided that Idaho satisfies all the terms and conditions of the Act, and declared that by the Carey Act the United States had “bound itself to contract, donate, grant and patent to the State of Idaho, upon compliance with the stated conditions, . . . not to exceed three million acres [of desert land], as that sum may be reduced by prior patents issued pursuant to the Carey Act”; and (3) declared that with respect to desert lands presently withdrawn from the public domain for other purposes, the State’s remedy, should it desire to initiate Carey Act development on such lands, “is to petition the [Secretary] for temporary withdrawal under 43 U. S. C. Sec. 643 and/or under 43 U. S. C. Sec. 315f, and it is the duty of the [Secretary] to entertain and act upon said petition or petitions in accordance with the public land laws of the United States of America and in accordance with due and proper administrative procedures.”
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment “[u]pon the basis of the carefully written opinion” of the District Judge. 595 P. 2d 524 (1979). We granted the petition for writ of certiorari filed by the United States and presenting the single question whether the Carey Act “requires the Secretary of the Interior indefinitely to reserve from appropriation to other public or private uses some 2.4 million acres of desert land within Idaho for the eventuality that the State may be able and willing to select all or any part of such acreage for irrigation and reclamation under the Act.” 444 U. S. 914 (1979).
I
There is first the question raised at the oral argument of this cause whether there is a case or controversy between the State and the Secretary as to anything other than the State’s entitlement to the lands that had been withdrawn for stock-driveway purposes and that were involved in its Interior Department appeal; or, to put the matter another way, whether there is a real case or controversy with respect to the issue that the United States presented in its petition.for cer-tiorari, namely, whether the State was entitled to 2.4 million acres of desert land which the Secretary then must preserve for Carey Act development. Although the United States urged on appeal in the Court of Appeals that there was no case or controversy whatsoever, even as to any of the lands covered by Idaho’s Carey Act application for temporary withdrawal, the Court of Appeals apparently rejected the argument; the United States raised no jurisdictional question in its petition or its brief; and the Solicitor General at oral argument was of the opinion that the District Court and the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to enter the judgments that appear in this record. We have the same view.
From the very outset, the State took the position that it is absolutely entitled to select and have withdrawn under the Carey Act up to 2.4 million acres of desert land, provided only that it satisfy the statutory preconditions. Whether or not the lands that it designated had already been withdrawn for other purposes, such as a stock driveway, it was the State’s view that the Secretary had no discretion to deny withdrawal of desert lands that the State selected. The Secretary, on the other hand, from the outset, denied that the State had any right to contract for desert lands under the Carey Act and asserted that it was within his discretion to deny any and all state requests for withdrawal or segregation of lands under the Carey Act, whether or not the selected lands were already in use for other purposes. These were the respective positions of the parties in the Interior Department proceedings, with the Interior Board of Land Appeals rejecting the State’s and adopting the Secretary’s position.
These were also the positions of the parties in the District Court. The State and the Secretary were thus at odds over the proper construction of the Carey Act, over the State’s entitlement under the statute, and over the extent of the Secretary’s discretion. If the State was correct as to the meaning of the Act, the denial of its request for withdrawal of the stock-driveway lands was incorrect; but the denial was correct if the Secretary had the better view of the statute. We thus find it undeniable that there was a case or controversy between the Secretary and the State with respect to the approval of its Carey Act application and that the case or controversy in this respect turned on what rights, if any, the State had under this 1894 statute. Although at the time that the case was filed in the District Court, the State’s administrative appeal had not yet been decided, a case or controversy in the Art. Ill sense existed; and, in any event, administrative appellate procedures were soon exhausted. The District Court accepted the case as involving a review of the Secretary’s 'action.-and as requiring a declaration of the respective rights of the State and the Secretary under the Act.
In proceeding to address the statutory issues tendered by the State, the District Court rejected both the position of the State and that of the Secretary. The State was entitled to up to 2.4 million acres of desert land for which the Secretary was obligated to contract with the State pursuant to the terms of the Act; but the Act was not a grant in praesenti, and the State did not have an absolute right to the particular desert lands that it happened to select. If the lands had been withdrawn for another public use pursuant to another statute, the State’s remedy was to request reclassification, which the Secretary could not arbitrarily deny. Under this approach, the Secretary was correct in denying the State’s request for immediate withdrawal of the lands already in use as a stock driveway; but the Secretary was quite wrong in claiming absolute discretion to deny any Carey Act application, including the State’s pending application insofar as it covered lands that had not yet been withdrawn for other purposes.
These elements were included in the District Court’s judgment and were supported by its opinion. We find no jurisdictional barrier to the entry of such a judgment or to appellate review of that part of the judgment to which the United States objects as a misconstruction of the Carey Act and as an unwarranted extension of rights to the State that would, constitute a substantial interference with the authority of the Secretary to manage the public lands.
II
As was set out above, the judgment declared that Idaho is “entitled” to 2.4 million acres of Carey Act land and that the Secretary is “bound” to contract for such lands. Although the judgment did not prevent the Secretary from putting desert lands to other uses, the judgment, fairly read, would obligate the Secretary to contract with the States for lands selected by it that had not been so withdrawn, if the . State complied with the statutory conditions. The Secretary submits that the Act does not so drastically limit his discretion. He also understands these same provisions of the judgment to mean that he “must hold for eventual disposition under the Carey Act approximately 2.4 million acres of unappropriated desert lands.” Brief for Petitioner 8. At least that much desert land, he says, must be reserved and may not be put to other uses. Although the judgment does not so provide in so many words, it is fairly arguable that this is what the trial court intended, particularly because in its opinion, which the Court of Appeals made its own, the trial court held that the State is “guaranteed” the statutory acreage, “which it cannot be deprived of by the Secretary,” and that the Secretary is under an “obligation to preserve enough desert land suitable for Carey Act development” to fulfill the State’s entitlement. The precise meaning of the judgment in this respect, however, we do not further pursue; for as we understand the language and legislative history of the Carey Act, it neither requires the Secretary to hold the statutory acreage in reserve nor obliges him always to contract with the State for desert lands that the State selects from those parts of the public domain that have not been withdrawn for other purposes.
The language of the Act “authorize^] and empower[s],” but does not direct, the Secretary to contract with the State upon the State’s proper application. This is permissive language, as compared with the obligatory statutory language requiring the Secretary to issue a patent once he has contracted with the State and the State has satisfied the contractual and statutory conditions. Furthermore, the Secretary may act only with the approval of the President, a provision which strongly suggests that the statutory discretion to contract is broader than merely determining whether the application on its face satisfies the statutory requirements.
In ascertaining the meaning of the relevant language of the Act, it is important to note the circumstances of its adoption in 1894. The initial version of the Act was adopted in the Senate as an amendment to an appropriations bill that had already passed the House. The amendment, which was offered by Senator Carey of Wyoming, was in the form of a Senate bill that had previously been offered by the Senator and passed by the Senate but was still pending before a House committee. This bill, and the amendment to the appropriations bill, provided that each State could select up to the specified acreage of desert lands and that upon selection the lands would be immediately reserved from other entry and would be patented to the State upon proof that the selected land had been suitably reclaimed. The House conferees brought the amended appropriations bill before the House where a substitute for the Senate amendment was offered by Representative McRae and was adopted after full debate. The Conference Committee then adopted the House substitute, and it was this version that became known as the Carey Act.
For present purposes, the principal difference between the Senate amendment and the McRae substitute was that the former provided for automatic reservation upon selection by the State and the latter did not. As Representative McRae explained, 26 Cong. Rec. 8391 (1894): “The Senate proposition makes a reservation outright for the States and will make it possible for the States to put a million of acres in each State in reservation for an indefinite period. . . . The pending proposition does not make any grant, but only authorizes the Secretary of the Interior with the approval of the President to make a contract with any States in which any of these lands may be situated. . . .” And again, id., at 8431: “This is no grant at all, but only gives authority to the Secretary of the Interior and President to make contracts binding the United States to donate the land to the States when reclaimed.” There are some indications during the debates, originating from both proponents and opponents of the provision, that perhaps a more substantive action was intended; but there is nothing that undercuts the explanation of Representative McRae as to the meaning of the markedly different language contained in the House substitute. Nor is there anything persuasive in the several later additions or amendments to the Carey Act to indicate that the Act reserved to the States or obligated the Secretary to contract for any particular acreage for Carey Act development.
It has also been the consistent view of the Department of the Interior that the Carey Act does not grant or reserve any specified acreage of desert lands for development under the Carey Act. State of Wyoming, 36 L. D. 399 (1908), relied on by the Secretary in this case, stands for at least this much; and we have in other cases accorded a considerable deference to the responsible agency’s construction of the statute which it administers. Andrus v. Charlestons Stone Products Co., 436 U. S. 604, 613-614 (1978); Udall v. Tollman, 380 U. S. 1, 16 (1965); Cameron v. United States, 252 U. S. 450, 460 (1920). It is also ascertainable from the Congressional Record, reflecting the proceedings connected with the 1908 amendments to the Carey Act, that the eight States covered by the Act had by that time selected approximately 2.72 million acres under the Carey Act but that less than half that amount, 1.12 million acres, had been approved and only 200,000 acres had gone to patent. One of the many reasons for rejections of selected lands had been that they were already in other legitimate use or that such use was being considered. 42 Cong. Rec. 6437 (1908).
Against this background, we conclude that Congress did not intend to reserve any specific number of acres of desert land for any State under the Carey Act and that the Act does not prevent the Secretary from committing otherwise available parts of the public domain for any of the uses authorized under the various statutes relating to the use and management of the public lands, such as the Taylor Grazing Act under which part of the lands that Idaho sought in this case have been withdrawn. It is also clear that one of the reasons prompting the McRae substitute was to eliminate the right of the State under the Senate version to have automatically reserved, and to contract for the particular lands that it selected. As finally adopted, the Act does not oblige the Secretary automatically to contract for lands chosen by the State even if its application otherwise conforms to the statute. Hence, even though a State’s selection has not been withdrawn for other uses, as is the case with part of the land that Idaho applied for in this case, the Secretary need not always approve the application.
The. District Court was therefore correct in remitting the State to a reclassification proceeding with respect to the land in use as.a stock driveway; but the District Court erred in declaring that the Act entitled the State to the statutory acreage in the sense that the Secretary was firmly bound to reserve such acreage and to contract for it as and when the State selected it..
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part.
So ordered.
This legislation was prompted by a desire to prevent speculative filings under entry statutes on land chosen by a State for a Carey Act project. S. Rep. No. 367, 61st Cong., 2d Sess. (1910); H. R. Rep. No. 662, 61st Cong., 2d Sess. (1910). After the decision and judgment of the District Court in this case, this provision was repealed by § 704 (a) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), Pub. L. 94-579, 90 Stat. 2792. Under § 204 of FLPMA, 43 U. S. C. § 1714, however, which gives the Secretary the general authority to make withdrawals, the Secretary construes his authority to allow him to withdraw public lands from entry pending submission of a formal plan under the Carey Act.
On the State’s failure to appeal the denial with respect to the lands coveted by the application that had been withdrawn for purposes other than a stock driveway, the order as to these lands became final.
The Board cited its stock-driveway regulations providing that “[l]ands withdrawn for driveways for stock ... are not subject to entry or disposition” and that applications for the acquisition of such lands shah be rejected. 43 CFR § 2313.1 (c) (1974). The Board also relied on a general regulation, 43 CFR § 2091.1 (a) (1974), providing in pertinent part that “applications which are accepted for filing must be rejected and cannot be held pending possible future availability of the land or interests in land, when approval of the application is prevented by . . . [withdrawal or reservation of lands.” The Board’s prior cases are also to this effect.
The State alleged jurisdiction in the District Court “by virtue of a federal question existing and amounts of money involved ... in excess óf $10,000, exclusive of costs and interest.” The State also alleged jurisdiction “pursuant to the Federal A. P. A. (5 XJSC 701 et seq).” The complaint did not recite that the State.sought relief pursuant to the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2201, but the District Court understood the complaint as seeking declaratory relief.
In the Court of Appeals, the Secretary conceded that a case or controversy had existed with respect to the stock-driveway lands for which temporary withdrawal had been requested under § 643 but asserted that the controversy had become moot with the repeal of § 643. The Secretary now concedes, however, that under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, even though it repealed § 643, he has the same power of temporary withdrawal as he had under § 643. See n. 1, supra.
The State has not cross petitioned from the holding that the Carey Act is not a grant in praesenti and that a Carey Act application does not automatically take precedence over prior withdrawals. The State as a respondent is not entitled, absent a cross-petition, to bring that issue before us; for a favorable ruling would enlarge the relief granted the State under the Court of Appeals judgment. The State does of course strongly urge, as it may, that it is entitled to at least what the District Court recognized to be its rights under the Carey Act.
The Carey Act, 43 U. S. C. § 641, provides in pertinent part:
“To aid the public-land States in the reclamation of the desert lands therein, and the settlement, cultivation and sale thereof in small tracts to actual settlers, the Secretary of the Interior with the approval of the President ... is authorized and empowered, upon proper application of the State to contract and agree, from time to time, with each of the States in which there may be situated desert lands . . . binding the United States to donate, grant, and patent to the State free of cost for survey or price such desert lands, not exceeding one million acres in each State, as the State may cause to be irrigated, reclaimed, occupied, and . . . cultivated by actual settlers . . . within ten yearn from the date of approval by the Secretary of the Interior of the State’s application for the segregation of such lands. . . .”
Section 641 further provides that if the requirements as to reclamation are not satisfied within certain time periods, the Secretary may restore the lands to the public domain or may authorize limited extension of the deadlines.
The District Court purported to find some support for its conclusion in Idaho Irrigation Co. v. Gooding, 265 U. S. 518, 521 (1924), where the Court recited that the Carey Act “binds” the United States to donate desert lands to the States. The passage referred to, however, does not say that the United States is bound to contract in the first instance. In any event, that case involved a dispute between an irrigation company and the owners of water rights pursuant to contracts with the company; and it was only in describing the background of the case that the Court referred to the Carey Act. There was no question in that case as to the scope of the State’s entitlement under the Act or the scope of the Secretary’s discretion. Attaching great significance to this recitation is unwarranted. Nor do we find the other state and federal cases that the District Court cited to be persuasive support for its conclusions as to the Secretary’s obligations.
In 1896, Congress provided that patents could be issued when water had been supplied to the land without regard to settlement or cultivation. The same Act provided for liens against the lands prior to patent for the costs of reclamation. Act of June 11, 1896, § 1, 29 Stat. 434, 43 U. S. C. § 642. Although § 642 refers to the “grant” made under § 641, the context indicates that the word is loosely used to refer to the state laws enacted in acceptance of the terms of the Carey Act. Idaho, in fact, stresses that it, like 9 of the 11 other desert land States, specifically referred to the Carey Act’s “grants of land” when the State enacted legislative acceptances of the offer to obtain federal lands by reclamation. Brief for Respondents 12-13, and n. 6.
Subsequent legislation did not touch on the issue at all. In 1908, an additional two million acres of desert lands were authorized for Carey Act selection in the State of Idaho, 43 U. S. C. § 645 and Joint Res. 28, 60th Cong., 1st Sess. (1908), see 35 Stat. 577; and an additional one million acres in the State of Wyoming. 43 U. S. C. § 645. In 1909, the provisions of the Carey Act were extended to the States of Arizona and New Mexico, § 646, and to the former Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado. § 647. In 1910, as indicated in the text, § 643 with respect to temporary withdrawals was adopted. In 1911, the Act was extended to the Fort Bridger Military Reservation in Wyoming, Act of Feb. 16, 1911, ch. 90, 36 Stat. 913; and an additional one million acres were authorized for the States of Nevada and Colorado. 43 U. S. C. § 645. The Act was amended in 1920 with respect to rights of entry by settlers on lands covered by unsuccessful Carey Act projects. § 644. In 1921, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to extend the period of segregation or to restore the lands to the public domain when States failed to construct the anticipated reclamation works. § 641. Congress at no time indicated disagreement with the way that the Secretary was administering the Carey Act, at least as relevant to the issues in this case.
During the discussion, Representative Gaines of Tennessee asked Representative French of Idaho to explain why the Secretary had not granted all Carey Act applications. Representative French replied:
“The reason is this: We have a national reclamation law under which lands are being reclaimed; we have the Indian reservation law; we have lands that have passed into private ownership under the desert-land act and other laws. Sometimes it happens that an application for segregation under the Carey Act overlaps one or more of these propositions or tracts of land.”
Prior to the District Court’s judgment, the Board also ruled on two other Carey Act applications by Idaho covering unwithdrawn and otherwise available land. Idaho Department of Water Resources, 25 I. B. L. A. 27 (1976); Idaho Department of Water Resources, 24 I. B. L. A. 314 (1976).
The Secretary has not questioned the judgment and opinion of the District Court indicating that the Secretary’s refusal to reclassify withdrawn lands for Carey Act purposes would be subject to judicial review and would be set aside if arbitrary or capricious. Neither has the Secretary asserted that his rejection of a State’s application for withdrawal or segregation of appropriate desert lands in the public domain would not be subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 706. To the extent that the claim of absolute discretion to approve or disapprove Carey Act applications is inconsistent with, the absence of a direct challenge to this aspect of the District Court’s decision or with the general standards for judicial review of agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, we reject, as did the District Court, the claim of absolute discretion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The questions presented by this case touch fundamentally upon the manner in which our Republic is to be governed. Throughout the nearly two centuries of our Nation’s existence under the Constitution, this subject has generated considerable debate. We have had the benefit of commentators such as John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison writing in The Federalist Papers at the Nation’s very inception, the benefit of astute foreign observers of our system such as Alexis de Tocqueville and James Bryce writing during the first century of the Nation’s existence, and the benefit of many other treatises as well as more than 400 volumes of reports of decisions of this Court. As these writings reveal it is doubtless both futile and perhaps dangerous to find any epi-grammatical explanation of how this country has been governed. Indeed, as Justice Jackson noted, “[a] judge... may be surprised at the poverty of really useful and unambiguous authority applicable to concrete problems of executive power as they actually present themselves.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 634 (1952) (concurring opinion).
Our decision today will not dramatically alter this situation, for the Framers “did not make the judiciary the overseer of our government.” Id., at 594 (Frankfurter, J., concurring). We are confined to a resolution of the dispute presented to us. That dispute involves various Executive Orders and regulations by which the President nullified attachments and liens on Iranian assets in the United States, directed that these assets be transferred to Iran, and suspended claims against Iran that may be presented to an International Claims Tribunal. This action was taken in an effort to comply with an Executive Agreement between the United States and Iran. We granted certiorari before judgment in this case, and set an expedited briefing and argument schedule, because lower courts had reached conflicting conclusions on the validity of the President’s actions and, as the Solicitor General informed us, unless the Government acted by July 19, 1981, Iran could consider the United States to be in breach of the Executive Agreement.
But before turning to the facts and law which we believe determine the result in this case, we stress that the expeditious treatment of the issues involved by all of the courts which have considered the President’s actions makes us acutely aware of the necessity to rest decision on the narrowest possible ground capable of deciding the case. Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). This does not mean that reasoned analysis may give way to judicial fiat. It does mean that the statement of Justice Jackson— that we decide difficult cases presented to us by virtue of our commissions, not our competence — is especially true here. We attempt to lay down no general “guidelines” covering other situations not involved here, and attempt to confine the opinion only to the very questions necessary to decision of the case.
Perhaps it is because it is so difficult to reconcile the foregoing definition of Art. Ill judicial power with the broad range of vitally important day-to-day questions regularly decided by Congress or the Executive, without either challenge or interference by the Judiciary, that the decisions of the Court in this area have been rare, episodic, and afford little precedential value for subsequent cases. The tensions present in any exercise of executive power under the tripartite system of Federal Government established by the Constitution have been reflected in opinions by Members of this Court more than once. The Court stated in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 319-320 (1936):
“[W]e are here dealing not alone with an authority vested in the President by an exertion of legislative power, but with such an authority plus the very delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations — a power which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress, but which, of course, like every other governmental power, must be exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution.”
And yet 16 years later, Justice Jackson in his concurring opinion in Youngstown, supra, which both parties agree brings together as much combination of analysis and common sense as there is in this area, focused not on the “plenary and ex-elusive power of the President” but rather responded to a claim of virtually unlimited powers for the Executive by noting:
“The example of such unlimited executive power that must have most impressed the forefathers.was the prerogative exercised by George III, and the description of its evils in the Declaration of Independence leads me to doubt that they were creating their new Executive in his image.” 343 U. S., at 641.
As we now turn to the factual and legal issues in this case, we freely confess that we are obviously deciding only one more episode in the never-ending tension between the President exercising the executive authority in a world that presents each day some new challenge with which he must deal and the Constitution under which we all live and which no one disputes embodies some sort of system of checks and balances.
I
On November 4, 1979, the American Embassy in Tehran was seized and our diplomatic personnel were captured and held hostage. In response to that crisis, President Carter, acting pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 91 Stat. 1626, 50 U. S. C. §§ 1701-1706 (1976 ed., Supp. Ill) (hereinafter IEEPA), declared a national emergency on November 14, 1979, and blocked the removal or transfer of “all property and interests in property of the Government of Iran, its instrumentalities and controlled entities and the Central Bank of Iran which are or become subject to the jurisdiction of the United States....” Exec. Order No. 12170, 3 CFR 457 (1980), note following 50 U. S. C. § 1701 (1976 ed., Supp. III). President Carter authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to promulgate regulations carrying out the blocking order. On November 15, 1979, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a regulation providing that “[u]nless licensed or authorized... any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is null and void with respect to any property in which on or since [November 14, 1979,] there existed an interest of Iran.” 31 CFR § 535.203 (e) (1980). The regulations also made clear that any licenses or authorizations granted could be “amended, modified, or revoked at any time.” § 535.805.
On November 26, 1979, the President granted a general license authorizing certain judicial proceedings against Iran but which did not allow the “entry of any judgment or of any decree or order of similar or analogous effect... § 535.504
(a). On December 19, 1979, a clarifying regulation was issued stating that “the general authorization for judicial proceedings contained in § 535.504 (a) includes pre-judgment attachment.” § 535.418.
On December 19, 1979, petitioner Dames & Moore filed suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against the Government of Iran, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and a number of Iranian banks. In its complaint, petitioner alleged that its wholly owned subsidiary, Dames & Moore International, S. R. L., was a party to a written contract with the Atomic Energy Organization, and that the subsidiary’s entire interest in the contract had been assigned to petitioner. Under the contract, the subsidiary was to conduct site studies for a proposed nuclear power plant in Iran. As provided in the terms of the contract, the Atomic Energy Organization terminated the agreement for its own convenience on June 30, 1979. Petitioner contended, however, that it was owed $3,436,694.30 plus interest for services performed under the contract prior to the date of termination. The District Court issued orders of attachment directed against property of the defendants, and the property of certain Iranian banks was then attached to secure any judgment that might be entered against them.
On January 20, 1981, the Americans held hostage were released by Iran pursuant to an Agreement entered into the day before and embodied in two Declarations of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria. Declaration of the Government of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria (App. to Pet. for Cert. 21-29), and Declaration of the Government of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria Concerning the Settlement of Claims by the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (id., at 30-35). The Agreement stated that “[i]t is the purpose of [the United States and Iran]... to terminate all litigation as between the Government of each party and the nationals of the other, and to bring about the settlement and termination of all such claims through binding arbitration.” Id., at 21-22. In furtherance of this goal, the Agreement called for the establishment of an Iran-United States Claims Tribunal which would arbitrate any claims not settled within six months. Awards of the Claims Tribunal are to be “final and binding” and “enforceable... in the courts of any nation in accordance with its laws.” Id., at 32. Under the Agreement, the United States is obligated
“to terminate all legal proceedings in United States courts involving claims of United States persons and institutions against Iran and its state enterprises, to nullify all attachments and judgments obtained therein, to prohibit all further litigation based on such claims, and to bring about the termination of such claims through binding arbitration.” Id., at 22.
In addition, the United States must “act to bring about the transfer” by July 19, 1981, of all Iranian assets held in this country by American banks. Id., at 24-25. One billion dollars of these assets will be deposited in a security account in the Bank of England, to the account of the Algerian Central Bank, and used to satisfy awards rendered against Iran by the Claims Tribunal. Ibid.
On January 19, 1981, President Carter issued a series of Executive Orders implementing the terms of the agreement. Exec. Orders Nos. 12276-12285, 46 Fed. Reg. 7913-7932. These Orders revoked all licenses permitting the exercise of “any right, power, or privilege” with regard to Iranian funds, securities, or deposits; “nullified” all non-Iranian interests in such assets acquired subsequent to the blocking order of November 14, 1979; and required those banks holding Iranian assets to transfer them “to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to be held or transferred as directed by the Secretary of the Treasury.” Exec. Order No. 12279, 46 Fed. Reg. 7919.
On February 24, 1981, President Reagan issued an Executive Order in which he “ratified” the January 19th Executive Orders. Exec! Order No. 12294, 46 Fed. Reg. 14111. Moreover, he “suspended” all “claims which may be presented to the... Tribunal” and provided that such claims “shall have no legal effect in any action now pending in any court of the United States.” Ibid. The suspension of any particular claim terminates if the Claims Tribunal determines that it has no jurisdiction over that claim; claims are discharged for all purposes when the Claims Tribunal either awards some recovery and that amount is paid, or determines that no recovery is due. Ibid.
Meanwhile, on January 27, 1981, petitioner moved for summary judgment in the District Court against the Government of Iran and the Atomic Energy Organization, but not against the Iranian banks. The District Court granted petitioner’s motion and awarded petitioner the amount claimed under the contract plus interest. Thereafter, petitioner attempted to execute the judgment by obtaining writs of garnishment and execution in state court in the State of Washington, and a sheriff’s sale of Iranian property in Washington ■was noticed to satisfy the judgment. However, by order of May 28, 1981, as amended by order of June 8, the District Court stayed execution of its judgment pending appeal by the Government of Iran and the Atomic Energy Organization. The District Court also ordered that all prejudgment attachments obtained against the Iranian defendants be vacated and that further proceedings against the bank defendants be stayed in light of the Executive Orders discussed above. App. to Pet. for Cert. 106-107.
On April 28, 1981, petitioner filed this action in the District Court for declaratory and injunctive relief against the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury, seeking to prevent enforcement of the Executive Orders and Treasury Department regulations implementing the Agreement with Iran. In its complaint, petitioner alleged that the actions of the President and the Secretary of the Treasury implementing the Agreement with Iran were beyond their statutory and constitutional powers and, in any event, were unconstitutional to the extent they adversely affect petitioner’s final judgment against the Government of Iran and the Atomic Energy Organization, its execution of that judgment in the State of Washington, its prejudgment attachments, and its ability to continue to litigate against the Iranian banks. Id., at 1-12. On May 28, 1981, the District Court denied petitioner’s motion for a preliminary injunction and dismissed petitioner’s complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Id., at 106-107. Prior to the District Court’s ruling, the United States Courts of Appeals for the First and the District of Columbia Circuits upheld the President’s authority to issue the Executive Orders and regulations challenged by petitioner. See Chas. T. Main Int’l, Inc. v. Khuzestan Water & Power Authority, 651 F. 2d 800 (CA1 1981); American Int’l Group, Inc. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 211 U. S. App. D. C. 468, 657 F. 2d 430 (1981).
On June 3, 1981, petitioner filed a notice of appeal from the District Court’s order, and the appeal was docketed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On June 4, the Treasury Department amended its regulations to mandate “the transfer of bank deposits and certain other financial assets of Iran in the United States to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York by noon, June 19.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 151-152. The District Court, however, entered an injunction pending appeal prohibiting the United States from requiring the transfer of Iranian property that is subject to “any writ of attachment, garnishment, judgment, levy, or other judicial lien”, issued by any court in favor of petitioner. Id., at 168. Arguing that this is a case of “imperative public importance,” petitioner then sought a writ of certiorari before judgment. Pet. for Cert. 10. See 28 U. S. C.' § 2101 (e); this Court’s Rule 18. Because the issues presented here are of great significance and demand prompt resolution, we granted the petition for the writ, adopted an expedited briefing schedule, and set the case for oral argument on June 24, 1981. 452 U. S. 932 (1981).
II
The parties and the lower courts, confronted with the instant questions, have all agreed that much relevant analysis is contained in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579 (1952). Justice Black’s opinion for the Court in that case, involving the validity of President Truman’s effort to seize the country’s steel mills in the wake of a nationwide strike, recognized that “[t]he President’s power, if any, to issue the order must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.” Id., at 585. Justice Jackson’s concurring opinion elaborated in a general way the consequences of different types of interaction between the two democratic branches in assessing Presidential authority to act in any given case. When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization from Congress, he exercises not only his powers but also those delegated by Congress. In such a case the executive action “would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it.” Id., at 637. When the President acts in the absence of congressional authorization he may enter “a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain.” Ibid. In such a case the analysis becomes more complicated, and the validity of the President’s action, at least so far as separation-of-powers principles are concerned, hinges on a consideration of all the circumstances which might shed light on the views of the Legislative Branch toward such action, including “congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence.” Ibid. Finally, when the President acts in contravention of the will of Congress, “his power is at its lowest ebb,” and the Court can sustain his actions “only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject.” Id., at 637-638.
Although we have in the past found and do today find Justice Jackson’s classification of executive actions into three general categories analytically useful, we should be mindful of Justice Holmes’ admonition, quoted by Justice Frankfurter in Youngstown, supra, at 597 (concurring opinion), that “[t]he great ordinances of the Constitution do not establish and divide fields of black and white.” Springer v. Philippine Islands, 277 U. S. 189, 209 (1928) (dissenting opinion). Justice Jackson himself recognized that his three categories represented “a somewhat over-simplified grouping,” 343 U. S., at 635, and it is doubtless the case that executive action in any particular instance falls, not neatly in one of three pigeonholes, but rather at some point along a spectrum running from explicit congressional authorization to explicit congressional prohibition. This is particularly true as respects cases such as the one before us, involving responses to international crises the nature of which Congress can hardly have been expected to anticipate in any detail.
Ill
- In nullifying post-November 14, 1979, attachments and directing those persons holding blocked Iranian funds and securities to transfer them to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for ultimate transfer to Iran, President Carter cited five sources of express or inherent power. The Government, however, has principally relied on § 203 of the IEEPA, 91 Stat. 1626, 50 U. S. C. § 1702 (a)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. Ill), as authorization for these actions. Section 1702 (a)(1) provides in part:
“At the times and to the extent specified in section 1701 of this title, the President may, under such regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise—
“(A) investigate, regulate, or prohibit—
“(i) any transactions in foreign exchange,
“(ii) transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, to the extent that such transfers or payments involve any interest of any foreign country or a national thereof,
“(iii) the importing or exporting of currency or securities, and
“(B) investigate, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest;
“by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”
The Government contends that the acts of “nullifying” the attachments and ordering the “transfer” of the frozen assets are specifically authorized by the plain language of the above statute. The two Courts of Appeals that have considered the issue agreed with this contention. In Chas. T. Main Int’l, Inc. v. Khuzestan Water & Power Authority, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit explained:
“The President relied on his IEEPA powers in November 1979, when he ‘blocked’ all Iranian assets in this country, and again in January 1981, when he ‘nullified’ interests acquired in blocked property, and ordered that property’s transfer. The President’s actions, in this regard, are in keeping with the language of IEEPA: initially he ‘prevented] and prohibit[ed]’ ‘transfers’ of Iranian assets; later he ‘direct [ed] and compel [led]’ the 'transfer’ and 'withdrawal’ of the assets, 'nullify[ing]’ certain 'rights’ and 'privileges’ acquired in them.
“Main argues that IEEPA does not supply the President with power to override judicial remedies, such as attachments and injunctions, or to extinguish 'interests’ in foreign assets held by United States citizens. But we can find no such limitation in IEEPA’s terms. The language of IEEPA is sweeping and unqualified. It provides broadly that the President may void or nullify the ‘exercising [by any person of] any right, power or privilege with respect to... any property in which any foreign country has any interest....’ 50 U. S. C. § 1702 (a)(1)(B).” 651 F. 2d, at 806-807 (emphasis in original).
In American Int’l Group, Inc. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit employed a similar rationale in sustaining President Carter’s action:
“The Presidential revocation of the license he issued permitting prejudgment restraints upon Iranian assets is an action that falls within the plain language of the IEEPA. In vacating the attachments, he acted to 'nullify [and] void... any... exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to... any property in which any foreign country... has any interest... by any person... subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.’ ” 211 U. S. App. D. C., at 477, 657 F. 2d, at 439 (footnote omitted).
Petitioner contends that we should ignore the plain language of this statute because an examination of its legislative history as well as the history of § 5 (b) of the Trading With the Enemy Act (hereinafter TWEA), 40 Stat. 411, as amended, 50 U. S. C. App. § 5 (b) (1976 ed. and Supp. Ill), from which the pertinent language of § 1702 is directly drawn, reveals that the statute was not intended to give the President such extensive power over the assets of a foreign state during times of national emergency. According to petitioner, once the President instituted the November 14, 1979, blocking order, § 1702 authorized him “only to continue the freeze or to discontinue controls.” Brief for Petitioner 32.
We do not agree and refuse to read out of § 1702 all meaning to the words “transfer,” “compel,” or “nullify.” Nothing in the legislative history of either § 1702 or § 5 (b) of the TWEA requires such a result. To the contrary, we think both the legislative history and cases interpreting the TWEA fully sustain the broad authority of the Executive when acting under this congressional grant of power. See, e. g., Orvis v. Brownell, 345 U. S. 183 (1953). Although Congress intended to limit the President’s emergency power in peacetime, we do not think the changes brought about by the enactment of the IEEPA in any way affected the authority of the President to take the specific actions taken here. We likewise note that by the time petitioner instituted this action, the President had already entered the freeze order. Petitioner proceeded against the blocked assets only after the Treasury Department had issued revocable licenses authorizing such proceedings and attachments. The Treasury Regulations provided that “unless licensed” any attachment is null and void, 31 CER § 535.203 (e) (1980), and all licenses “may be amended, modified, or revoked at any time.” § 535.805. As such, the attachments obtained by petitioner were specifically made subordinate to further actions which the President might take under the IEEPA. Petitioner was on notice of the contingent nature of its interest in the frozen assets.
This Court has previously recognized that the congressional purpose in authorizing blocking orders is “to put control of foreign assets in the hands of the President....” Prosper v. Clark, 337 U. S. 472, 493 (1949). Such orders permit the President to maintain the foreign assets at his disposal for use in negotiating the resolution of a declared national emergency. The frozen assets serve as a “bargaining chip” to be used'by the President when dealing with a hostile country. Accordingly, it is difficult to accept petitioner’s argument because the practical effect of it is to allow individual claimants throughout the country to minimize or wholly eliminate this “bargaining chip” through attachments, garnishments, or similar encumbrances on property. Neither the purpose the statute was enacted to serve nor its plain language supports such a result.
Because the President’s action in nullifying the attachments and ordering the transfer of the assets was taken pursuant to specific congressional authorization, it is “supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it.” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 637 (Jackson, J., concurring). Under the circumstances of this case, we cannot say that petitioner has sustained that heavy burden. A contrary ruling would mean that the Federal Government as a whole lacked the power exercised by the President, see id., at 636-637, and that we are not prepared to say.
IV
Although we have concluded that the IEEPA constitutes specific congressional authorization to the President to nullify the attachments and order the transfer of Iranian assets, there remains the question of the President’s authority to suspend claims pending in American courts. Such claims have, of course, an existence apart from the attachments which accompanied them. In terminating these claims through Executive Order No. 12294, the President purported to act under authority of both the IEEPA and 22 U. S. C. § 1732, the so-called “Hostage Act.” 46 Fed. Reg. 14111 (1981).
We conclude that although the IEEPA authorized the nullification of the attachments, it cannot be read to authorize the suspension of the claims. The claims of American citizens against Iran are not in themselves transactions involving Iranian property or efforts to exercise any rights with respect to such property. An in personam lawsuit, although it might eventually be reduced to judgment and that judgment might be executed upon, is an effort to establish liability and fix damages and does not focus on any particular property within the jurisdiction. The terms of the IEEPA therefore do not authorize the President to suspend claims in American courts. This is the view of all the courts which have considered the question. Chas. T. Main Int’l, Inc. v. Khuzestan Water & Power Authority, 651 F. 2d, at 809-814; American Int’l Group, Inc. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 211 U. S. App. D. C., at 481, n. 15, 657 F. 2d, at 443, n. 15; The Marschalk Co. v. Iran National Airlines Corp., 518 F. Supp. 69, 79 (SDNY 1981); Electronic Data Systems Corp. v. Social Security Organization of Iran, 508 F. Supp. 1350, 1361 (ND Tex. 1981). The Hostage Act, passed in 1868, provides:
“Whenever it is made known to the President that any citizen of the United States has been unjustly deprived of his liberty by or under the authority of any foreign. government, it shall be the duty of the President forthwith to demand of that government the reasons of such imprisonment; and if it appears to be wrongful and in violation of the rights of American citizenship, the President shall forthwith demand the release of such citizen, and if the release so demanded is unreasonably delayed or refused, the President shall use such means, not amounting to acts of war, as he may think necessary and proper to obtain or effectuate the release; and all the facts and proceedings relative thereto shall as soon as practicable be communicated by the President to Congress.” Rev. Stat. § 2001, 22 U. S. C. § 1732.
We are reluctant to conclude that this provision constitutes specific authorization to the President to suspend claims in American courts. Although the broad language of the Hostage Act suggests it may cover this case, there are several difficulties with such a view. The legislative history indicates that the Act was passed in response to a situation unlike the recent Iranian crisis. Congress in 1868 was concerned with the activity of certain countries refusing to recognize the citizenship of naturalized Americans traveling abroad, and repatriating such citizens against their will. See, e. g., Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 4331 (1868) (Sen. Fessenden); id., at 4354 (Sen. Conness); see also 22 U. S. C. § 1731. These countries were not interested in returning the citizens in exchange for any sort of ransom. This also explains the reference in the Act to imprisonment “in violation of the rights of American citizenship.” Although the Iranian hostage-taking violated international law and common decency, the hostages were not seized out of any refusal to recognize their American citizenship — they were seized precisely because of their American citizenship. The legislative history is also somewhat ambiguous on the question whether Congress contemplated Presidential action such as that involved here or rather simply reprisals directed against the offending foreign country and its citizens. See, e. g., Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 4205 (1868); American Int’l Group, Inc. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, supra, at 490-491, 657 F. 2d, at 452-453 (opinion of Mikva, J.).
Concluding that neither the IEEPA nor the Hostage Act constitutes specific authorization of the President’s action suspending claims, however, is not to say that these statutory provisions are entirely irrelevant to the question of the validity of the President’s action. We think both statutes highly relevant in the looser sense of indicating congressional acceptance of a broad scope for executive action in circumstances such as those presented in this case. As noted in Part III, supra, at 670-672, the IEEPA delegates broad authority to the President to act in times of national emergency with respect to property of a foreign country. The Hostage Act similarly indicates congressional willingness that the President have broad discretion when responding to the hostile acts of foreign sovereigns. As Senator Williams, draftsman of the language eventually enacted as the Hostage Act, put it:
“If you propose any remedy at all, you must invest the Executive with some discretion, so that he may apply the remedy to a case as it may arise. As to England or France he might adopt one policy to relieve a citizen imprisoned by either one of those countries; as to the Barbary powers, he might adopt another policy; as to the islands of the ocean, another. With different countries that have different systems of government he might adopt different means.” Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 4359 (1868).
Proponents of the bill recognized that it placed a “loose discretion” in the President’s hands, id., at 4238 (Sen. Stewart), but argued that “[s]omething must be intrusted to the Executive” and that “[t]he President ought to have the power to do what the exigencies of the case require to rescue [a] citizen from imprisonment.” Id., at 4233, 4357 (Sen. Williams). An original version of the Act, which authorized the President to suspend trade with a foreign country and even arrest citizens of that country in the United States in retaliation, was rejected because “there may be a great variety of cases arising where other and different means would be equally effective, and where the end desired could be accomplished without resorting to such dangerous and violent measures.” Id., at 4233 (Sen. Williams).
Although we have declined to conclude that the IEEPA or the Hostage Act directly authorizes the President’s suspension of claims for the reasons noted, we cannot ignore the general tenor of Congress’ legislation in this area in trying to determine whether the President is acting alone or at least with the acceptance of Congress. As we have noted, Congress cannot anticipate and legislate with regard to every possible action the President may find it necessary to take or every possible situation in which he might act. Such failure of Congress specifically to delegate authority does not, “especially... in the areas of foreign policy and national security,” imply “congressional disapproval” of action taken by the Executive. Haig v. Agee, ante, at 291. On the contrary, the enactment of legislation closely related to the question of the President’s authority in a particular case which evinces legislative intent to accord the President broad discretion may be considered to “invite” “measures on independent presidential responsibility,” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 637 (Jackson, J., concurring). At least this is so where there is no contrary indication of legislative intent and when, as here, there is a history of congressional acquiescence in conduct of the sort engaged in by the President. It is to that history which we now turn.
Not infrequently in affairs between nations, outstanding claims by nationals of one country against the government of another country are “sources of friction” between the two sovereigns. United States v. Pink, 315 U. S. 203, 225 (1942). To resolve these difficulties, nations have often entered into agreements settling the claims of their respective nationals. As one treatise writer puts it, international agreements settling claims by nationals of one state against the government of another “are established international practice reflecting traditional international theory.” L. Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the Constitution 262 (1972). Consistent with that principle, the United States has repeatedly exercised its sovereign authority to settle the claims of its nationals against foreign countries. Though those settlements have sometimes been made by treaty, there has also been a longstanding practice of settling such claims by executive agreement without the advice and consent of the Senate. Under such agreements, the President has agreed to renounce or extinguish claims of United States nationals against foreign governments in return for lump-sum payments or the establishment of arbitration procedures. To be sure, many of these settlements were encouraged by the United States claimants themselves, since a claimant’s only hope of obtaining any payment at all might lie in having his Government negotiate a diplomatic settlement on his behalf. But it is also undisputed that the “United States has sometimes disposed of the claims of its citizens without their consent, or even without consultation with them, usually without exclusive regard for their interests, as distinguished from those of the nation as a whole.” Henkin, supra, at 262-263. Accord, Restatement (Second) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 213 (1965) (President “may waive or settle a claim against a foreign state... [even] without the consent of the [injured] national”). It is clear that the practice of settling claims continues today. Since 1952, the President has entered into at least 10 binding settlements with foreign nations, including an $80 million settlement with the People’s Republic of China.
Crucial to our decision today is the conclusion that Congress has implicitly approved the practice of claim settlement by executive
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a Negro, has been convicted of raping a white woman and has been given the death penalty. He raises five federal questions for consideration by this Court, among which is that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fair trial were violated by the state trial judge’s failure to determine the voluntariness of his alleged confession prior to its admission into evidence before the jury, as required by the rule in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964). The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that Jackson was not applicable and affirmed petitioner’s conviction, Sims v. State, 221 Ga. 190, 144 S. E. 2d 103. We granted certiorari limited to the five questions, 384 U. S. 998. We have determined that petitioner’s case is controlled by Jackson, supra, and therefore we do not reach any of the other issues raised.
I.
The record indicates that on April 13, 1963, a 29-year-old white woman was driving home alone in her automobile when petitioner drove up behind her in his car, forced her off the road into a ditch, took the woman from her car into nearby woods and forcibly raped her. When he returned to his car, he could not start the engine so he left the scene on foot. Some four hours later he was apprehended by some Negro workers who had been alerted to be on the watch for him. He told these Negroes that he had attacked a white woman. They then turned petitioner over to their employer who delivered him to two state patrolmen. He was then taken to the office of a Doctor Jackson who had previously examined the victim. Petitioner’s clothing was removed in order to test it for blood stains. Petitioner testified that while he was in Doctor Jackson’s office he was knocked down, kicked over the right eye and pulled around the floor by his private parts. He was taken to a hospital owned by Doctor Jackson, which was adjacent to his office, where four stitches were taken in his forehead. Thereafter the patrolmen took petitioner to Waycross, Georgia, some 30 miles distant, where he was placed in the county jail. During that evening, he saw a deputy sheriff whom he had known for some 13 years and who was on duty on the same floor of the jail where petitioner was incarcerated. He agreed to make a statement and was taken to an interview room where, in the presence of the sheriff, the deputy sheriff and two police officers, he signed a written confession. Two days later he was arraigned.
Prior to trial petitioner filed a motion to suppress the confession as being the result of coercion. A hearing was held before the court out of the presence of the jury. The sheriff and the deputy testified to the circumstances surrounding the taking and signing of the confession. Petitioner testified as to the abuse he had received while in Doctor Jackson’s office. He testified that he “felt pretty rough for about two or three weeks [after the incident], more on my private than I did on my face” and that he “was paining a right smart.” There was no contradictory testimony taken. The court denied the motion to suppress without opinion or findings and the confession was admitted into evidence at petitioner’s trial.
At the trial, Doctor Jackson was a witness for the State. On cross-examination he denied that he had knocked petitioner down while the latter was in his office, or that he had kicked him in the forehead but made no mention of the other abuse about which petitioner testified. The doctor stated that petitioner was not abused in his presence but he refused to say whether the patrolmen present abused petitioner as he was not in the office at all times while the petitioner was there with the patrolmen. In this state of the record petitioner’s testimony in this regard was left uncontradicted.
II.
There is no actual ruling or finding in the record showing that the trial judge determined the voluntariness of the confession. Although he admitted it into evidence, it appears that he was only following a long-standing state practice that the “State having made out a prima facie case that the alleged confession was freely and voluntarily made, it was a question for the jury to determine on conflicting evidence whether the alleged confession was freely and voluntarily made.” Downs v. State, 208 Ga. 619, 621, 68 S. E. 2d 568, 570. Defense counsel called the court’s attention to the Jackson v. Denno ruling of this Court and stated that he did not “know whether the procedure being followed at this time satisfies the rule decided by the Supreme Court on June 22nd, 1964, that the Court must make judicial determination whether the statement was made voluntarily before it is read to the jury.” In his charge to the jury the judge directed that it was for the jury to determine whether the confession was actually made or not and to disregard it if not made freely and voluntarily.
III.
On appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia, it was held proper for the trial judge to have left the question of the voluntariness of the confession to the jurors with instructions that they should disregard it if they should determine that it was not, in fact, voluntarily made. Indeed, that court specifically found that the “related facts made a prima facie showing that the statement was freely and voluntarily made and admissible in evidence.” 221 Ga., at 198, 144 S. E. 2d, at 110. It therefore seems clear from the opinion of the highest court of Georgia that it has applied its own rule rather than having followed the rule set down in Jackson for the procedural determination of the voluntariness of a confession. This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the court below also found that the “Georgia rule presents the question to the jury without giving them the judgment of the judge.” Id., at 200, 144 S. E. 2d, at 111. This is the exact procedural device which is proscribed by the rule in Jackson.
IV.
The Supreme Court of Georgia reasoned, however, that Jackson was not applicable because of the safeguards that Georgia’s laws erect around the use of confessions. It pointed out that under Georgia law, before a confession may be admitted it must be corroborated and a showing made that it was freely and voluntarily given. In addition, the trial judge has the power to set aside the verdict of the jury and grant a new trial if, in his opinion, the jury was in error. The court concluded that the rule in Jackson is satisfied by Georgia law and that “It would be difficult to find a more complete satisfaction of the requirement of Jackson than Georgia provides.” Id., at 201, 144 S. E. 2d, at 111. The court also felt that if this not be true, in any event, “the unsound implications of Jackson should not be extended one iota to make it cover cases not explicitly covered by it such as this case where there was no evidence to make any issue of voluntariness. Without an issue there is nothing to try.” Ibid. We cannot agree. There was a definite, clear-cut issue here. Petitioner testified that Doctor Jackson physically abused him while he was in his office and that he was suffering from that abuse when he made the statement, thereby rendering such confession involuntary and the result of coercion. The doctor admitted that he saw petitioner on the floor of his office; that he helped him disrobe and that he knew that petitioner required hospital treatment because of the laceration over his eye but he denied that petitioner was actually abused in his presence. He was unable to state, however, that the state patrolmen did not commit the alleged offenses against petitioner’s person because he was not in the room during the entire time in which the petitioner and the patrolmen were there. In fact, the doctor was quite evasive in his testimony and none of the officers present during the incident were produced as witnesses. Petitioner’s claim of mistreatment, therefore, went uncontradicted as to the officers and was in conflict with the testimony of the physician. Under Jackson, it was for the trial judge to first decide these conflicts and discrepancies. This he failed to do.
Furthermore, Georgia’s highest court, in finding that its rule satisfied the requirements of Jackson, overlooked the fact that the same safeguards offered by the Georgia practice were present in the procedures of New York in Jackson and were rejected by this Court. A constitutional rule was laid down in that case that a jury is not to hear a confession unless and until the trial judge has determined that it was freely and voluntarily given. The rule allows the jury, if it so chooses, to give absolutely no weight to the confession in determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant but it is not for the jury to make the primary determination of vol-untariness. Although the judge need not make formal findings of fact or write an opinion, his conclusion that the confession is voluntary must appear from the record with unmistakable clarity. Here there has been absolutely no ruling on that issue and it is therefore impossible to know whether the judge thought the confession voluntary or if the jury considered it as such in its determination of guilt. Jackson, having been decided June 22, 1964, was binding on the courts of Georgia in this case, it having been tried October 7, 1964. Such rule is, as we have said, a constitutional rule binding upon the States and, under the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, it must be obeyed.
The judgment is, therefore, reversed and cause is remanded for a hearing as provided by Jackson v. Denno, supra, at 393-396.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Black dissents for the reasons stated in his dissent in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S., at 401.
The five questions are:
“1. Whether petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by a conviction and sentence to death obtained on the basis of a confession made under inherently coercive circumstances within the doctrine of Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U. S. 191.
“2. Whether petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by the failure of the Georgia courts to afford a fair and reliable procedure for determining the voluntariness of his alleged coerced confession in disregard of the principle of Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368.
“3. Whether petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment right to counsel as declared in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, was violated by the use of his confession obtained during police interrogation in the absence of counsel, or whether petitioner’s right to counsel was effectively waived.
“4. Is a conviction constitutional where:
“(a) local practice pursuant to state statute requires racially segregated tax books and county jurors are selected from such books;
“(b) the number of Negroes chosen is only 5% of the jurors but they comprise about 20% of the taxpayers; and
“(c) a Negro criminal defendant’s offer to prove a practice of arbitrary and systematic Negro inclusion or exclusion based on jury lists of the prior ten years is disallowed?
“5. Where a Negro defendant sentenced to death in Georgia for the rape of a white woman offers to prove that nineteen times as many Negroes as whites have been executed for rape in Georgia in an effort to show that racial discrimination violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment produced such a result, may this offer of proof be disallowed?”
This disposition is in keeping with the teaching of Jackson, supra, that “a determination of . . . voluntariness” should occur initially “in the state courts in accordance with valid state procedures . . . before this Court considers the case on direct review or a petition for habeas corpus is filed in a Federal District Court.” 378 U. S., at 393.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a companion case to Leedom v. International Union, ante, p. 145, decided this day. International Fur and Leather Workers Union filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that respondent Lannom Mfg. Co. had interfered with the rights of its employees guaranteed by the Act. This charge was filed in April 1951. A complaint was issued based on the charges in February 1952. At the hearing, Lannom sought to prove that certain § 9 (h) affidavits filed by officers of the union were false. The trial examiner ruled, in accordance with the Board’s practice, that that issue could not be litigated in the proceeding. The trial examiner recommended that an appropriate remedial order issue to correct the unfair labor practice which he found to exist. The Board in general sustained the trial examiner and issued a remedial order against Lannom, 103 N. L. R. B. 847. Prior to this order, the Board had been enjoined from taking administrative action requiring the union’s officers to reaffirm their § 9 (h) affidavits. Farmer v. United Electrical Workers, 93 U. S. App. D. C. 178, 211 F. 2d 36. Accordingly the Board ruled, “We are administratively satisfied that the Union was in compliance with Section 9 (h) at all times relevant hereto.” 103 N. L. R. B., at 847, n. 2.
In August 1953 an indictment was returned against Ben Gold, an officer of the union, charging that the § 9 (h) affidavit which he filed with the Board on August 30, 1950, was false. In 1954 Gold was convicted for that offense. Thereafter, the Board ordered the union to show cause why its compliance status under the Act should not be altered, unless. Gold were removed from office. The union re-elected Gold as its president. Shortly thereafter the Board declared the union out of compliance with §9 (h). 108 N. L. R. B. 1190, 1191. The union then obtained from the District Court for the District of Columbia a preliminary injunction enjoining the Board from altering or restricting the union’s compliance status by reason of Gold’s conviction. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Farmer v. International Fur & Leather Workers Union, 95 U. S. App. D. C. 308, 221 F. 2d 862.
The Board sought a stay of the preliminary injunction pending decision by the Court of Appeals in the Farmer case. When the stay was denied, the Board petitioned the court below, pursuant to § 10 (e) of the Act, for enforcement of the unfair labor practice order. Respondent Lannom Mfg. Co. moved for dismissal of the enforcement petition on the grounds of Gold’s conviction for false filing under §9(h). The union intervened and opposed the motion to dismiss.
The court below granted the motion to dismiss, holding that, since the falsity of the affidavit had been proved, the requirements of § 9 (h) had not been met and no benefits should be accorded the union. We granted certiorari. 351 U. S. 905.
As noted, the complaint in the unfair labor practice proceeding was issued in February 1952, more than twelve months after the affidavit of August 30, 1950. Section 9 (h) provides that no investigation shall be made or complaint issued on behalf of a union unless there is on file with the Board a non-Communist affidavit of each officer “executed contemporaneously or within the preceding twelve-month period.” There was no charge against Gold for filing a false affidavit in 1951. The Court of Appeals met that difficulty by presuming that a person who was a Communist in 1950 continued as such through 1951 and through the critical date of February 1952, in absence of evidence showing a change in the factual situation. 226 F. 2d 194, 198-199.
The petitioner has also urged that Gold’s conviction for filing a false affidavit could form no basis for holding the union in decompliance prior to the affirmance of Gold’s conviction on appeal. At the time of the decision below, Gold’s appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. As noted, we have granted certiorari to review the affirmance of his conviction.
For the reasons stated in Leedom v. International Union, ante, p. 145, we conclude that the sole sanction for the filing of a false affidavit under § 9 (h) is the criminal penalty imposed on the officer who files a false affidavit, not decompliance of the union nor the withholding of the benefits of the Act that are granted once the specified officers file their § 9 (h) affidavits. Having so concluded, we find it unnecessary to reach the collateral phases of this controversy.
Reversed.
In February 1955 this union merged with Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workers of North America, petitioner in this case.
The judgment of conviction was affirmed by an equally divided Court of Appeals, sitting en banc. Gold v. United States, 99 U. S. App. D. C. 136, 237 F. 2d 764. We granted certiorari on October 8, 1956. 352 U. S. 819.
It was on this phase of the case that Judge Stewart dissented:
“A jury has found that in 1950 Gold was both a Communist and a liar, to put it bluntly. Yet to indulge in the presumption that he was therefore guilty of committing a criminal offense a year later in filing the 1951 affidavit is further than I can go on the record before us.” 226 F. 2d, at 200.
Note 2, 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.
Justice Marshall,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the proper standard governing the award of prejudgment interest in a patent infringement suit under 35 U. S. C. §284.
I
In 1956 respondent Devex Corporation (Devex) filed a suit for patent infringement against petitioner General Motors Corporation (GMC) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Devex alleged that GMC was infringing Reissue Patent No. 24,017, known as the “Henricks” or “Devex” patent. The patent covered a lubricating process used in the cold-forming of metal car parts by pressure. On June 29, 1962, the District Court held the Devex patent invalid and entered judgment for GMC. On appeal the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the finding of invalidity and remanded for further proceedings. Devex Corp. v. General Motors Corp., 321 F. 2d 234 (1963), cert. denied, 375 U. S. 971 (1964).
The case was then transferred to the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. After a trial the District Court ruled that there had been no infringement. 316 F. Supp. 1376 (1970). The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed, holding that the patent was infringed by GMC’s use of certain processes in the production of bumpers and cold-extruded nonbumper parts. 467 F. 2d 257 (1972), cert. denied, 411 U. S. 973 (1973).
On remand the case was referred to a Special Master for an accounting. The Special Master ruled that three major divisions of GMC had used infringing processes in the manufacture of bumper parts, and selected a royalty rate “by reference to hypothetical negotiations” that it found would have taken place if GMC had sought to obtain a license from Devex. Special Master’s Report, at 71. See 667 F. 2d 347, 352 (CA3 1981). The District Court modified the royalty rate selected by the Special Master and entered judgment pursuant to 35 U. S. C. §284, awarding Devex $8,813,945.50 in royalties, $11,022,854.97 in prejudgment interest, and postjudgment interest at the rate allowed by state law. 494 F. Supp. 1369 (1980). The court determined what the annual royalty payments would have been, and calculated prejudgment interest on each payment from the time it would have become due. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 667 F. 2d 347 (1981). The court held that “the award of [prejudgment] interest as the yearly royalty payments became due was not an abuse of discretion.” Id., at 363. We granted certiorari to consider the standard applicable to the award of prejudgment interest under 35 U. S. C. §284, 456 U. S. 988 (1982), and we now affirm.
h-H
Prior to 1946 the provision of the patent laws concerning a plaintiff’s recovery in an infringement action contained no reference to interest. The award of interest in patent cases was governed by the common-law standard enunciated in several decisions of this Court. E. g., Duplate Corp. v. Triplex Safety Glass Co., 298 U. S. 448 (1936); Tilghman v. Proctor, 125 U. S. 136 (1888). Under the Duplate standard, prejudgment interest was generally awarded from the date on which damages were liquidated, and could be awarded from the date of infringement in the absence of liquidation only in “exceptional circumstances,” such as bad faith on the part of the infringer. 298 U. S., at 459.
In 1946 Congress adopted amendments to the provision of the patent laws governing recovery in infringement actions. Act of Aug. 1, 1946, § 1, 60 Stat. 778, 35 U. S. C. §§ 67, 70 (1946 ed.). One of the amended provisions, which has since been recodified as 35 U. S. C. § 284, states in relevant part:
“Upon finding for the claimant the court shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer, together with interest and costs as fixed by the court.”
The Courts of Appeals have reached differing conclusions as to whether § 284 incorporates the Duplate standard and more generally as to the standard governing the award of prejudgment interest under §284.
We have little doubt that §284 does not incorporate the Duplate standard. Under that standard, which evolved as a matter of federal common law, prejudgment interest could not be awarded where damages were unliquidated, absent bad faith or other exceptional circumstances. By contrast, § 284 gives a court general authority to fix interest and costs. On the face of § 284, a court’s authority to award interest is not restricted to exceptional circumstances, and there is no warrant for imposing such a limitation. When Congress wished to limit an element of recovery in a patent infringement action, it said so explicitly. With respect to attorney’s fees, Congress expressly provided that a court could award such fees to a prevailing party only “in exceptional cases.” 35 U. S. C. §285. The power to award interest was not similarly restricted.
There is no basis for inferring that Congress’ adoption of the provision concerning interest merely incorporated the Duplate standard. This is not a case in which Congress has reenacted statutory language that the courts had interpreted in a particular way. In such a situation, it may well be appropriate to infer that Congress intended to adopt the established judicial interpretation. See, e. g., Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U. S. 375, 384-386 (1983); Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S. 575, 580-581 (1978). In this case, however, the predecessor statute did not contain any reference to interest, and the 1946 amendments specifically added a provision concerning interest in patent infringement actions. We cannot agree with petitioner that the only significance of Congress’ express provision for the award of interest was the incorporation of a common-law standard that developed in the absence of any specific provision concerning interest.
Having decided that § 284 does not incorporate the Duplate rule, we turn to a consideration of the proper standard for awarding prejudgment interest under that provision. Although the language of § 284 supplies little guidance as to the appropriate standard, for the reasons elaborated below we are convinced that the underlying purpose of the provision strongly suggests that prejudgment interest should ordinarily be awarded where necessary to afford the plaintiff full compensation for the infringement.
Both the background and language of §284 provide evidence of this fundamental purpose. Under the pre-1946 statute, the owner of a patent could recover both his own damages and the infringer’s profits. See Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Co., 377 U. S. 476, 505 (1964); n. 4, supra. A patent owner’s ability to recover the infringer’s profits reflected the notion that he should be able to force the infringer to disgorge the fruits of the infringement even if it caused him no injury. In 1946 Congress excluded consideration of the infringer’s gain by eliminating the recovery of his profits, Aro Mfg. Co., supra, at 505, the determination of which had often required protracted litigation. H. R. Rep. No. 1587, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 1-2 (1946); S. Rep. No. 1503, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1946); 92 Cong. Rec. 9188 (1946) (remarks of Sen. Pepper). At the same time, Congress sought to ensure that the patent owner would in fact receive full compensation for “any damages” he suffered as a result of the infringement. See H. R. Rep. No. 1587, supra, at 1 (“any damages the complainant can prove”); S. Rep. No. 1503, supra, at 2 (same). Accordingly, Congress expressly provided in § 284 that the court “shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement.” (Emphasis added.)
The standard governing the award of prejudgment interest under §284 should be consistent with Congress’ overriding purpose of affording patent owners complete compensation. In light of that purpose, we conclude that prejudgment interest should ordinarily be awarded. In the typical case an award of prejudgment interest is necessary to ensure that the patent owner is placed in as good a position as he would have been in had the infringer entered into a reasonable royalty agreement. An award of interest from the time that the royalty payments would have been received merely serves to make the patent owner whole, since his damages consist not only of the value of the royalty payments but also of the forgone use of the money between the time of infringement and the date of the judgment.
This very principle was the basis of the decision in Waite v. United States, 282 U. S. 508 (1931), which involved a patent infringement suit against the United States. The patent owner had been awarded unliquidated damages in the form of lost profits, but had been denied an award of prejudgment interest. This Court held that an award of prejudgment interest to the patent owner was necessary to ensure “complete justice as between the plaintiff and the United States,” id., at 509, even though the statute governing such suits did not expressly provide for interest. Just as § 284 provides that the court shall award “damages adequate to compensate for the infringement,” the statute at issue in Waite provided that the patentee shall receive “reasonable and entire compensation.” 35 U. S. C. §68 (1940 ed.). In addition, § 284 contains a specific provision concerning interest. Waite thus provides strong support for our conclusion that prejudgment interest should ordinarily be awarded under § 284.
We do not construe §284 as requiring the award of prejudgment interest whenever infringement is found. That provision states that interest shall be “fixed by the court,” and in our view it leaves the court some discretion in awarding prejudgment interest. For example, it may be appropriate to limit prejudgment interest, or perhaps even deny it altogether, where the patent owner has been responsible for undue delay in prosecuting the lawsuit. There may be other circumstances in which it may be appropriate not to award prejudgment interest. We need not delineate those circumstances in this case. We hold only that prejudgment interest should be awarded under § 284 absent some justification for withholding such an award.
III
Because we hold that prejudgment interest should ordinarily be awarded absent some justification for withholding such an award, a decision to award prejudgment interest will only be set aside if it constitutes an abuse of discretion. The District Court held that GMC infringed Devex’s patent over the course of a number of years and awarded Devex a reasonable royalty as compensation. While GMC contends that Devex was guilty of causing unnecessary delay, the District Court rejected this contention when it concluded that “Devex has done no worse than fully litigate its claims achieving a large judgment in its favor” and awarded Devex costs on the basis of this conclusion. 494 F. Supp., at 1380. On these facts, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the award of prejudgment interest was proper.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is
Affirmed.
The suit also named Houdaille Industries as a defendant. After the case against GMC was transferred to the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, the case against Houdaille Industries was tried separately, see Devex Corp. v. Houdaille Industries, Inc., 382 F. 2d 17 (CA7 1967), and eventually settled.
Claim 4 of the patent covers:
“The process of working ferrous metal which comprises forming on the surface of the metal a phosphate coating and superimposing thereon a fixed film of a composition comprising a solid meltable organic binding material containing distrubted there through a solid inorganic compound meltable at a temperature below the melting point of the ferrous metal phosphate of said coating and having a hardness not exceeding 5 on the Mohs’ hardness scale, and thereafter deforming the metal.”
In less technical terms, the Devex process employed “phosphate, soap and borax ... to lubricate the pressure-forming operation, preventing harmful contact between the metal products and the machinery with which they are formed .... [T]he phosphate, soap and borax combination is especially beneficial because it may be easily cleaned from the metal product following its formation.” 494 F. Supp. 1369, 1372 (Del. 1980).
The Special Master also ruled that multiple damages and attorney’s fees, which are authorized by 35 U. S. C. §§ 284 and 285, would be inappropriate in this case. 667 F. 2d, at 356, n. 8. These findings were adopted by the District Court and affirmed by the Court of Appeals and are not before us.
Rev. Stat. § 4921, as amended, 42 Stat. 392, 35 U. S. C. § 70 (1964 ed.), provided in relevant part:
“[Ujpon a decree being rendered in any such case for an infringement the complainant shall be entitled to recover, in addition to the profits to be accounted for by the defendant, the damages the complainant has sustained thereby.”
Under the common-law rule a plaintiff’s damages were often treated as liquidated if they were relatively certain and ascertainable by reference to established market values. See generally Miller v. Robertson, 266 U. S. 243, 258 (1924); D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies §3.5 (1973); C. McCormick, Law of Damages §§ 51, 54-56 (1935); Prejudgment Interest: An Element of Damages Not to be Overlooked, 8 Cumberland L. Rev. 521, 522-523 (1977). Thus a plaintiff whose damages were determined by reference to an established royalty that the plaintiff charged for the use of the patent was entitled to prejudgment interest. In contrast, where a plaintiff’s damages, as here, were based on a reasonable royalty determined by the court, they were unliquidated and not entitled to prejudgment interest, absent exceptional circumstances.
In the 1952 codification, §§ 67 and 70 of the 1946 Code were consolidated in § 284, which has remained unchanged through the present day. The stated purpose of the codification was merely “reorganization in language to clarify the statement of the statutes.” H. R. Rep. No. 1923, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 10, 29 (1952).
Compare Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 537 F. 2d 896 (CA7 1976) (no prejudgment interest absent exceptional circumstances); Radiator Specialty Co. v. Micek, 395 F. 2d 763 (CA9 1968) (same) (dictum), with Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. U. S. Plywood-Champion Papers, Inc., 446 F. 2d 295 (CA2) (§284 does not incorporate Duplate standard), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 870 (1971); Trio Process Corp. v. L. Goldstein’s Sons, Inc., 638 F. 2d 661 (CA3 1981) (same); General Electric Co. v. Sciaky Bros. Inc., 415 F. 2d 1068 (CA6 1969) (same); Milgo Electronic Corp. v. United Business Communications, Inc., 623 F. 2d 645 (CA10) (same), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 1066 (1980).
Section 285 provides: “The court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party.” The phrase “exceptional cases” was not contained in the 1946 amendments, but was added by the 1952 compilation for purposes of clarification only. See n. 6, supra. The language of the 1946 amendments provided in relevant part that “the Court may in its discretion award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party.” 35 U. S. C. § 70 (1964 ed.) (emphasis added).
The wording of the amendment passed by Congress in 1946 was slightly different. It provided that the claimant “shall be entitled to recover general damages which shall be due compensation” for the infringement. 35 U. S. C. §70 (1946 ed.) (emphasis added). See n. 6, supra.
Section 284 derived from a House bill which specifically provided for an award of interest “from the time the infringement occurred.” H. R. 5311, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. (1946); see H. R. Rep. No. 1587, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, p. 1 (1946). The bill as modified by the Senate Committee and enacted into law replaced this language with the language currently contained in §284. The legislative history suggests that the language substitution was intended solely to make the award of attorney’s fees discretionary rather than mandatory; there was no indication that the Senate Committee intended any substantive change in the treatment of interest. See S. Rep. No. 1503, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1946). The passage of the Senate bill in the House was preceded by an assurance by Representative Lanham, who managed the bill, that the only substantive modification of the House bill concerned the attorney’s fees provision. 92 Cong. Rec. 9881 (1946).
See Waite v. United States, 282 U. S. 508, 509 (1931); Jacobs v. United States, 290 U. S. 13, 16 (1933) (interest from time of the taking is necessary to constitute adequate compensation under the Fifth Amendment); Miller v. Robertson, 266 U. S. 243, 258 (1924) (prejudgment interest required for “full compensation”). The traditional view, which treated prejudgment interest as a penalty awarded on the basis of the defendant’s conduct, has long been criticized on the ground that prejudgment interest represents “delay damages” and should be awarded as a component of full compensation. See Dobbs, supra n. 5, § 3.5, at 174; McCormick, supra n. 5, § 51, at 206-211; 8 Cumberland L. Rev., supra n. 5, at 521. A rule denying prejudgment interest not only undereompensates the patent owner but also may grant a windfall to the infringer and create an incentive to prolong litigation. There is no reason why an infringer should stand in a better position than a party who agrees to pay a royalty and then fails to pay because of financial difficulties.
See, e. g., Board of Comm’rs v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 352-353 (1939); Redfield v. Bartels, 139 U. S. 694, 701 (1891); First National Bank of Chicago v. Material Service Corp., 597 F. 2d 1110, 1120-1121 (CA7 1979). See generally McCormick, supra n. 5, at 220-221, 228-229 (cases cited therein); 8 Cumberland L. Rev., supra n. 5, at 534 (cases cited therein). The determination whether the plaintiff has unduly delayed prosecution of the lawsuit is committed to the discretion of the district court and is reviewable on appeal only for abuse of discretion.
The District Court’s decision to award costs rested on its conclusion that Devex did not cause “unnecessary delay or [obtain] only slight success.” 494 F. Supp., at 1380. The Court of Appeals affirmed the award of costs, and that issue is not before 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: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue before the Court is the ownership of oceanfront land created through accretion to land owned by the United States on the coast of California. The decision turns on whether federal or state law governs the issue.
M
From the time of California s admission to the Union in 1850, the United States owned the upland on the north side of the entrance channel to Humboldt Bay, Cal. In 1859 and 1871, the Secretary of the Interior ordered that certain of these lands, which fronted on the Pacific Ocean, the channel, and Humboldt Bay be reserved from public sale. Since that time the land has been continuously possessed by the United States and used as a Coast Guard Reservation. The Pacific shoreline along the Coast Guard site remained substantially unchanged until near the turn of the century when the United States began construction of two jetties at the entrance to Humboldt Bay. The jetty constructed on the north side of the entrance resulted in fairly rapid accretion on the ocean side of the Coast Guard Reservation, so that formerly submerged lands became uplands. One hundred and eighty-four acres of upland were created by the seaward movement of the ordinary high-water mark. This land, which remains barren save for a watchtower, is the subject of the dispute in this case.
The controversy arose in 1977 when the Coast Guard applied for permission from California to use this land to construct the watchtower. At this time it became evident that both California and the United States asserted ownership of the land. The United States eventually built the watchtower without obtaining California’s permission. Invoking our original jurisdiction, California then filed this suit to quiet title to the subject land. We granted leave for California to file a bill of complaint. 454 U. S. 809 (1981).
California alleges that upon its admission to the Union on September 9, 1850, Act of Sept. 9, 1850, 9 Stat. 452, and by confirmation in the Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U. S. C. §1301 et séq., California became vested with absolute title to the tidelands and the submerged lands upon which, after construction of the jetties, alluvion was deposited, resulting in formation of the subject land. Because the accretion formed on sovereign state land, California maintains that its law should govern ownership. Under California law, a distinction is drawn between accretive changes to a boundary caused by natural forces and boundary changes caused by the construction of artificial objects. For natural accretive changes, the upland boundary moves seaward as the alluvion is deposited, resulting in a benefit to the upland owner. Los Angeles v. Anderson, 206 Cal. 662, 667, 275 P. 789, 791 (1929). Whén accretion is caused by construction of artificial works, however, the boundary does not move but becomes fixed at the ordinary high-water mark at the time the artificial influence is introduced. Carpenter v. Santa Monica, 63 Cal. App. 2d 772, 794, 147 P. 2d 964, 975 (1944). It is not disputed that the newly formed land in controversy was created by the construction of the jetty. Therefore, if state law governs, California would prevail.
By its answer, and supporting memoranda, the United States contends that the formerly submerged lands were never owned by California before passage of the Submerged Lands Act in 1953, and that the disputed land was not granted to California by the Act. The United States also submits that the case is governed by federal rather than state law and that under long-established federal law, accretion, whatever its cause, belongs to the upland owner. Jones v. Johnston, 18 How. 150, 156 (1856); County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, 23 Wall. 46, 66 (1874); Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U. S. 178, 189-193 (1890); Beaver v. United States, 350 F. 2d 4, 10-11 (CA9 1965). If such federal law controls, title to the deposited land vested in the United States as the accretions formed.
Recognizing that the choice-of-law issue was clearly drawn, California moved for summary judgment and the United States moved for judgment on the pleadings. No essential facts being in dispute, a special master was not appointed and the case was briefed and argued. We conclude that federal law governs the decision in this case and that the land in dispute is owned by the United States.
I — I HH
In Borax Consolidated, Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U. S. 10 (1935), the city filed suit to quiet its title to land claimed to be tideland and to belong to the city by virtue of a grant from the State. The defendant claimed by virtue of a patent from the United States issued after California entered the Union. In an opinion by Chief Justice Hughes, and with a single dissent, the Court held that if the land in question was tideland, the title passed to California at the time of her admission to the Union in 1850; that it remained to be determined whether the land at issue was tideland; and that this issue was “necessarily a federal question” controlled by federal law. The Court said:
“Petitioners claim under a federal patent which, according to the plat, purported to convey land bordering on the Pacific Ocean. There is no question that the United States was free to convey the upland, and the patent affords no ground for holding that it did not convey all the title that the United States had in the premises. The question as to the extent of this federal grant, that is, as to the limit of the land conveyed, or the boundary between the upland and the tideland, is necessarily a federal question. It is a question which concerns the validity and effect of an act done by the United States; it involves the ascertainment of the essential basis of a right asserted under federal law. Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 669, 670; Brewer-Elliott Oil Co. v. United States, 260 U. S. 77, 87; United States v. Holt Bank, 270 U. S. 49, 55, 56; United States v. Utah, 283 U. S. 64, 75. Rights and interests in the tideland, which is subject to the sovereignty of the State, are matters of local law. Barney v. Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324, 338; Skively v. Bowlby, [152 U. S. 1,] 40; Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371, 382; Port of Seattle v. Oregon & Washington R. Co., 255 U. S. 56, 63.” Borax Consolidated, Ltd. v. Los Angeles, supra, at 22.
The Court went on to hold that tidelands extend to the mean high-water line, which the Court then defined as a matter of federal law.
There was no question of accretions to the shoreline of the property involved in Borax. But some 30 years later, Mrs. Stella Hughes, the successor in interest to the owner of oceanfront property patented by the United States prior to the entry of the State of Washington into the Union, sued the State seeking to quiet her title to accretions that had become attached to her land and that had caused a seaward movement of the shoreline. Under Washington law, the accretions belonged to the State, the owner of the tidelands, and Mrs. Hughes would no longer own property fronting on the ocean. Under federal law accretions are the property of the upland owner. The trial court found that federal law applied. The Washington Supreme Court reversed, holding that Washington law applied and that the State owned any land that accreted after statehood. Hughes v. State, 67 Wash. 2d. 799, 410 P. 2d 20 (1966).
We in turn reversed, reaffirming the decision in Borax that federal law determined the boundary between state-owned tidelands and property granted under a federal patent and holding that the same law applied to determine the boundary between state-owned tidelands and oceanfront property where accretions had extended the shoreline seaward. Hughes v. Washington, 389 U. S. 290 (1967). The justification for employing federal law was the special nature of the coastal boundary question: “The' rule deals with waters that lap both the lands of the State and the boundaries of the international sea. This relationship, at this particular point of the marginal sea, is too close to the vital interest of the Nation in its own boundaries to allow it to be governed by any law but the ‘supreme Law of the Land.’” Id., at 293. We went on to decide that under federal law, the federal grantee of the uplands had the right to the accumulated accretions.
Except for the fact that in the present case the upland to which the accretions attached has always been owned by the United States, this case and Hughes are similarly situated. Unless Hughes is to be overruled, judgment must be entered for the United States.
California urges that for all intents and purposes Hughes has already been eviscerated by Oregon ex rel. State Land Board v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U. S. 363 (1977). Corvallis involved a dispute between the State of Oregon and an Oregon corporation over the ownership of land that became part of a riverbed because of avulsive changes in the river’s course. The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s award of the land to the corporation because that was the result dictated by federal common law, which, under Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 414 U. S. 313 (1973), was the proper source of law. A majority of this Court reversed, overruling Bonelli and holding that the disputed ownership of the riverbed should be decided solely as a matter of Oregon law. Bonelli's error was said to have been reliance on the equal-footing doctrine as a source of federal common law. Once the equal-footing doctrine had vested title to the riverbed in Arizona, “it did not operate after that date to determine what effect on titles the movement of the river might have.” 429 U. S., at 371. State, rather than federal law, should have been applied.
California urges that in rejecting Bonelli and holding that disputes about the title to lands granted by the United States are to be settled by state law, the Court also rejected Hughes since that case involved land that had been patented by the United States to private owners. We do not agree. Corvallis itself recognized that federal law would continue to apply if “there were present some other principle of federal law requiring state law to be displaced. ” 429 U. S., at 371. For example, the effects of accretive and avulsive changes in the course of a navigable stream forming an interstate boundary is determined by federal law. Id., at 375. The Corvallis opinion also recognized that Bonelli did not rest upon Hughes and that the Hughes Court considered oceanfront property “sufficiently different... so as to justify a ‘federal common law’ rule of riparian proprietorship.” 429 U. S., at 377, n. 6. The Corvallis decision did not purport to disturb Hughes.
Wilson v. Omaha Indian Tribe, 442 U. S. 653 (1979), made clear that Corvallis also does not apply “where the [United States] Government has never parted with title and its interest in the property continues.” 442 U. S., at 670. The dispute in Corvallis was between the State and a private owner of land previously in federal possession. In contrast, the riparian owner in Wilson was the United States, holding reservation land in trust for the Omaha Indian Tribe. The issue was the effect of accretive or avulsive changes in the course of a navigable stream. State boundaries were not involved. What we said in Wilson is at least equally applicable here where the United States has held title to, occupied, and utilized the littoral land for over 100 years: “[T]he general rule recognized by Corvallis does not oust federal law in this case. Here, we are not dealing with land titles merely derived from a federal grant, but with land with respect to which the United States has never yielded title or terminated its interest.” 442 U. S., at 670.
We conclude, based on Hughes v. Washington and Wilson v. Omaha Indian Tribe, that a dispute over accretions to oceanfront land where title rests with or was derived from the Federal Government is to be determined by federal law.
III
Controversies governed by federal law do not inevitably require resort to uniform federal rules. Wilson v. Omaha Indian Tribe, supra, at 672. It may be determined as a matter of choice of law that, although federal law should govern a given question, state law should be borrowed and applied as the federal rule for deciding the substantive legal issue at hand. Board of Commissioners of Jackson County v. United States, 308 U. S. 343 (1939); Royal Indemnity Co. v. United States, 313 U. S. 289 (1941). This is not such a case. First, and dispositive in itself, is the fact that Congress has addressed the issue of accretions to federal land. The Submerged Lands Act, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 et seq., vested title in the States to the lands underlying the territorial sea, which, in California’s case, extended three miles seaward from the ordinary low-water line. The Act also confirmed the title of the States to the tidelands up to the line of mean high tide. Section 5(a) of the Act, however, withheld from the grant to the States all “accretions” to coastal lands acquired or reserved by the United States. 43 U. S. C. § 1313(a). In light of this provision, borrowing for federal-law purposes a state rule that would divest federal ownership is foreclosed. In Wilson, where we did adopt state law as the federal rule, no special federal concerns, let alone a statutory directive, required a federal common-law rule.
Moreover, this is not a case in which federal common law must be created. For over 100 years it has been settled under federal law that the right to future accretions is an inherent and essential attribute of the littoral or riparian owner. New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662, 717 (1836); County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, 23 Wall., at 68. “‘Almost all jurists and legislators, . . . both ancient and modern, have agreed that the owner of the land thus bounded is entitled to these additions.’” Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U. S., at 189, quoting Banks v. Ogden, 2 Wall. 57, 67 (1865). We rejected the invitation to rely on state law in Hughes, which California readily admits is a case “in which the facts and issues are essentially identical,” Statement in Support of Motion for Leave to File Complaint 16, and we see no reason at this juncture to adopt California’s minority rule on artificial accretions, even if we were free to do so.
Applying the federal rule that accretions, regardless of cause, accrue to the upland owner, we conclude that title to the entire disputed land in issue is vested in the United States.
IV
Despite Hughes and Wilson, California claims ownership of the disputed lands because all of the accretions were deposited on tidelands and submerged lands, title to which, California submits, was vested in the State by the equal-footing doctrine and confirmed by the Submerged Lands Act. But California’s, claim to the land underlying the territorial sea was firmly rejected in United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947), which held that only land underneath inland waters was included in the initial grant to the States under the equal-footing doctrine. Furthermore, the Submerged Lands Act was a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to dispose of federal property, Alabama v. Texas, 347 U. S. 272, 273-274 (1954), and “did not impair the validity” of the California decision, United States v. Louisiana, 363 U. S. 1, 7, 20 (1960). In any event, whatever the ownership of the submerged lands, this approach, based as it is on the equal-footing doctrine and the federal statute, is not a claim that state law should govern but a claim that the historic rule that accretions belong to the upland owner is wrong and should be replaced with a rule awarding title to the owner of the land on which the accretions took place. To accept this submission, however, would require rejecting not only Hughes, but also the long-established federal rule that accretions belong to the upland owner — a doctrine consistent with the majority rule prevailing in the States. See Part III, supra. Indeed, the proposed rule is also inconsistent with California’s own law that accretions attributable to natural causes belong to the upland owner. For all these reasons, we refuse the invitation to depart from the long-settled rule.
Independent of the above analysis, California claims that the United States expressly surrendered title to the disputed land through the Submerged Lands Act. California argues the subject land falls within the general grant to the States of “lands beneath navigable waters.” Section 2(a)(3) of the Act defines “lands beneath navigable waters” to include “all filled in, made, or reclaimed lands which formerly were lands beneath navigable waters.” 43 U. S. C. § 1301(a)(3). Because the jetty construction caused fairly rapid accretion, and, but for the construction of the jetties, the subject land would have remained submerged, California submits the accretion-formed land is “made” land, whose title rests in California by virtue of the Submerged Lands Act.
We do not read this provision of the Act as applying to the gradual process by which sand accumulated along the shore, although caused by a jetty affecting the action of the sea. Moreover, to the extent that the accretions are to be considered “made” land, they would fall within the reservation by the United States of “all lands filled in, built up, or otherwise reclaimed by the United States for its own use.” This follows from the congressional object to assure each sovereign the continuing benefit of landfill and like work performed by each. In any event, § 5(a) of the Act expressly withholds from the grant to the States all “accretions” to lands reserved by the United States, and both California and the United States agree that the exposure of the formerly submerged lands in dispute constitutes “accretion.” This reading of the Act adheres to the principle that federal grants are to be construed strictly in favor of the United States. United States v. Grand River Dam Authority, 363 U. S. 229, 235 (1960); United States v. Union Pacific R. Co., 353 U. S. 112, 116 (1957).
Finally, California submits that the Act granted title to the State by confirming the title of persons who, on June 5,1950, were entitled to such lands “under the law of the respective States in which the land is located . . . 43 U. S. C. § 1311(a). This provision means nothing more than that state law determines the proper beneficiary of the grant of land under the Act; it is clear that federal law determines the scope of the grant under the Act in the first instance.
V
We reaffirm today that federal law determines the boundary of oceanfront lands owned or patented by the United States. Applying the federal rule that accretions of whatever cause belong to the upland owner, we find that title to the disputed parcel rests with the United States. Accordingly, California’s motion for summary judgment is denied, and the United States’ motion for judgment on the pleadings is granted. The parties, or either of them, may, before September 27,1982, submit a proposed decree to carry this opinion into effect, failing which the Court will prepare and enter an appropriate decree at the next Term of Court.
It is so ordered.
Secretarial Order, December 27, 1859; Secretarial Order, August 19, 1871. See Exhibit C to Exhibits in Support of California’s Motion for Leave to File Complaint.
Construction of the jetties commenced on the South Spit in 1889 and on the North Spit in 1890. U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District, Survey Report on Humboldt Bay, California, App. I, Shoreline Changes 2-3, 8-9 (Feb. 10, 1950), Exhibit D (hereafter cited as Corps Report). The north jetty was a massive work, having a total length of 7,500 feet.
The United States and California agree that the seaward shift of the shoreline was caused by the construction of the jetties. A study by the Army Corps of Engineers found:
“With the inauguration of jetty construction in 1890, there began a series of interruptions in normal littoral transport [of sand]. With each increment in length of the jetties the [Humboldt] bar was pushed seaward. Consequent decrease in offshore depths caused the shore to advance on each side of the inlet.” Id., at 8, ¶21.
After jetty construction,
“. . . the Humboldt bar. . . shifted and reformed seaward of its 1870 position, and the ocean high-water shore line along the north spit. . . shifted seaward. The seaward advance of the north spit shore line was most pronounced upon reconstruction of the north jetty in 1917.” Id., at 9, ¶25.
California does not contend that, having applied for a state permit, the United States is estopped from asserting its claim to ownership of the disputed land. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-6. Such an argument is foreclosed by United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, 39-40 (1947) (footnote omitted): “[0]fficers who have no authority at all to dispose of Government property cannot by their conduct cause the Government to lose its valuable rights by their acquiescence, laches, or failure to act.” See also United States v. City and County of San Francisco, 310 U. S. 16, 31-32 (1940); Utah v. United States, 284 U. S. 534, 545-546 (1932).
In May 1978, California transmitted a proposed permit to the United States to allow construction of the watchtower. See Corps Report, Exhibit F. A few days later, the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of the Interior formally advised the Coast Guard and the California Commission that the United States claimed the disputed acreage as accretion. Letter of June 5, 1978, attached to Corps Report, Exhibit G. The proposed permit was never executed.
Disputes between a State and the United States over ownership of property are fully within our original jurisdiction over cases in “which a State shall be Party,” Art. Ill, §2, cl. 2. Although our jurisdiction over this matter is concurrent with that of the district courts, California v. Arizona, 440 U. S. 59, 65 (1979); 28 U. S. C. § 1251(b)(2), we have previously indicated that coastal boundary disputes are appropriately brought as original actions in this Court. United States v. Alaska, 422 U. S. 184, 186, n. 2 (1975).
The United States has waived its immunity to suit in actions brought against it to quiet title to land. 28 U. S. C. § 1346(f). See California v. Arizona, supra, at 65-68.
California’s claim that Wilson v. Omaha Indian Tribe, 442 U. S. 653, 672 (1979), determined that there was no “federal common law” of accretion and avulsion, is a misunderstanding of that decision. We said only that “[t]he federal law applied in boundary cases . . . does not necessarily furnish the appropriate rules to govern” a case not involving a boundary dispute. Too much is also read into dictum in Oregon ex rel. State Land Board v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U. S. 363, 380-381, n. 8 (1977), taking issue with the dissent’s meaning of the term “federal common law.”
All participating Justices joined except Justice Stewart, who concurred on grounds that the State’s claim to the property constituted a taking without compensation. He rejected the majority’s application of federal law to the question. Justice Marshall took no part in the case.
The equal-footing principle holds that all States admitted to the Union possess the same rights and sovereignty as the original 13 States. Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 229 (1845); Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 26, 30 (1894).
The majority opinion in Corvallis appears to recognize that its rule does not extend to land remaining in federal hands:
“ ‘We hold the true principle to be this, that whenever the question in any Court, state or federal, is, whether a title to land which had once been property of the United States has passed, that question must be resolved by the laws of the United States; but that whenever, according to these laws, the title shall have passed, then that property, like all other property in the state, is subject to state legislation; so far as that legislation is consistent with the admission that the title passed and vested according to the laws of the United States.’” 429 U. S., at 377 (quoting Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498, 517 (1839); emphasis added by Corvallis Court).
In relevant part, § 5(a) of the Act, 62 Stat. 32, 43 U. S. C. § 1313(a), excepts from the grant to the States
“all tracts or parcels of land together with all accretions thereto,. . . title to which has been lawfully and expressly acquired by the United States . . . and ... all lands expressly retained by or ceded to the United States when the State entered the Union . . . .”
Although “accretions” are expressly mentioned only in connection with federal “acquired lands,” accretions to retained lands should be similarly excepted from the grant to the States. Former Solicitor General Cox, in an opinion approved by the Attorney General, explained:
“There can be no doubt that Congress intended each of the various categories of lands excepted by section 5(a) to include accretions. The terms of section 5(a) make this clear. The customary rights of landowners are set forth in full in the first of the several exceptions listed in section 5(a). Thus, it speaks of ‘all tracts or parcels of land together with all accretions thereto, resources therein, or improvements thereon . . . Each of the other exceptions speaks simply of ‘all lands.’ Obviously, the more comprehensive word ‘lands’ was used instead of Tracts or parcels of land’ and the explicit reference to accretions, resources and improvements was omitted in order to avoid repetition. There is no reasonable basis for any other conclusion. Congress would not have limited its exceptions of ‘all accretions thereto, resources therein, or improvements thereon’ to lands ‘lawfully and expressly acquired by the United States’ from any State or its grantees and then denied them where the lands were ‘expressly retained’ or ‘acquired by the United States by eminent domain proceedings, purchase, cession, gift, or otherwise in a proprietary capacity. . . .’ ” 42 Op. Atty. Gen. 241, 264 (1963).
In United States v. California, O. T. 1951, No. 6, Orig., California argued that the “Court should adopt the federal rule that accretions formed by gradual and imperceptible degrees even though induced by artificial structures accrue to the owner of the adjoining land.” Brief in Relation to Report of Special Master 90. California suggested “ample reasons why [the] exceptional California view should not be extended and applied in determining the boundaries of the marginal sea off California.” Id., at 91. Those reasons included the fact that the California rule is contrary to that adopted by courts of most other States, that the application of state law would lead to varying results in different States, and that the California rule was devised for wholly inapplicable reasons.
See also Alabama v. Texas, 347 U. S., at 273-274; United States v. California, 381 U. S. 139, 145-148 (1965); United States v. Louisiana, 389 U. S. 155, 156-157 (1967); Texas Boundary Case, 394 U. S. 1, 2 (1969); United States v. Maine, 420 U. S. 515, 524-526 (1975); United States v. Louisiana, 446 U. S. 253, 256, 268 (1980).
For the same reasons, we reject California’s alternative theory that the equal-footing doctrine vests title in the State to all lands that ever were tidelands. California argues that as deposition occurred on submerged land, these areas went to a tideland phase — vesting title in the State— before eventually emerging as uplands. Federal law governs the scope of title initially vested by the equal-footing doctrine; at most, this argument suggests a different federal rule should apply to former tidelands. The sugr gestión has little to recommend it. Even leaving aside the concerns expressed in text, we see no reason for an exceptional rule to apply to land that once was, but no longer is, tideland. Moreover, implementation of the rule would require plotting the high- and low-water lines at all intervening times between statehood and the present.
The word “made” was inserted into the provision in a bill introduced by Congressman Walter. H. R. 8137, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., §2(a)(2) (1950). The Report on that measure describes it as “in substance, the same” as earlier proposals omitting the term. H. R. Rep. No. 2078, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1950). Throughout Congress’ consideration of the bill there was no comment on the “made” land provision. No Member of either House ever suggested that § 1301(a)(3) covered accretions that were attributable to artificial works. Against this background, we find no significance in the two casual references by Robert Moses and Senator Daniel to naturally formed accretions as “made.” Hearings on S. J. Res. 13 et al. before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 158 (1953) (remarks of Robert Moses); id., at 193-194 (remarks of Sen. Daniel).
The interpretive opinion rendered by former Solicitor General Cox, while including naturally formed islands within the “made” language of § 2(a)(3), rejects the suggestion that accretion to the mainland, whether or not directly attributable to artificial causes, is included in the Submerged Lands Act grant to the States. 42 Op. Atty. Gen., at 259-265, 266-267. We express no opinion on the Act’s treatment of naturally formed islands in the marginal sea.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this case is whether an anonymous tip that a person is carrying a gun is, without more, sufficient to justify a police officer’s stop and frisk of that person. We hold that it is not.
I
On October 13, 1995, an anonymous caller reported to the Miami-Dade Police that a young black male standing at a particular bus stop and wearing a plaid shirt was carrying a gun. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-40 to A-41. So far as the record reveals, there is no audio recording of the tip, and nothing is known about the informant. Sometime after the police received the tip — the record does not say how long— two officers were instructed to respond. They arrived at the bus stop about six minutes later and saw three black males “just hanging out [there].” Id., at A-42. One of the three, respondent J. L., was wearing a plaid shirt. Id., at A-41. Apart from the tip, the officers had.no reason tp suspect any of the three of illegal conduct. The officers did not see a firearm, and J. L. made no threatening or otherwise unusual movements. Id., at A-42 to A-44. One of the officers approached J. L., told him to put his hands up on the bus stop, frisked him, and seized a gun from J. L.’s pocket. The second officer frisked the other two individuals, against whom no allegations had been made, and found nothing.
J. L., who was at the time of the frisk “10 days shy of his 16th birth[dayj,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 6, was charged under state law with carrying a concealed firearm without a license and possessing a firearm while under the age of 18. He moved to suppress the gun as the fruit of an unlawful search, and the trial court granted his motion. The intermediate appellate court reversed, but the Supreme Court of Florida quashed that decision and held the search invalid under the Fourth Amendment. 727 So. 2d 204 (1998).
Anonymous tips, the Florida Supreme Court stated, are generally less reliable than tips from known informants and can form the basis for reasonable suspicion only'if accompanied by specific indicia of reliability, for example, the correct forecast of a subject’s “‘not easily predicted’” movements. Id., at 207 (quoting Alabama v. White, 496 U. S. 325, 332 (1990)), The tip leading to the frisk of J. L., the court observed, provided no such predictions, nor did it contain any other qualifying indicia of reliability. 727 So. 2d, at 207-208. Two justices dissented. The safety of the police and the public, they maintained, justifies a “firearm exception” to the general rule barring investigatory stops and frisks on the basis of bare-boned anonymous tips. Id., at 214-215.
Seeking review in this Court, the State of Florida noted that the decision of the State’s Supreme Court conflicts with decisions of other courts declaring similar searches compatible with the Fourth Amendment. See, e. g., United States v. DeBerry, 76 F. 3d 884, 886-887 (CA7 1996); United States v. Clipper, 973 F. 2d 944, 951 (CADC 1992). We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 963 (1999), and now affirm the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court.
HH
Our stop and frisk” decisions begin with Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968). This Court held in Terry:
“[Wjhere a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where in the course of investigating this behavior he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others’ safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.” Id., at 30.
In the instant case, the officers’ suspicion that J. L. was carrying a weapon arose not from any observations of their own but solely from a call made from an unknown location by an unknown caller. Unlike a tip from a known informant whose reputation can be assessed and who can be held responsible if her allegations turn out to be fabricated, see Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 146-147 (1972), “an anonymous tip alone seldom demonstrates the informant’s basis of knowledge or veracity,” Alabama v. White, 496 U. S., at 329. As we have recognized, however, there are situations in which an anonymous tip, suitably corroborated, exhibits “sufficient indicia of reliability to provide reasonable suspicion to make the investigatory stop.” Id., at 327. The question we here confront is whether the tip pointing to J. L. had those indicia of reliability.
In White, the police received an anonymous tip asserting that a woman was carrying cocaine and predicting that she would leave an apartment building at a specified time, get into a car matching a particular description, and drive to a named motel. Ibid. Standing alone, the tip would not have justified a Terry stop. 496 U. S., at 329. Only after police observation showed that the informant had accurately predicted the woman’s movements, we explained, did it become reasonable to think the tipster had inside knowledge about the suspect and therefore to credit his assertion about the cocaine. Id, at 332. Although the Court held that the suspicion in White became reasonable after police surveillance, we regarded the ease as borderline. Knowledge about a person’s future movements indicates some familiarity with that person’s affairs, but having such knowledge does not necessarily imply that the informant knows, in particular, whether that person is carrying hidden contraband. We accordingly classified White as a “close case.” Ibid.
The tip in the instant case lacked the moderate indicia of reliability present in White and essential to the Court’s decision in that case. The anonymous call concerning J. L. provided no predictive information and therefore left the police without means to test the informant’s knowledge or credibility. That the allegation about the gun turned out to be correct does not suggest that the officers, prior to the frisks, had a reasonable basis for suspecting J. L. of engaging in unlawful conduct: The reasonableness of official suspicion must be measured by what the officers knew before they conducted their search. All the police had to go on in this case was the bare report of an unknown, unaccountable informant who neither explained how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for believing he had inside information about J. L. If White was a close case on the reliability of anonymous tips, this one surely falls on the other side of the line.
Florida contends that the tip was reliable because its description of the suspect’s visible attributes proved accurate: There really was a young black male wearing a plaid shirt at the bus stop. Brief for Petitioner 20-21. The United States as amicus curiae makes a similar argument, proposing that a stop and frisk should be permitted “when (1) an anonymous tip provides a description of a particular person at a particular location illegally carrying a concealed firearm, (2) police promptly verify the pertinent details of the tip except the existence of the firearm, and (3) there are no factors that cast doubt on the reliability of the tip ... Brief for United States 16. These contentions misapprehend the reliability needed for a tip to justify a Terry stop.
An accurate description of a subject’s readily observable location and appearance is of course reliable in this limited sense: It will help the police correctly identify the person whom the tipster means to accuse. Such a tip, however, does not show that the tipster has knowledge of concealed criminal activity. The reasonable suspicion here at issue requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person. Cf. 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 9.4(h), p. 213 (3d ed. 1996) (distinguishing reliability as to identification, which is often important in other criminal law contexts, from reliability as to the likelihood of criminal activity, which is central in anonymous-tip cases).
A second major argument advanced by Florida and the United States as amicus is, in essence, that the standard Terry analysis should be modified to license a “firearm exception.” Under such an exception, a tip alleging an illegal gun would justify a stop and frisk even if the accusation would fail standard pre-search reliability testing. We decline to adopt this position.
Firearms are dangerous, and extraordinary dangers sometimes justify unusual precautions. Our decisions recognize the serious threat that armed criminals pose to public safety; Terry’s rule, which permits protective police searches on the basis of reasonable suspicion rather than demanding that officers meet the higher standard of probable cause, responds to this very concern. See 392 U. S., at 30. But an automatic firearm exception to our established reliability analysis would rove too far. Such an exception would enable any person seeking to harass another to set in motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the targeted person simply by placing an anonymous call falsely reporting the target’s unlawful carriage of a gun. Nor could one securely confine such an exception to allegations involving firearms.
Several Courts of Appeals have held it per se foreseeable for people carrying significant amounts of illegal drugs to be carrying guns as well. See, e. g., United States v. Sakyi, 160 F. 3d 164, 169 (CA4 1998); United States v. Dean, 59 F. 3d 1479, 1490, n. 20 (CA5 1995); United States v. Odom, 13 F. 3d 949, 959 (CA6 1994); United States v. Martinez, 958 F. 2d 217, 219 (CA8 1992). If police officers may properly conduct Terry frisks on the basis of bare-boned tips about guns, it would be reasonable to maintain under the above-cited decisions that the police should similarly have discretion to frisk based on bare-boned tips about narcotics. As we clarified when we made indicia of reliability critical in Adams and White, the Fourth Amendment is not so easily satisfied. Cf. Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U. S. 385, 393-394 (1997) (rejecting a per se exception to the “knock and announce” rule for narcotics cases partly because “the reasons for creating an exception in one category [of Fourth Amendment eases] can, relatively easily, be applied to others,” thus allowing the exception to swallow the rule).
The facts of this case do not require us to speculate about the circumstances under which the danger alleged in an anonymous tip might be so great as to justify a search even without a showing of reliability. We do not say, for example, that a report of a person carrying a bomb need bear the indicia of reliability we demand for a report of a person carrying a firearm before the police can constitutionally conduct a frisk. Nor do we hold that public safety officials in quarters where the reasonable expectation of Fourth Amendment privacy is diminished, such as airports, see Florida v. Rodriguez, 469 U. S. 1 (1984) (per curiam), and schools, see New Jersey v. T L. O., 469 U. S. 325 (1985), cannot conduct protective searches on the basis of information insufficient to justify searches elsewhere.
Finally, the requirement that an anonymous tip bear standard indicia of reliability in order to justify a stop in no way diminishes a police officer’s prerogative, in accord with Terry, to conduct a protective search of a person who has already been legitimately stopped. We speak in today’s decision only of cases in which the officer’s authority to make the initial stop is at issue. In that context, we hold that an anonymous tip lacking indicia of reliability of the kind contemplated in Adams and White does not justify a stop and frisk whenever and however it alleges the illegal possession of a firearm.
The judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
At oral argument, petitioner also advanced the position that J. L.’s youth made the stop and frisk valid, because it is a crime in Florida for persons under the age of 21 to carry concealed firearms. See Fla. Stat. § 790.01 (1997) (carrying a concealed weapon without a license is a misdemeanor), § 79Q.06(2)(b) (only persons aged 21 or older may be licensed to carry concealed weapons). This contention misses the mark. Even assuming that the arresting officers could be sure that J. L. was under 21, they would have had reasonable suspicion that J. L. was engaged in criminal activity only if they could be confident that he was carrying a gun in the first place. The mere fact that a tip, if true, would describe illegal activity does not mean that the police may make a Terry stop without meeting the reliability requirement, and the fact that J. L. was under 21 in no way made the gun tip more reliable than if he had been an adult.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Internal Revenue Code § 6511(b)(2)(A) imposes a ceiling on the amount of credit or refund to which a taxpayer is entitled as compensation for an overpayment of tax: “[T]he amount of the credit or refund shall not exceed the portion of the tax paid within the period, immediately preceding the filing of the claim, equal to 3 years plus the period of any extension of time for filing the return.” 26 U. S. C. § 6511(b)(2)(A). We are called upon in this case to decide when two types of remittance are “paid” for purposes of this section: a remittance by a taxpayer of estimated income tax, and a remittance by a taxpayer’s employer of withholding tax. The plain language of a nearby Code section, § 6513(b), provides the answer: These remittances are “paid” on the due date of the taxpayer’s income tax return.
I
The relevant facts are not disputed. Two remittances were made to the Internal Revenue Service toward petitioner David H. Baral’s income tax liability for the 1988 tax year. The first, a withholding of $4,104 from Baral’s wages throughout 1988, was a garden-variety collection of income tax by the employer, see §3402. The second, an estimated income tax of $1,100 remitted in January 1989, was sent by Baral himself out of concern that his employer’s withholding might be inadequate to meet his tax obligation for the year, see §6654. In the ordinary course, Baral’s income tax return for 1988 was due to be filed on April 15,1989. Though he applied for and received an extension of time until August 15, Baral missed this deadline; he did not file the return until nearly four years later, on June 1, 1993. The Service, on July 19,1993, assessed the tax liability reported on this belated return.
On the return, Baral claimed that he (and his employer on his behalf) had remitted $1,175 more with respect to the 1988 taxable year than he actually owed. Baral requested that the Service apply this excess as a credit toward his outstanding tax obligations for the 1989 taxable year. The Service denied the requested credit. It did not dispute that Baral had timely filed the request under the relevant filing deadline — “within 3 years from the time the return was filed or 2 years from the time the tax was paid, whichever of such periods expires the later.” § 6511(a); see § 6511(b)(1). But the Service concluded that the claim exceeded the ceiling imposed by § 6511(b)(2)(A). That provision states that “the amount of the credit or refund shall not exceed the portion of the tax paid within the period, immediately preceding the filing of the claim, equal to 3 years plus the period of any extension of time for filing the return.” Ibid.; see generally Commissioner v. Lundy, 516 U. S. 235, 240 (1996) (explaining that §6511 contains two separate timeliness provisions: (1) § 6511(b)(l)’s filing deadline and (2) § 6511(b)(2)’s ceilings, which are defined by reference to that provision’s “look-back period[s]”). Since Baral had filed his return on June 1,1993, and had earlier received a 4-month extension from the initial due date, the relevant look-back period under § 6511(b)(2)(A) extended from June 1, 1993, back to February 1, 1990 (i. e., three years plus four months). According to the Service, Baral had paid no portion of the overpaid tax during that period, and so faced a ceiling of zero on any allowable refund or credit.
Baral then commenced the instant suit for refund in Federal District Court. That court sustained the Service’s position and granted summary judgment in its favor. The Court of Appeals affirmed. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-1, judgt. order reported at 172 F. 3d 918 (CADC 1999). The Court of Appeals looked to § 6513(b)(1), which states that amounts of tax withheld from wages “shall... be deemed to have been paid by [the taxpayer] on the 15th day of the fourth month following the close of his taxable year,” and to § 6513(b)(2), which makes similar provision for amounts submitted as estimated income tax, and concluded that, under these subsections, both of the remittances at issue were “paid” on April 15, 1989. Accord, e. g., Dantzler v. United States, 183 F. 3d 1247, 1250-1251 (CA11 1999) (estimated income tax); Ertman v. United States, 165 F. 3d 204, 207 (CA2 1999) (same); Ehle v. United States, 720 F. 2d 1096, 1096-1097 (CA9 1983) (withholding from wages). In view of apparent tension between this approach and a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Ford v. United States, 618 F. 2d 357, 360-361, and n. 4 (1980) (suggesting that a remittance respecting any sort of tax is “paid” under § 6511 only when the Service assesses the tax liability), we granted certiorari, 527 U. S. 1067 (1999).
II
The parties renew before us the contentions advanced below. The Government submits that §§ 6513(b)(1) and (2) unequivocally provide that the two remittances at issue were “paid” on April 15, 1989, for purposes of § 6511(b)(2)(A), so that they precede the look-back period, which, as noted, commenced on February 1, 1990. Baral, on the other hand, urges that a tax cannot be “paid” within the meaning of § 6511(b)(2)(A) until the tax liability is assessed (i. e., the value of the liability is definitively fixed). According to Baral, the requisite assessment might be made either when the taxpayer files his return (here June 1, 1993) or when the Service, under §6201, formally assesses the liability (here July 19, 1993), though he seems to prefer the latter date. See Brief for Petitioner 9 (“Payment of the income tax . . . occurred at the earliest on June 1,1993, when the amount of that tax first became known, and more precisely on July 19, 1993, when the income tax was assessed”).
We agree with the Government that §§ 6513(b)(1) and (2) settle the matter. We set out these provisions in full:
“(b) Prepaid income tax
“For purposes of section 6511 or 6512—
“(1) Any tax actually deducted and withheld at the source during any calendar year under chapter 24 shall, in respect of the recipient of the income, be deemed to have been paid by him on the 15th day of the fourth month following the close of his taxable year with respect to which such tax is allowable as a credit under section 31.
“(2) Any amount paid as estimated income tax for any taxable year shall be deemed to have been paid on the last day prescribed for filing the return under section 6012 for such taxable year (determined without regard to any extension of time for filing such return).”
Subsection (1) resolves when the remittance of withholding tax by Baraks employer was “paid”: Since Baral is a calendar year taxpayer, the $4,104 withheld from his wages during the 1988 calendar year was “paid” on April 15, 1989. Subsection (2) determines when Baraks remittance of estimated income tax was “paid”: Since the referenced § 6012 together with § 6072(a) requires that a calendar year taxpayer like Baral file his income tax return on the April 15th following the close of the calendar year, the $1,100 remitted as an estimated income tax in respect of Baraks 1988 tax liability was likewise “paid” on April 15,1989. And both of these statutorily defined payment dates apply “[f]or purposes of section 6511,” the provision directly at issue in this case. This means that, under § 6511(b)(2)(A), both remittances at issue (the withholding and the estimated income tax) fall before, and hence outside, the look-back period, which commenced on February 1,1990. Because neither these remittances nor any others were “paid” within the look-baek period (February 1, 1990, to June 1, 1998), the ceiling on Baral’s requested credit of $1,175 is zero, and the Service was correct to deny the requested credit.
Baral disputes this reading of § 6513(b). He claims that §§ 6513(b)(1) and (2) establish a “deemed paid” date for payment of estimated tax and withholding tax, but in no sense prescribe when the income tax is “paid,” which is the crucial inquiry under § 6511(b)(2)(A). According to Baral, withholding tax and estimated tax are taxes in their own right (separate from the income tax), and are converted into income tax only on the income tax return. (On this view, payment of the income tax occurred no earlier than June 1, 1993, when Baral filed the return.) This reading is evident, he says, from the significance that the Treasury Regulations place on the filing of the return, see 26 CFR §301.6315-1 (1999) (“The aggregate amount of the payments of estimated tax should be entered upon the income tax return for such taxable year as payments to be applied against the tax shown on such return”); § 301.6402-3(a)(1) (providing that “in the case of an overpayment of income taxes, a claim for credit or refund of such overpayment shall be made on the appropriate income tax return”), and from the fact that the Code’s provisions regarding withholding and estimated tax are found in different subtitles (C and F, respectively) from the provisions governing income tax (A).
We disagree. Withholding and estimated tax remittances are not taxes in their own right, but methods for collecting the income tax. Thus, § 31(a)(1) of the Code provides that amounts withheld from wages “shall be allowed to the recipient of the income as a credit against the [income] tax,” and § 6315 states that “[pjayment of the estimated income tax, or any installment thereof, shall be considered payment on account of the income taxes imposed by subtitle A for the taxable year.” Similarly, one of the regulations cited by Baral explains that a remittance of estimated income tax “shall be considered payment on account of the income tax for the taxable year for which the estimate is made.” 26 CFR §301.6315-1 (1999) (emphasis added). Baral’s reading fails, moreover, to give any meaning to 26 U. S. C. § 6513. That section exists “[f]or purposes of section 6511,” and §6511 concerns credits and refunds, which result only when the aggregate of remittances (such as withholding tax and estimated income tax) exceed the tax liability, see §6401. Thus, the concepts of credit or refund have no meaning as applied to Baral’s notion of withholding taxes and estimated taxes as freestanding taxes. Not surprisingly, the caption to § 6513(b) describes withholding and estimated income tax remittances as “[p]repaid income tax.”
Taking a more metaphysical tack, Baral contends that income tax is “paid” under § 6511(b)(2)(A) only when the income tax is assessed — here, June 1 or July 19, 1993, see supra, at 434-435 — because the concept of payment makes sense only when the liability is “defined, known, and fixed by assessment,” Brief for Petitioner 9. But the Code directly contradicts the notion that payment may not occur before assessment. See § 6151(a) (“[T]he person required to make [a return of tax] shall, without assessment or notice and demand from the Secretary, pay such tax ... at the time and place fixed for filing the return” (emphasis added)); § 6213(b)(4) (“Any amount paid as a tax or in respect of a tax may be assessed upon the receipt of such payment’ (emphasis added)). Nor does Baral’s argument find support in our decision in Rosenman v. United States, 323 U. S. 658 (1945), where we applied § 6511’s predecessor to a remittance of estimated estate tax. To be sure, a part of our opinion seems to endorse petitioner’s view that payment only occurs at assessment:
"It is [the] erroneous assessment that gave rise to a claim for refund. Not until then was there such a claim as could start the time running for presenting the claim. In any responsible sense payment was then made by the application of the balance credited to the petitioners in the suspense account....” Id., at 661.
But the remittance in Rosenman, unlike the ones here, was not governed by a “deemed paid” provision akin to §6513, and we therefore had no occasion to consider the implications of such a provision for determining when a tax is “paid” under the predecessor to §6511. See ibid, (noting that “no extraneous relevant aids to construction have been called to our attention”). Moreover, if the quoted passage had represented our holding, we would have broadly rejected the Government’s argument that payment occurred when the remittance of estimated estate tax was made, instead of rejecting the argument, as we did, only because it was not in accord with the “tenor” of the “business transaction,” id., at 663.
We observe, finally, that Baral’s position — to the extent he submits that payment occurs only at the Service’s assessment — would work to the detriment of taxpayers who timely file their returns and claim a refund or credit as compensation for an overpayment. The Service 'will not always assess the taxpayer’s liability immediately upon receiving the return; the Service generally has three years in which to do so, see 26 U. S. C. § 6501(a) (1994 ed., Supp. III). The Code does allow for payment of interest to the taxpayer on over-payments once the return has been filed and the tax paid, 26 U. S. C. § 6611 (1994 ed. and Supp. III), but under Baral’s view no interest could accrue during the time between the filing of the return and the Service’s assessment. Fortunately for the timely taxpayer, the Code definitively rejects Baral’s position in this setting. Section 6611(d) of 26 U. S. C. explains that the date of payment is determined according to the provisions of § 6513, which, as noted, supra, at 435-436, plainly set a deemed date of payment for remittances of withholding and estimated income tax on the April 15 following the relevant taxable year.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment below.
It is so ordered.
Central to our analysis in this regard was a concern that the Service should not be able to treat the same remittance as a payment for statute of limitations purposes — disadvantaging the taxpayer by decreasing the time in which a refund claim could be filed — and as a deposit for purposes of accrual of interest on overpayments — disadvantaging the taxpayer by starting the accrual of interest only at assessment. Rosenman, 328 U. S., at 662-663. Indeed, we suggested that an amendment to the Code disapproving of the Service's treatment of remittances as deposits for interest purposes might change the analysis. Id., at 663 (citing Current Tax Payment Act of 1943, § 4(d), 57 Stat. 140) (presently codified at 26 U. S. C. § 6401(c)).
We need not address the proper treatment under §6511 of remittances that, unlike withholding and estimated income tax, are not governed by a “deemed paid” provision akin to § 6513(b). Such remittances might include remittances of estimated estate tax, as in Rosenman, or remittances of any sort of tax by a taxpayer under audit in order to stop the running of interest and penalties, see, e. g., Moran v. United States, 63 F. 3d 663 (CA7 1995). In the latter situation, the taxpayer will often desire treatment of the remittance as a deposit — even if this means forfeiting the right to interest on an overpayment — in order to preserve jurisdiction in the Tax Court, which depends on the existence of a deficiency, 26 U. S. C. §6213 (1994 ed. and Supp. III), a deficiency that would be wiped out by treatment of the remittance as a payment. We note that the Service has promulgated procedures to govern classification of a remittance as a deposit or payment in this context. See Rev. Proc. 84-58, 1984-2 Cum. Bull. 501.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
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Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents issues pertaining to federal court review of a state court’s determination that an offense was committed “in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner,” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-703(F)(6) (1989).
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The relevant facts are undisputed. The evidence at trial showed that in May 1976, police arrested respondent Jimmie Wayne Jeffers and his girlfriend, Penelope Cheney, on state law charges of possession of narcotics and receipt of stolen property. Respondent posted bond for Cheney, but was unable to post bond for himself and remained in custody at the Pima County Jail. While in jail, respondent received reports that Cheney had been cooperating with police by providing the police with information about respondent and certain heroin transactions. Respondent wrote a note to another jail inmate offering him money if he would kill Cheney. The detention officer who was supposed to deliver the note read it and seized it.
In October 1976, respondent was released from jail on bond pending appeal of his convictions. About a week later, he met Doris Van Der Veer and began living with her at a motel in Tucson. Respondent subsequently invited Cheney to the motel in order to provide her with some heroin.
On the day of the murder, respondent told Van Der Veer that Cheney was coming over and that they wished to be alone. When Cheney arrived, respondent introduced her to Van Der Veer, who then excused herself. After about 214 hours, Van Der Veer returned to the motel room and knocked on the door. Respondent admitted her, pointed a gun at her, and ordered her to sit in a chair and be quiet.
Upon entering the motel room, Van Der Veer saw Cheney lying unconscious on the bed. Cheney appeared cyanotic. Respondent injected a fluid into Cheney’s hand and told Van Der Veer that he had “given her enough shit to kill a horse and this bitch won’t die.” Van Der Veer noticed foam coming from Cheney’s mouth, which she recognized from her training as a nurse to be a sign of heroin overdose. Van Der Veer checked Cheney’s condition and determined that she was still alive. Van Der Veer asked respondent if he was going to help Cheney, to which he responded, “No, I’m going to kill her.”
Respondent then removed the belt from around Cheney’s waist and began to choke her with it. He soon discarded the belt and choked her with his bare hands. Van Der Veer urged him to stop, saying Cheney would probably die anyway, but respondent replied, “No, I’ve seen her this way before and she’s come out of it.”
After strangling Cheney, respondent instructed Van Der Veer to check Cheney’s pulse. Van Der Veer found no pulse and reported that Cheney was dead. Respondent then ordered Van Der Veer to inject more heroin into Cheney and to choke her while he took pictures. Van Der Veer complied. Respondent told Van Der Veer that he did this to have proof that she was an accomplice. Respondent then beat Cheney with his hands several times, calling her a “bitch” and a “dirty snitch” and stating, as each blow landed, that “[t]his one is for so and so [naming several names].” Respondent then dragged the body off the bed and placed it in the shower stall. After three days, when the body began to smell, respondent and Van Der Veer wrapped the body in newspaper and plastic garbage bags, placed it in a sleeping bag, and transported it to a secluded area, where they buried it in a shallow grave.
A jury convicted respondent of the first-degree murder of Cheney. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court found two aggravating circumstances and no mitigating factors. In accordance with the Arizona death penalty statute, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-454 (Supp. 1973) (currently Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-703 (1989)), respondent was sentenced to death. App. 5-10.
On direct review of his conviction and sentence, the Arizona Supreme Court, following this Court’s decision in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978), vacated respondent’s death sentence and remanded for resentencing. See State v. Watson, 120 Ariz. 441, 586 P. 2d 1253 (1978) (requiring the trial court to consider nonstatutory mitigating factors), cert. denied, 440 U. S. 924 (1979). At the second sentencing hearing, the trial court again found two aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt: that respondent had created a grave risk of death to another person (Van Der Veer) in the commission of the murder and that respondent committed the murder in an especially heinous, cruel, and depraved manner. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 13-703(F)(3) and (6) (1989). The court found no mitigating factors and thereupon resentenced respondent to death. App. 11-16.
On direct appeal, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences. State v. Jeffers, 135 Ariz. 404, 661 P. 2d 1105, cert. denied, 464 U. S. 865 (1983). With regard to respondent’s death sentence, the court stated that, under Arizona law, “this court independently reviews the facts that the trial court found established the presence or absence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and we determine for ourselves if the latter outweigh the former when we find both to be present.” 135 Ariz., at 428, 661 P. 2d, at 1129 (citations omitted). Applying this standard, the court reversed the trial court’s finding that respondent “knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person... in addition to the victim of the offense,” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-703(F)(3) (1989).
The court then reviewed the trial court’s finding that respondent “committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner,” § 13-703(F)(6). The court noted that it had interpreted and applied this provision in light of the dictionary definitions of the words used:
“The element of cruelty involves the pain and the mental and physical distress visited upon the victims. Heinous and depraved involve the mental state and attitude of the perpetrator as reflected in his words and actions. ‘Heinous’ means ‘hatefully or shockingly evil; grossly bad’; ‘cruel’ means ‘disposed to inflict pain esp. in a wanton, insensate or vindictive manner; sadistic’; and ‘depraved’ means ‘marked by debasement, corruption, perversion or deterioration.’” 135 Ariz., at 429, 661 P. 2d, at 1130 (citations omitted).
Independently reviewing the evidence, the court concluded that the State had failed to prove the element of cruelty beyond a reasonable doubt:
“There was no evidence that the victim suffered any pain. It appears from the record that after the injection of heroin, the victim lost consciousness and never regained it before she died. Therefore, the victim experienced no pain or mental suffering and the murder was not‘cruel’for purposes of A. R. S. § 13 — 703(F)(6).” Id., at 429, 661 P. 2d, at 1130.
The court found, however, that “the events surrounding the murder itself support the trial court’s finding that the murder was ‘especially heinous... and depraved.’” Id., at 430, 661 P. 2d, at 1131. The court noted that it had recently delineated factors to be considered in determining whether the offense was committed in a heinous or depraved manner and that the infliction of gratuitous violence on the victim was one factor. See ibid, (citing State v. Gretzler, 135 Ariz. 42, 659 P. 2d 1, cert. denied, 461 U. S. 971 (1983), and State v. Ceja, 126 Ariz. 35, 612 P. 2d 491 (1980)). The court then observed that, in the instant case, “the defendant climbed on top of the dead victim and hit her in the face several times which eventually resulted in additional wounds and bleeding.” 135 Ariz., at 430, 661 P. 2d, at 1131. The court further noted that the apparent relish with which the defendant commits the murder was another factor. Ibid, (citing State v. Bishop, 127 Ariz. 531, 622 P. 2d 478 (1980)). Finding that “while Jeffers was beating the victim he called her ‘a bitch and a dirty snitch’ and with each striking blow said, ‘This one is for so and so. [naming several names],’” the court concluded: “This evidences the relish with which [respondent] committed the murder. In light of these prior decisions and the Gretzler considerations, we find that the remarks made by [respondent], while at the same time beating his victim, establish that the offense was committed in an especially heinous and depraved manner.” 135 Ariz., at 430, 661 P. 2d, at 1131.
The court then rejected respondent’s contention that the “especially heinous, cruel or depraved” aggravating circumstance, as construed and applied by the court, was unconstitutionally broad. Relying on its decision in State v. Gretzler, supra, the court held that “[e]ach element — cruel, heinous, and depraved — has been narrowly defined and construed... to meet constitutional standards.” 135 Ariz., at 430, 661 P. 2d, at 1131. The court explained:
“We have been insistent that the murder be especially cruel or especially depraved before [§ 13 — 703(F)(6)] would apply. We have clearly defined the terms and have delineated factors to guide us in determining if the crime was indeed committed in such a manner.... Further the case law reveals that § (F)(6) is not applicable to any and all murders, this court has narrowly limited its applicability to cases which stand apart from the norm.” Ibid, (citations omitted).
Finally, based on its own review of the evidence, the court affirmed the trial court’s determinations that no mitigating factors existed that were sufficiently substantial to call for leniency and that the factors in mitigation did not outweigh the aggravating circumstances. Id., at 431-432, 661 P. 2d, at 1132-1133. The court concluded that respondent’s death sentence was not disproportionate to the sentence imposed in similar cases and that “[w]e have reviewed the entire record pursuant to A. R. S. § 13-4035 and found no fundamental error. In our independent determination we found one aggravating factor — that the offense was committed in an especially heinous and depraved manner — and no mitigating factors sufficiently substantial to call for leniency.” Id., at 432, 661 P. 2d, at 1133.
Respondent then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, alleging, among other claims, that Arizona’s interpretation of its “especially heinous... or depraved” aggravating circumstance was unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. The District Court reiterated that, under Arizona law, “[a] murder that is especially heinous and depraved includes the infliction of gratuitous violence upon the victim and the indication that the defendant committed the crime with relish.” Jeffers v. Ricketts, 627 F. Supp. 1334, 1360 (Ariz. 1986) (citations omitted). The District Court then noted:
“The evidence in this case indicates that the victim, Penny, had either taken or was injected by Jeffers with such a sufficiently large dose of heroin that she lost consciousness. Even after she lost consciousness, Jeffers injected her with more heroin. When this did not kill her, he attempted to strangle her with a belt and finally accomplished his intended purpose by strangulation with his hands. He then required the eyewitness, at gun point, to perform the same acts on the corpse while he took pictures. He then climbed on top of the corpse and inflicted blows to the face. While striking the corpse, he stated that each blow was for one of the persons that Jeffers believed Penny to have been responsible for their arrest due to narcotic trafficking activities with Jeffers. He then pulled the corpse across the floor to the shower where it remained for three days.” Ibid.
Based on these facts, the court rejected respondent’s vagueness and overbreadth challenge to the “especially heinous... or depraved” aggravating circumstance. Ibid.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated respondent’s death sentence on the ground that the “especially heinous... or depraved” circumstance was unconstitutionally vague as applied to him. Jeffers v. Ricketts, 832 F. 2d 476, 482-486 (1987). As an initial matter, the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance was not unconstitutionally vague on its face. Id., at 482 (citing Chaney v. Lewis, 801 F. 2d 1191, 1194-1196 (CA9 1986), cert. denied, 481 U. S. 1023 (1987)).
The Court of Appeals then held, however, that “[w]hile Chaney establishes that the Arizona statute is not void on its face and is capable of constitutional application, it naturally does not answer the question whether the Arizona statute was constitutionally applied to Jeffers in this case.” 832 F. 2d, at 482. Reviewing a number of Arizona Supreme Court cases defining and applying the “especially heinous... or depraved” circumstance, the Court of Appeals compared the facts of those cases to the facts of this case and concluded that “the standard of heinousness and depravity delineated in prior Arizona cases cannot be applied in a principled manner to Jeffers.” Id., at 485. The Court of Appeals therefore struck down respondent’s death sentence as arbitrary: “To apply the standard of especial heinousness and depravity to Jeffers’ case when the facts do not permit it is arbitrary or capricious, and is therefore an unconstitutional application of the standard.... Arizona’s existing standard... cannot be extended to Jeffers’ case without losing its ability to distinguish in a principled manner between those it condemns to death and those it does not.” Id., at 486 (citing Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420, 428 (1980)). The dissenting member of the panel maintained that “the majority [was] doing little more than second-guessing the Arizona Supreme Court’s interpretation of facts that quite reasonably fit within the statutory definition of aggravating circumstances.” 832 F. 2d, at 487.
We granted certiorari, Ricketts v. Jeffers, 493 U. S. 889 (1989), and now reverse.
II
Petitioners contend that this case presents the question whether a federal court may make a de novo review of the evidence supporting a state court’s finding of a facially constitutional aggravating circumstance. Respondent maintains that this case presents only the question whether the Court of Appeals correctly held that Arizona’s construction of the subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance in this case contravened this Court’s decisions in Godfrey v. Georgia, supra, and Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988). We begin our analysis with respondent’s contention.
A
Our capital punishment doctrine is rooted in the principle that “ ‘[t]he Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be... wantonly and... freakishly imposed.’” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 188 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (quoting Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 310 (1972) (Stewart, J., concurring)); see also Furman, supra, at 313 (White, J., concurring) (invalidating capital punishment statute where “there is no meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not”). Accordingly, “where discretion is afforded a sentencing body on a matter so grave as the determination of whether a human life should be taken or spared, that discretion must be suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.” Gregg, supra, at 189.
This principle requires a State to “channel the sentencer’s discretion by ‘clear and objective standards’ that provide ‘specific and detailed guidance,’ and that ‘make rationally reviewable the process for imposing a sentence of death.’” Godfrey, supra, at 428 (footnotes omitted). A State’s definitions of its aggravating circumstances — those circumstances that make a criminal defendant “eligible” for the death penalty — therefore play a significant role in channeling the sentencer’s discretion. The Court in Gregg, for example, held that Georgia’s “outrageously or wantonly vile” aggravating circumstance, Ga. Code Ann. § 27-2534.1(b)(7) (Supp. 1975) (“outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim”), was not unconstitutionally vague because the Georgia courts could give it a narrowing construction. See 428 U. S., at 201 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (Although “arguabl[y]... any murder involves depravity of mind or an aggravating battery,” there was “no reason to assume that the Supreme Court of Georgia will adopt such an open-ended construction”); see also Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242, 255 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (upholding Florida’s “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel” aggravating circumstance, Fla. Stat. Ann. §921.141(5)(h) (Supp. 1976-1977), on the ground that the Supreme Court of Florida had restricted the circumstance to include only “ ‘the conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim’ ”).
In Godfrey v. Georgia, supra, however, a plurality of the Court held that although the Georgia Supreme Court had adopted a narrowing construction of Georgia’s subsection (b)(7) aggravating circumstance, the death sentence at issue could not stand because no evidence existed that the state courts had applied the narrowing construction to the facts of that case. 446 U. S., at 432 (“The circumstances of this case... do not satisfy the criteria laid out by the Georgia Supreme Court itself” in the cases adopting the narrowing construction). Because the Georgia courts had not applied the narrowing construction, the plurality considered whether the Georgia Supreme Court, in affirming the death sentence, had nevertheless applied a constitutional construction of the subsection (b)(7) aggravating circumstance. Id., at 432-433. The plurality concluded that the state court had not, because “[tjhere is no principled way to distinguish this case, in which the death penalty was imposed, from the many cases in which it was not.” Id., at 433.
We have reiterated the general principle that aggravating circumstances must be construed to permit the sentencer to make a principled distinction between those who deserve the death penalty and those who do not. See Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U. S. 447, 460 (1984) (“If a State has determined that death should be an available penalty for certain crimes, then it must administer that penalty in a way that can rationally distinguish between those individuals for whom death is an appropriate sanction and those for whom it is not”); Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 877 (1983) (“[A]n aggravating circumstance must genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and must reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder”) (footnote omitted); see also Barclay v. Florida, 463 U. S. 939, 960 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (“A constant theme of our cases — from Gregg and Proffitt through Godfrey, Eddings, and most recently Zant — has been emphasis on procedural protections that are intended to ensure that the death penalty will be imposed in a consistent, rational manner”); Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U. S. 231, 244-246 (1988).
Indeed, in Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988), we applied the teachings of Godfrey to hold that the Oklahoma courts had not construed Oklahoma’s “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” aggravating circumstance in a manner sufficient “to cure the unfettered discretion of the jury and to satisfy the commands of the Eighth Amendment.” 486 U. S., at 364. We concluded that the Oklahoma court’s “conclusion that on th[e] facts [of the case] the jury’s verdict that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel was supportable did not cure the constitutional infirmity of the aggravating circumstance.” Ibid.
Respondent’s reliance on Godfrey and Cartwright, however, does not yield the result he seeks. Unlike in Godfrey, there is no dispute in this case that the Arizona Supreme Court applied its narrowing construction of Arizona’s subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance to the facts of respondent’s case. See State v. Jeffers, 135 Ariz., at 429-430, 661 P. 2d, at 1130-1131. More important, the Court of Appeals noted that the subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance, as interpreted by the Arizona courts, was not unconstitutionally vague on its face. See 832 F. 2d, at 482 (citing Chaney v. Lewis, 801 F. 2d, at 1194-1196). “The Arizona Supreme Court appears to have sufficiently channeled sentencing discretion to prevent arbitrary and capricious capital sentencing decisions. The court has defined each of the factors set forth in section 13-703(F)(6). These definitions have been applied consistently.” Chaney, supra, at 1195 (citations and quotations omitted).
Even had the Court of Appeals not so held, we resolved any doubt about the matter in Walton v. Arizona, ante, p. 639, where we upheld, against a vagueness challenge, the precise aggravating circumstance at issue in this case. See ante, at 652-655. Our holding in Walton, which disposes of respondent’s claim that Arizona has not construed its subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance in a constitutionally narrow manner, bears repeating here:
“Recognizing that the proper degree of definition of an aggravating factor of this nature is not susceptible of mathematical precision, we conclude that the definition given to the ‘especially cruel’ provision by the Arizona Supreme Court is constitutionally sufficient because it gives meaningful guidance to the sentencer. Nor can we fault the state court’s statement that a crime is committed in an especially ‘depraved’ manner when the perpetrator ‘relishes the murder, evidencing debasement or perversion,’ or ‘shows an indifference to the suffering of the victim and evidences a sense of pleasure’ in the killing.” Ante, at 655 (citation omitted).
Walton therefore squarely forecloses any argument that Arizona’s subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance, as construed by the Arizona Supreme Court, fails to “channel the sentencer’s discretion by ‘clear and objective standards’ that provide ‘specific and detailed guidance/ and that ‘make rationally reviewable the process for imposing a sentence of death.’” Godfrey, 446 U. S., at 428 (footnotes omitted).
The dissent’s suggestion that our reliance on Walton is misplaced is without merit. We granted certiorari in Walton to decide “[wjhether Arizona’s ‘especially heinous, cruel or depraved’ aggravating circumstance, as interpreted by the Arizona courts, fails to channel the sentencer’s discretion as required by the Eighth Amendment,” Brief for Petitioner in Walton v. Arizona, O. T. 1989, No. 88-7351, p. i, and our judgment in that case plainly rested on a negative answer to that question. See ante, at 652-656; ante, at 674 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see also ante, at 692-699 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (discussing vagueness of the state courts’ construction of the “especially heinous... or depraved” aggravating circumstance). We decline the dissent’s apparent invitation to reconsider arguments addressed and rejected in a decision announced only today.
B
In light of the Court of Appeals’ rejection of respondent’s facial challenge, respondent defends the decision below on the ground that, even if Arizona has adopted a constitutionally narrow construction of its subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance, and even if the Arizona Supreme Court applied that narrowing construction to the facts of his case, the aggravating circumstance may nevertheless be vague “as applied” to him. We rejected an identical claim in Walton, however, and the conclusion we reached in Walton applies with equal force in this case:
“Walton nevertheless contends that the heinous, cruel, or depraved factor has been applied in an arbitrary manner and, as applied, does not distinguish his case from cases in which the death sentence has not been imposed. In effect Walton challenges the proportionality review of the Arizona Supreme Court as erroneous and asks us to overturn it. This we decline to do, for we have just concluded that the challenged factor has been construed by the Arizona courts in a manner that furnishes sufficient guidance to the sentencer. This being so, proportionality review is not constitutionally required, and we ‘lawfully may presume that [Walton’s] death sentence was not “wantonly and freakishly” imposed — and thus that the sentence is not disproportionate within any recognized meaning of the Eighth Amendment.’ McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 306, 308 (1987); Pulley v. Harris, 465 U. S. 37, 43 (1984). Furthermore, the Arizona Supreme Court plainly undertook its proportionality review in good faith and found that Walton’s sentence was proportional to the sentences imposed in cases similar to his. The Constitution does not require us to look behind that conclusion.” Ante, at 655-656.
Our decision in Walton thus makes clear that if a State has adopted a constitutionally narrow construction of a facially vague aggravating circumstance, and if the State has applied that construction to the facts of the particular case, then the “fundamental constitutional requirement” of “channeling and limiting... the sentencer’s discretion in imposing the death penalty,” Cartwright, 486 U. S., at 362, has been satisfied. Apart from its analysis of Arizona’s subsection (F)(6) cases to determine whether the aggravating circumstance was facially valid — i. e., whether the Arizona courts had given a sufficiently narrow limiting construction to the circumstance — the Court of Appeals in this case therefore erred in conducting a de novo, case-by-case comparison of the facts of those cases with the facts of the instant case. See McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 306-307 (1987) (“[Aft-sent a showing that the Georgia capital punishment system operates in an arbitrary and capricious manner, McCleskey cannot prove a constitutional violation by demonstrating that other defendants who may be similarly situated did not receive the death penalty”).
C
In light of our rejection of respondent’s constitutional challenge to Arizona’s “especially heinous... or depraved” aggravating circumstance, see Walton, respondent’s contention — that the Arizona Supreme Court’s application of its narrowing construction to the facts of his case nevertheless failed to distinguish his case from cases in which the court did not find the aggravating circumstance — reduces, in essence, to a claim that the state court simply misapplied its own aggravating circumstance to the facts of his case. Because federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law, see, e. g., Pulley v. Harris, 465 U. S. 37, 41 (1984); Rose v. Hodges, 423 U. S. 19, 21-22 (1975) (per curiam), federal ha-beas review of a state court’s application of a constitutionally narrowed aggravating circumstance is limited, at most, to determining whether the state court’s finding was so arbitrary or capricious as to constitute an independent due process or Eighth Amendment violation. Cf. Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U. S. 637, 642, 643 (1974) (absent a specific constitutional violation, federal habeas review of trial error is limited to whether the error “so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process”).
In making such a determination, respect for a state court’s findings of fact and application of its own law counsels against the sort of de novo review undertaken by the Court of Appeals in this case. Cf. 832 F. 2d, at 484 (“Illumined... by the case examples furnished by the Arizona Supreme Court, [the “especially heinous... or depraved” standard] seems to call for conduct or attitudes more shocking than those exhibited by Jeffers”). Where the issue is solely whether a state court has properly found the existence of a constitutionally narrowed aggravating circumstance, we have never required federal courts “to peer majestically over the [state] court’s shoulder so that [they] might second-guess its interpretation of facts that quite reasonably — perhaps even quite plainly — fit within the statutory language.” Godfrey, 446 U. S., at 450 (White, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted). See Barclay, 463 U. S., at 947 (plurality opinion) (review of state court findings of aggravating circumstances is “limited to the question whether they are so unprincipled or arbitrary as to somehow violate the United States Constitution”); id., at 968 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (“It is not our role to reexamine the trial court’s findings of fact, which have been affirmed by the Florida Supreme Court. Assuming those facts to be true, there is no federal constitutional infirmity in these two findings of statutory aggravating circumstances”).
Rather, in determining whether a state court’s application of its constitutionally adequate aggravating circumstance was so erroneous as to raise an independent due process or Eighth Amendment violation, we think the more appropriate standard of review is the “rational factfinder” standard established in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979). We held in Jackson that where a federal habeas corpus claimant alleges that his state conviction is unsupported by the evidence, federal courts must determine whether the conviction was obtained in violation of In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970), by asking “whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” 443 U. S., at 319 (citation omitted); see also id., at 324 (“We hold that in a challenge to a state criminal conviction brought under 28 U. S. C. §2254— if the settled procedural prerequisites for such a claim have otherwise been satisfied — the applicant is entitled to habeas corpus relief if it is found that upon the record evidence adduced at trial no rational trier of fact could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”) (footnote omitted). The Court reasoned:
“This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. Once a defendant has been found guilty of the crime charged, the factfinder’s role as weigher of the evidence is preserved through a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution.” Id., at 319 (footnote omitted).
These considerations apply with equal force to federal habeas review of a state court’s finding of aggravating circumstances. Although aggravating circumstances are not “elements” of any offense, see Walton, ante, at 648-649, the standard of federal review for determining whether a state court has violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee against wholly arbitrary deprivations of liberty is equally applicable in safeguarding the Eighth Amendment’s bedrock guarantee against the arbitrary or capricious imposition of the death penalty. Like findings of fact, state court findings of aggravating circumstances often require a sentencer to “resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Jackson, supra, at 319. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-703(F) (1989) (listing aggravating circumstances); cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (federal courts in habeas corpus proceedings must generally accord a presumption of correctness to a state court’s factual findings). The Arizona Supreme Court’s narrowing construction of the subsection (F)(6) aggravating circumstance, for example, requires Arizona courts to determine whether the victim suffered physical pain or mental distress and to assess the mental state and attitude of the perpetrator as reflected by his words and actions. See, e. g., State v. Carriger, 143 Ariz. 142, 160, 692 P. 2d 991, 1009 (1984) (discussing narrowing construction of “‘cruelty]”’ and “‘heinous and depraved’”), cert. denied, 471 U. S. 1111 (1985). Even if a determination under Arizona’s narrowing construction could be characterized as a “mixed” question of law and fact, cf. Sumner v. Mata, 455 U. S. 591, 597 (1982) (per curiam) (declining to apply §2254(d)’s presumption of correctness to mixed questions of law and fact), any such determination would nevertheless remain a question of state law, errors of which are not cognizable in federal habeas proceedings.
Moreover, a federal court should adhere to the Jackson standard even when reviewing the decision of a state appellate court that has independently reviewed the evidence, for the underlying question remains the same: If a State’s aggravating circumstances adequately perform their constitutional function, then a state court’s application of those circumstances raises, apart from due process and Eighth Amendment concerns, only a question of the proper application of state law. A state court’s finding of an aggravating circumstance in a particular case — including a de novo finding by an appellate court that a particular offense is “especially heinous... or depraved” — is arbitrary or capricious if and only
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
Kansas law makes it a crime to commit "identity theft" or engage in fraud to obtain a benefit. Respondents-three aliens who are not authorized to work in this country-were convicted under these provisions for fraudulently using another person's Social Security number on state and federal tax-withholding forms that they submitted when they obtained employment. The Supreme Court of Kansas held that a provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), 100 Stat. 3359, expressly preempts the Kansas statutes at issue insofar as they provide a basis for these prosecutions. We reject this reading of the provision in question, as well as respondents' alternative arguments based on implied preemption. We therefore reverse.
I
A
The foundation of our laws on immigration and naturalization is the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 66 Stat. 163, as amended, 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq., which sets out the " 'terms and conditions of admission to the country and the subsequent treatment of aliens lawfully in the country.' " Chamber of Commerce of United States of America v. Whiting, 563 U.S. 582, 587, 131 S.Ct. 1968, 179 L.Ed.2d 1031 (2011). As initially enacted, the INA did not prohibit the employment of illegal aliens, and this Court held that federal law left room for the States to regulate in this field. See De Canas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351, 353, 96 S.Ct. 933, 47 L.Ed.2d 43 (1976).
With the enactment of IRCA, Congress took a different approach. IRCA made it unlawful to hire an alien knowing that he or she is unauthorized to work in the United States. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1324a(a)(1)(A), (h)(3). To enforce this prohibition, IRCA requires employers to comply with a federal employment verification system. § 1324a(b). Using a federal work-authorization form (I-9), employers "must attest" that they have "verified" that an employee "is not an unauthorized alien" by examining approved documents such as a United States passport or alien registration card. § 1324a(b)(1)(A) ; see also §§ 1324a(b)(1)(B)-(D) ; 8 C.F.R. § 274a.2(a)(2) (2019) (establishing Form I-9). This requirement applies to the hiring of any individual regardless of citizenship or nationality. 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b)(1). Employers who fail to comply may face civil and criminal sanctions. See §§ 1324a(e)(4), (f) ; 8 C.F.R. § 274a.10. IRCA instructs employers to retain copies of their I-9 forms and allows employers to make copies of the documents submitted by employees to show their authorization to work. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1324a(b)(3)-(4).
IRCA concomitantly imposes duties on all employees, regardless of citizenship. No later than their first day of employment, all employees must complete an I-9 and attest that they fall into a category of persons who are authorized to work in the United States. § 1324a(b)(2) ; 8 C.F.R. § 274a.2(b)(1)(i)(A). In addition, under penalty of perjury, every employee must provide certain personal information-specifically: name, residence address, birth date, Social Security number, e-mail address, and telephone number. It is a federal crime for an employee to provide false information on an I-9 or to use fraudulent documents to show authorization to work. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1028, 1546. Federal law does not make it a crime for an alien to work without authorization, and this Court has held that state laws criminalizing such conduct are preempted. Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 403-407, 132 S.Ct. 2492, 183 L.Ed.2d 351 (2012). But if an alien works illegally, the alien's immigration status may be adversely affected. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1255(c)(2), (8), 1227(a)(1)(C)(i).
While IRCA imposes these requirements on employers and employees, it also limits the use of I-9 forms. A provision entitled "Limitation on use of attestation form," § 1324a(b)(5), provides that I-9 forms and "any information contained in or appended to such form[s] may not be used for purposes other than for enforcement of " the INA or other specified provisions of federal law, including those prohibiting the making of a false statement in a federal matter ( 18 U.S.C. § 1001 ), identity theft ( § 1028 ), immigration-document fraud ( § 1546 ), and perjury (§ 1621). In addition, 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(d)(2)(F) prohibits use of "the employment verification system" "for law enforcement purposes," apart from the enforcement of the aforementioned federal statutes.
Although IRCA expressly regulates the use of I-9's and documents appended to that form, no provision of IRCA directly addresses the use of other documents, such as federal and state tax-withholding forms, that an employee may complete upon beginning a new job. A federal regulation provides that all employees must furnish their employers with a signed withholding exemption certificate when they start a new job, but federal law apparently does not require the discharge of an employee who fails to do so. See 26 C.F.R. §§ 31.3402(f)(2)-1, (5) - 1 (2019). Instead, the regulation provides that if an employee fails to provide a signed W-4, the employer must treat the employee "as a single person claiming no exemptions." § 31.3402(f )(2)-1(a). The submission of a fraudulent W-4, however, is a federal crime. 26 U.S.C. § 7205.
Kansas uses a tax-withholding form (K-4) that is similar to the federal form. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 79-3298 (2018 Cum. Supp.); Kansas Dept. of Revenue, Notice 07-07: New K-4 Form for State Withholding (Sept. 5, 2007), www.orthodon.com/home/document/KS-WithholdingForm.pdf; Kansas Dept. of Revenue, Kansas Withholding Form K-4, www.ksrevenue.org/k4info.html. Employees must attest to the veracity of the information under penalty of perjury. Form K-4, Kansas Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate (rev. Nov. 2018), www.ksrevenue.org/pdf/k-4.pdf; Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5903 ; see also Kansas Dept. of Revenue, Tax Fraud Enforcement, www.ksrevenue.org/taxfraud.html.
Finally, IRCA contains a provision that expressly "preempt[s] any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens." 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(h)(2) (emphasis added). This provision makes no mention of state or local laws that impose criminal or civil sanctions on employees or applicants for employment. See ibid.
B
Like other States, Kansas has laws against fraud, forgeries, and identity theft. These statutes apply to citizens and aliens alike and are not limited to conduct that occurs in connection with employment. The Kansas identity-theft statute criminalizes the "using" of any "personal identifying information" belonging to another person with the intent to "[d]efraud that person, or anyone else, in order to receive any benefit." Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-6107(a)(1). "[P]ersonal identifying information" includes, among other things, a person's name, birth date, driver's license number, and Social Security number. § 21-6107(e)(2). Kansas courts have interpreted the statute to cover the use of another person's Social Security number to receive the benefits of employment. See State v. Meza, 38 Kan.App.2d 245, 247-250, 165 P.3d 298, 301-302 (2007).
Kansas's false-information statute criminalizes, among other things, "making, generating, distributing or drawing" a "written instrument" with knowledge that it "falsely states or represents some material matter" and "with intent to defraud, obstruct the detection of a theft or felony offense or induce official action." § 21-5824.
The respondents in the three cases now before us are aliens who are not authorized to work in this country but nevertheless secured employment by using the identity of other persons on the I-9 forms that they completed when they applied for work. They also used these same false identities when they completed their W-4's and K-4's. All three respondents were convicted under one or both of the Kansas laws just mentioned for fraudulently using another person's Social Security number on tax-withholding forms. We summarize the pertinent facts related to these three prosecutions.
C
Ramiro Garcia. In August 2012, a local patrol officer stopped Garcia for speeding and learned that Garcia had been previously contacted by a financial crimes detective about possible identity theft. App. 39-44, 89-91; 306 Kan. 1113, 1114, 401 P.3d 588, 590 (2017). Local authorities obtained the documents that Garcia had completed when he began work at a restaurant, and a joint state-federal investigation discovered that Garcia had used another person's Social Security number on his I-9, W-4, and K-4 forms. The State then charged Garcia with identity theft. The complaint alleged that, when he began work at the restaurant, he used another person's Social Security number with the intent to defraud and in order to receive a benefit. App. 9-10.
Donaldo Morales. A joint state-federal investigation of Morales began after the Kansas Department of Labor notified a Social Security agent that an employee at a local restaurant was using a Social Security number that did not match the identifying information in the department's files. 306 Kan. 1100, 1101, 401 P.3d 155, 156 (2017) ; App. to Pet. for Cert. 73; App. 124-125, 168-170. A federal agent contacted the restaurant and learned that Morales had used another person's Social Security number on his I-9, W-4, and K-4 forms. The federal agent arrested Morales, who then admitted that he had bought the Social Security number from someone he met in a park. App. 171-172; 306 Kan. at 1101-1102, 401 P.3d at 156 ; App. to Pet. for Cert.73. This information was turned over to state prosecutors, who charged Morales with identity theft and making false information. App. 124-125; 306 Kan. at 1101, 401 P.3d at 156.
Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara. Ochoa-Lara came to the attention of a joint state-federal task force after officers learned that he had used a Social Security number issued to someone else when he leased an apartment. 306 Kan. 1107, 1108-1109, 401 P.3d 159, 160-161 (2017). The individual to whom this number was lawfully assigned advised the investigating officers that she had no knowledge that another person was using her number, and she later told authorities that income that she had not earned had been reported under her number.
Id., at 1109, 401 P.3d at 160. After contacting the restaurant where Ochoa-Lara worked, investigators determined that he had also used the same Social Security number to complete his I-9 and W-4 forms. Ibid. The State charged Ochoa-Lara with identity theft and making false information for using another's Social Security number on those documents.
D
In all three cases, respondents argued before trial that IRCA preempted their prosecutions. They relied on 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b)(5), which, as noted, provides that I-9 forms and "any information contained in or appended to such form[s] may not be used for purposes other than for enforcement of " the INA or other listed federal statutes. In response, the State dismissed the charges that were based on I-9's and agreed not to rely on the I-9's at trial. The State maintained, however, that § 1324a(b)(5) did not apply to the respondents' use of false Social Security numbers on the tax-withholding forms.
The trial courts allowed the State to proceed with the charges based on those forms. The State entered the K-4's and W-4's into evidence against Garcia and Morales, and Ochoa-Lara stipulated to using a stolen Social Security number on a W-4. App. 109-110; 306 Kan. at 1108-1109, 401 P.3d at 160-161. Respondents were convicted, and three separate panels of the Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed their convictions.
A divided Kansas Supreme Court reversed, concluding that "the plain and unambiguous language of 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b)(5)" expressly prohibits a State from using "any information contained within [an] I-9 as the bas[i]s for a state law identity theft prosecution of an alien who uses another's Social Security information in an I-9." 306 Kan. at 1130-1131, 401 P.3d at 599 (emphasis deleted). The court added that "[t]he fact that this information was included in the W-4 and K-4 did not alter the fact that it was also part of the I-9." Id., at 1131, 401 P.3d at 599. In deciding the appeal on these grounds, the court appears to have embraced the proposition that any fact to which an employee attests in an I-9 is information that is "contained in" the I-9 and is thus subject to the restrictions imposed by § 1324a(b)(5), namely, that this fact cannot be used by anyone for any purpose other than the few listed in that provision. Nevertheless, the court suggested that its holding did not sweep this broadly but was instead limited to the prosecution of aliens for using a false identity to establish "employment eligibility." Id., at 1126, 1131, 401 P.3d at 596, 600.
Justice Luckert concurred based on implied, not express, preemption. In her view, IRCA occupies "the field" within which the prosecutions at issue fell, namely, "the use of false documents, including those using the identity of others, when an unauthorized alien seeks employment." Id. at 1136, 401 P.3d at 602. Justice Luckert also opined that the Kansas statutes, as applied in these cases, conflict with IRCA because they "usur[p] federal enforcement discretion" regarding the treatment of aliens who obtain employment even though they are barred from doing so under federal law. Ibid., 401 P.3d at 603.
Two members of the court, Justices Biles and Stegall, dissented, and we granted review. 586 U. S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 1317, 203 L.Ed.2d 563 (2019).
II
The Supremacy Clause provides that the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties constitute "the supreme Law of the Land." Art. VI, cl. 2. The Clause provides "a rule of decision" for determining whether federal or state law applies in a particular situation. Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., 575 U.S. 320, 324, 135 S.Ct. 1378, 191 L.Ed.2d 471 (2015). If federal law "imposes restrictions or confers rights on private actors" and "a state law confers rights or imposes restrictions that conflict with the federal law," "the federal law takes precedence and the state law is preempted." Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 584 U. S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1461, 1480, 200 L.Ed.2d 854 (2018).
In all cases, the federal restrictions or rights that are said to conflict with state law must stem from either the Constitution itself or a valid statute enacted by Congress. "There is no federal preemption in vacuo," without a constitutional text, federal statute, or treaty made under the authority of the United States. Puerto Rico Dept. of Consumer Affairs v. Isla Petroleum Corp., 485 U.S. 495, 503, 108 S.Ct. 1350, 99 L.Ed.2d 582 (1988) ; see also Whiting, 563 U.S. at 599, 131 S.Ct. 1968 (preemption cannot be based on "a 'freewheeling judicial inquiry into whether a state statute is in tension with federal objectives.' ") (citation omitted); Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren, 587 U. S. ----, ----, 139 S.Ct. 1894, 1901, 204 L.Ed.2d 377 (2019) (lead opinion of GORSUCH, J.) ("Invoking some brooding federal interest or appealing to a judicial policy preference" does not show preemption).
In some cases, a federal statute may expressly preempt state law. See Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm'n, 461 U.S. 190, 203, 103 S.Ct. 1713, 75 L.Ed.2d 752 (1983) ("It is well established that within constitutional limits Congress may preempt state authority by so stating in express terms."). But it has long been established that preemption may also occur by virtue of restrictions or rights that are inferred from statutory law. See, e.g., Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 865, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824) (rejecting argument that a federal exemption from state regulation "not being expressed, ought not to be implied by the Court"). And recent cases have often held state laws to be impliedly preempted. See, e.g., Arizona 567 U.S. at 400-408, 132 S.Ct. 2492 ; Kurns v. Railroad Friction Products Corp., 565 U.S. 625, 630-631, 132 S.Ct. 1261, 182 L.Ed.2d 116 (2012) ; PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, 564 U.S. 604, 617-618, 131 S.Ct. 2567, 180 L.Ed.2d 580 (2011).
In these cases, respondents do not contend that the Kansas statutes under which they were convicted are preempted in their entirety. Instead, they argue that these laws must yield only insofar as they apply to an unauthorized alien's use of false documents on forms submitted for the purpose of securing employment. In making this argument, respondents invoke all three categories of preemption identified in our cases. They defend the Kansas Supreme Court's holding that provisions of IRCA expressly bar their prosecutions. And they also argue that the decision below is supported by "field" or "conflict" preemption or some combination of the two. We consider these arguments in turn.
III
We begin with the argument that the state criminal statutes under which respondents were convicted are expressly preempted.
As noted, IRCA contains a provision that expressly preempts state law, but it is plainly inapplicable here. That provision applies only to the imposition of criminal or civil liability on employers and those who receive a fee for recruiting or referring prospective employees. 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(h)(2). It does not mention state or local laws that impose criminal or civil sanctions on employees or applicants for employment.
The Kansas Supreme Court did not base its holding on this provision but instead turned to § 1324a(b)(5), which is far more than a preemption provision. This provision broadly restricts any use of an I-9, information contained in an I-9, and any documents appended to an I-9. Thus, unlike a typical preemption provision, it applies not just to the States but also to the Federal Government and all private actors.
The Kansas Supreme Court thought that the prosecutions in these cases ran afoul of this provision because the charges were based on respondents' use in their W-4's and K-4's of the same false Social Security numbers that they also inserted on their I-9's. Taken at face value, this theory would mean that no information placed on an I-9- including an employee's name, residence address, date of birth, telephone number, and e-mail address-could ever be used by any entity or person for any reason.
This interpretation is flatly contrary to standard English usage. A tangible object can be "contained in" only one place at any point in time, but an item of information is different. It may be "contained in" many different places, and it is not customary to say that a person uses information that is contained in a particular source unless the person makes use of that source.
Consider a person's e-mail address, one of the bits of information that is called for on an I-9. A person's e-mail address may be "contained in" a great many places. Individuals often provide their e-mail addresses to a wide circle of friends, acquaintances, online vendors, work-related contacts, and others. In addition, the records of every recipient of an e-mail from a particular person will contain that address. In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person who uses an e-mail address has used information that is contained in all these places.
Suppose that John used his e-mail address five years ago to purchase a pair of shoes and that the vendor has that address in its files. Suppose that John now sends an e-mail to Mary and that Mary sends an e-mail reply. No one would say that Mary has used information contained in the files of the shoe vendor.
Or consider this bit of information: that the first man set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969. That fact was reported in newspapers around the world, from Neil Armstrong's hometown newspaper, the Wapakoneta (Ohio) Daily News to the Soviet newspaper Izvestia. Suppose that an elementary school student writes a report in which she states that the first man walked on the moon in 1969. No one would say that the student used information contained in the Wapakoneta Daily News or Izvestia if she never saw those publications. But it would be natural to say that the student used information contained in a book in the school library if that is where she got the information for her report.
Accordingly, the mere fact that an I-9 contains an item of information, such as a name or address, does not mean that information "contained in" the I-9 is used whenever that name or address is later employed.
If this were not so, strange consequences would ensue. Recall that 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b)(5) applies to the Federal Government. Under 26 U.S.C. § 7205, it is a crime to willfully supply false information on a W-4, and this provision is not among those listed in 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b)(5). Thus, if an individual provided the same false information on an I-9 and a W-4, the Federal Government could not prosecute this individual under 26 U.S.C. § 7205 even if the Government made no use whatsoever of the I-9. And that is just the beginning.
Suppose that an employee truthfully states on his I-9 that his name is Jim Smith. Under the interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b)(5) that the Kansas Supreme Court seemingly adopted, no one could use Jim's name for any purpose. If he robbed a bank, prosecutors could not use his name in an indictment. His employer could not cut a paycheck using that name. His sister could not use his name to mail him a birthday card.
The Kansas Supreme Court tried to fend off these consequences by suggesting that its interpretation applied only to the prosecution of aliens for using a false identity to establish "employment eligibility." 306 Kan. at 1126, 401 P.3d at 596. But there is no trace of these limitations in the text of § 1324a(b)(5). The point need not be belabored any further: The argument that § 1324a(b)(5) expressly bars respondents' prosecutions cannot be defended.
Apparently recognizing this, respondents turn to § 1324a(d)(2)(F), which prohibits use of the federal employment verification system "for law enforcement purposes other than" enforcement of IRCA and the same handful of federal statutes mentioned in § 1324a(b)(5) : 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (false statements), § 1028 (identity theft), § 1546 (immigration-document fraud), and § 1621 (perjury).
This argument fails because it rests on a misunderstanding of the meaning of the federal "employment verification system." The sole function of that system is to establish that an employee is not barred from working in this country due to alienage. As described in § 1324a(b), the system includes the steps that an employee must take to establish that he or she is not prohibited from working, the steps that an employer must take to verify the employee's status, and certain related matters-such as the preservation and copying of records that are used to show authorization to work.
The federal employment verification system does not include things that an employee must or may do to satisfy requirements unrelated to work authorization. And completing tax-withholding documents plays no part in the process of determining whether a person is authorized to work. Instead, those documents are part of the apparatus used to enforce federal and state income tax laws.
For all these reasons, there is no express preemption in these cases.
IV
We therefore proceed to consider respondents' alternative argument that the Kansas laws, as applied, are preempted by implication. This argument, like all preemption arguments, must be grounded "in the text and structure of the statute at issue." CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U.S. 658, 664, 113 S.Ct. 1732, 123 L.Ed.2d 387 (1993).
A
Respondents contend, first, that the Kansas statutes, as applied, fall into a field that is implicitly reserved exclusively for federal regulation. In rare cases, the Court has found that Congress "legislated so comprehensively" in a particular field that it "left no room for supplementary state legislation," R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Durham County, 479 U.S. 130, 140, 107 S.Ct. 499, 93 L.Ed.2d 449 (1986), but that is certainly not the situation here.
In order to determine whether Congress has implicitly ousted the States from regulating in a particular field, we must first identify the field in which this is said to have occurred. In their merits brief in this Court, respondents' primary submission is that IRCA preempts "the field of fraud on the federal employment verification system," Brief for Respondents 41 (quotation altered), but this argument fails because, as already explained, the submission of taxwithholding forms is not part of that system.
At some points in their brief, respondents define the supposedly preempted field more broadly as the "field relating to the federal employment verification system," id., at 42 (emphasis added); see also id., at 40, but this formulation does not rescue the argument. The submission of taxwithholding forms is fundamentally unrelated to the federal employment verification system because, as explained, those forms serve entirely different functions. The employment verification system is designed to prevent the employment of unauthorized aliens, whereas tax-withholding forms help to enforce income tax laws. And using another person's Social Security number on tax forms threatens harm that has no connection with immigration law.
For instance, using another person's Social Security number on tax-withholding forms affects the wages reported to federal and state tax authorities. In addition, many benefits-such as those for disability, unemployment, and retirement-are tied to an individual's work status and income. Inaccurate data also affect the accuracy of a State's tax information.
It is true that employees generally complete their W-4's and K-4's at roughly the same time as their I-9's, but IRCA plainly does not foreclose all state regulation of information that must be supplied as a precondition of employment. New employees may be required by law to provide all sorts of information that has nothing to do with authorization to work in the United States, such as information about age (for jobs with a minimum age requirement), educational degrees, licensing, criminal records, drug use, and personal information needed for a background check. IRCA surely does not preclude States from requiring and regulating the submission of all such information.
Respondents suggest that federal law precludes their prosecutions because both the Kansas identity-theft statute and the Kansas false-information statute require proof that the accused engaged in the prohibited conduct for the purpose of getting a "benefit." Their argument is as follows. Since the benefit alleged by the prosecution in these cases was getting a job, and since the employment verification system concerns authorization to work, the theory of respondents' prosecutions is related to that system.
This argument conflates the benefit that results from complying with the federal employment verification system (verifying authorization to work in the United States) with the benefit of actually getting a job. Submitting W-4's and K-4's helped respondents get jobs, but this did not in any way assist them in showing that they were authorized to work in this country. Thus, respondents' "relating to" argument must be rejected, as must the even broader definitions of the putatively preempted field advanced by respondents at earlier points in this litigation.
Contrary to respondents' suggestion, IRCA certainly does not bar all state regulation regarding the "use of false documents... when an unauthorized alien seeks employment." Brief in Opposition 21. Nor does IRCA exclude a State from the entire "field of employment verification." Id., at 22. For example, IRCA certainly does not prohibit a public school system from requiring applicants for teaching positions to furnish legitimate teaching certificates. And it does not prevent a police department from verifying that a prospective officer does not have a record of abusive behavior.
Respondents argue that field preemption in these cases "follows directly" from our decision in Arizona, 567 U.S. 387, 132 S.Ct. 2492, 183 L.Ed.2d 351, Brief for Respondents 45-46, but that is not so. In Arizona, relying on our prior decision in Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 61 S.Ct. 399, 85 L.Ed. 581 (1941), we held that federal immigration law occupied the field of alien registration. 567 U.S. at 400-402, 132 S.Ct. 2492. "Federal law," we observed, "makes a single sovereign responsible for maintaining a comprehensive and unified system to keep track of aliens within the Nation's borders." Id., at 401-402, 132 S.Ct. 2492. But federal law does not create a comprehensive and unified system regarding the information that a State may require employees to provide.
In sum, there is no basis for finding field preemption in these cases.
B
We likewise see no ground for holding that the Kansas statutes at issue conflict with federal law. It is certainly possible to comply with both IRCA and the Kansas statutes, and respondents do not suggest otherwise. They instead maintain that the Kansas statutes, as applied in their prosecutions, stand as "an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes" of IRCA-one of which is purportedly that the initiation of any legal action against an unauthorized alien for using a false identity in applying for employment should rest exclusively within the prosecutorial discretion of federal authorities. Brief for Respondents 49-55. Allowing Kansas to bring prosecutions like these, according to respondents, would risk upsetting federal enforcement priorities and frustrating federal objectives, such as obtaining the cooperation of unauthorized aliens in making bigger cases. Ibid.
Respondents analogize these cases to our holding in Arizona, 567 U.S. at 404-407, 132 S.Ct. 2492 -that a state law making it a crime for an unauthorized alien to obtain employment conflicted with IRCA, which does not criminalize that conduct-but respondents' analogy is unsound. In Arizona, the Court inferred that Congress had made a considered decision that it was inadvisable to criminalize the conduct in question. In effect, the Court concluded that IRCA implicitly conferred a right to be free of criminal (as opposed to civil) penalties for working illegally, and thus a state law making it a crime to engage in that conduct conflicted with this federal right.
Nothing similar is involved here. In enacting IRCA, Congress did not decide that an unauthorized alien who uses a false identity on tax-withholding forms should not face criminal prosecution. On the contrary, federal law makes it a crime to use fraudulent information on a W-4. 26 U.S.C. § 7205.
The mere fact that state laws like the Kansas provisions at issue overlap to some degree with federal criminal provisions does not even begin to make a case for conflict preemption. From the beginning of our country, criminal law enforcement has been primarily a responsibility of the States, and that remains true today. In recent times, the reach of federal criminal law has expanded, and there are now many instances in which a prosecution for a particular course of conduct could be brought by either federal or state prosecutors. Our federal system would be turned upside down if we were to hold that federal criminal law preempts state law whenever they overlap, and there is no basis for inferring that federal criminal statutes preempt state laws whenever they overlap. Indeed, in the vast majority of cases where federal and state laws overlap, allowing the States to prosecute is entirely consistent with federal interests.
In the present cases, there is certainly no suggestion that the Kansas prosecutions frustrated any federal interests.
Federal authorities played a role in all three cases, and the Federal Government fully supports Kansas's position in this Court. In the end, however, the possibility that federal enforcement priorities might be upset is not enough to provide a basis for preemption. The Supremacy Clause gives priority to "the Laws of the United States," not the criminal law enforcement priorities or preferences of federal officers. Art. VI, cl. 2.
Finally, contrary to respondents' suggestion, these cases are very different from Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs' Legal Comm., 531 U.S. 341, 121 S.Ct. 1012, 148 L.Ed.2d 854 (2001), and Wisconsin Dept. of Industry v. Gould Inc., 475 U.S. 282, 106 S.Ct. 1057, 89 L.Ed.2d 223 (1986). In Buckman Co., the preempted state tort claim for fraud on the Food and Drug Administration threatened serious disruption of the sensitive and highly technical process of approving medical devices. 531 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: | 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. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented by petitioner is whether evidence obtained as the result of wiretapping by state law-enforcement officers, without participation by federal authorities, is admissible in a federal court. Petitioner was convicted of the illegal possession and transportation of distilled spirits without tax stamps affixed thereto in violation of 26 U. S. C. §§ 5008 (b)(1), 5642. The New York police, suspecting that petitioner and others were dealing in narcotics in violation of state law, obtained a warrant in accordance with state law authorizing them to tap the wires of a bar which petitioner was known to frequent. On May 10, 1956, the police overheard a conversation between petitioner and another in which it was said that “eleven pieces” were to be transported that night at a certain time and to a certain place in New York City. Acting according to this information, the police followed and stopped a car driven by petitioner’s brother. No narcotics were found, but hidden in the car were eleven five-gallon cans of alcohol without the tax stamps required by federal law." The brother and the alcohol were turned over to federal authorities and this prosecution followed.
At the trial the first government witness, a state police officer, testified to the events leading up to the discovery of the cans of alcohol in an automobile which had been driven by the petitioner and then taken by his brother to the appointed spot. No mention was made of the wiretap on direct examination. However, on cross-examination this witness admitted that the information causing the police to follow the car and intercept it came from a wiretap. On redirect examination the prosecutor sought to prove that the wiretap had been authorized by state law. The Government introduced a second police official, who testified substantially as the first, admitting on direct examination that a wiretap had existed and on cross-examination that the discovery of the alcohol was occasioned by knowledge of the contents of the wiretapped conversation. The words of that conversation were not disclosed to the jury although they were disclosed to the trial judge and the defense counsel. The record is silent as to whether the prosecutor was told the words of the conversation. However, in our view it is unimportant whether he had this information or not.
Petitioner’s motion to suppress the evidence was denied and he was convicted. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, 244 F. 2d 389, holding that while the action of the state officials violated Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act, the evidence obtained from the violation was still admissible. We granted certiorari. 355 U. S. 801. Petitioner, relying on this Court’s supervisory powers over the federal court system, claims that the admission of the evidence was barred by the Federal Constitution and Section 605. We do not reach the constitutional questions as this case can be determined under the statute.
Section 605 states in pertinent part:
“. . . no person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge. or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person . . . .”
HH
In Nardone v. United States, 302 U. S. 379, and 308 U. S. 338, this Court held that evidence obtained from wiretapping by federal agents was inadmissible in federal court. In Schwartz v. Texas, 344 U. S. 199, the same type of evidence was held admissible in a state court where it had been obtained by state agents. The case before us, containing elements from these three cases, forces a choice between the different results reached.
The Nardone decisions laid down the underlying-premises upon which is based all subsequent consideration of Section 605. The crux of those decisions is that the plain words of the statute created a prohibition against any persons violating the integrity of a system of telephonic communication and that evidence obtained in violation of this prohibition may not be used to secure a federal conviction. Nardone v. United States, 302 U. S. 379, 382. Moreover, as the second Nardone decision asserts, distinctions designed to defeat the plain meaning of the statute will not be countenanced. 308 U. S. 338, 340. We hold that the correct application of the above principle dictates that evidence obtained by means forbidden by Section 605, whether by state or federal agents, is inadmissible in federal court.
In this case the statute was violated if not earlier at least upon the disclosure to the jury of the existence of the intercepted communication, for Section 605.forbids the divulgence of “the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning” of the intercepted message. The effect of that violation in contributing to the conviction here is manifest. The jury were free to speculate that the existence of the communication, the source of the Government’s evidence, was further proof of petitioner’s criminal activities. The prosecutor continued to use evidence now linked to a disclosed wiretap although he had been made aware of its existence and of its obvious significance to his case.
Respondents argue that the evidence obtained from the disclosed wiretap should have been admissible by referring to Schwartz v. Texas, supra, and by drawing a parallel to the Fourth Amendment. It is urged that as long as the wiretapping occurred without the participation or even knowledge of federal law-enforcement officers, the evidence should be admitted in federal court; the Federal Government, being without fault, should not be handicapped. However, Schwartz v. Texas does not indicate approval of such a proposition. Both a state court and state law-enforcement officers ;were there involved. The rationale of that case is that, despite the plain prohibition of Section 605, due regard to federal-state relations precluded the conclusion that Congress intended to thwart a state rule of evidence in the absence of a clear indication to that effect. In the instant case we are not dealing with a state rule of evidence. Although state agents committed the wiretap, we are presented with a federal conviction brought about in part by a violation of federal law, in this case in a federal court.
Furthermore, confronted as we are by this clear statute, and resting our decision on its provisions, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to discuss by analogy distinctions suggested to be applicable to the Fourth Amendment. Section 605 contains an express, absolute prohibition against the divulgence of intercepted communications. Nardone v. United States, 302 U. S. 379, 382. This case is but another example of the use of wiretapping that was so clearly condemned under other circumstances in the second Nardone decision:
“To forbid the direct use of [these] methods . . . but to put no curb on their full indirect use would only invite the very methods deemed ‘inconsistent with ethical standards and destructive of personal liberty.’ What was said in a different context in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, 392, is pertinent here: ‘The essence of a provision forbidding the acquisition of evidence in a certain way is that not merely evidence so acquired shall not be used before the court, but that it shall not be used at all.’ ”
The above principle has for its purpose enhancement of the proper administration of criminal justice. To impute to the statute anything less would give it “a self-defeating, if not disingenuous purpose.” Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338, 340-341.
II.
As an alternative argument to support the judgment below, respondent urges that the interception and divul-gence in this case were no violation of Section 605 because the wiretap was placed by state agents acting in accordance with the law of New York. The Constitution and statutes of the State of New York provide that an ex parte order authorizing a wiretap may be issued by judges of a certain rank upon the oath or affirmation of certain officials that there is reasonable ground to believe evidence of a crime may be obtained and which identifies the telephone line and the persons who are to be affected thereby. It is undisputed that an order pursuant to that law was issued in this case and that it was executed according to state law.
Respondent does not urge that, constitutionally speaking, Congress is without power to forbid such wiretapping even in the face of a conflicting state law. Cf. Weiss v. United States, 308 U. S. 321, 327. Rather the argument is that Congress has not exercised this power and that Section 605, being general in its terms, should not be deemed to operate to prevent a State from authorizing wiretapping in the exercise of its legitimate police functions. However, we read the Federal Communications Act, and Section 605 in particular, to the contrary.
The Federal Communications Act is a comprehensive scheme for the regulation of interstate communication. In order to safeguard those interests protected under Section 605, that portion of the statute pertinent to this case applies both to intrastate and to interstate communications. Weiss v. United States, supra. The natural result of respondent's argument is that both interstate and intrastate communication would be removed from the statute’s protection because, as this Court noted in Weiss, the intercepter cannot discern between the two and will listen to both. Congress did not intend to place the protections so plainly guaranteed in Section 605 in such a vulnerable position. Respondent points to portions of the Act which place some limited authority in the States over the field of interstate communication. The character of these matters, dealing with aspects of the regulation of utility service to the public, is technical in nature in contrast to the broader policy considerations motivating Section 605. Moreover, the very existence of these grants of authority to the States underscores the conclusion that had Congress intended to allow the States to make exceptions to Section 605, it would have said so. In light of the above considerations, and keeping in mind this comprehensive scheme of interstate regulation and the public policy underlying Section 605 as part of that scheme, we find that Congress, setting out a prohibition in plain terms, did not mean to allow state legislation which would contradict that section and that policy. Cf. Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U. S. 497; Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538; Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52.
The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
N. Y. Const., Art. I, § 12; N. Y. Code of Criminal Procedure, § 813-a (1942).
R. 7: “Cross examination by Mr. Todaro [defense counsel]:
“Q. Officer, you were in the vicinity of this Reno Bar quite frequently ?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Did the Police Department have a tap on the Reno Bar, if you know ?
“A. Yes, they have several taps on the Reno Bar.
“Q. Did you obtain any information as part of this investigation from the wiretap conversation?
“A. Did I obtain any information in regard—
“Q. Yes, in reference to the Benantis.
“A. Benanti?
“Q. Yes.
“A. Yes.
“Q. You also obtained information as a result of this wiretap that this car was going to be driven to a certain location ?
“A. Yes.
“Q. But you had obtained some information through the wiretap which gave you a lead to this trap ?
“A. Part of the information.”
R. 52: “(The following took place in the absence of the jury:)
“The CoüRt: Mr. Todaro, the assistant district attorney is here with the order of the [state] court [authorizing the wiretap]. I just tell you, Mr. Todaro, I have looked at it and it does provide for the tap of these premises, so that your concession [that the tap was authorized under state law], generally made, was actually well based.
“Also, for whatever factual interest it may have on this motion, Mr. Murphy overheard the conversation that night, if you want to get the full facts on that.
“The reference on the wire was -to 'eleven pieces’ which they thought meant narcotics, and that was why they intercepted the car.”
48 Stat. 1103, 47 TJ. S. C. § 605.
Because both an interception and a divulgence are ■ present in this case we need not decide whether both elements are necessary for a violation of § 605. Also because here the disclosure was of the existence of the communication, it is not necessary for us to reach the issue whether § 605 is violated by an interception of the communication and a divulgence of its fruits without divulging the existence, contents, etc., of the communication.
The obvious prejudice to the petitioner from the disclosure of the wiretap is shown by efforts of the prosecution to mitigate it by showing that the wiretap had not been instigated on account of the charge for which petitioner was being tried. However, disclosure of the existence of the communication was the prejudicial error that was not overcome.
The heart of the Government’s case was (1) the testimony of the two policemen, who were present at the scene of the wiretap and at least one of whom arrested petitioner’s brother and discovered the alcohol, and (2) the evidence of a government chemist as to his analysis of the seized alcohol. As the Court of Appeals below said: “But it is equally clear that but for the wiretap there would have been no basis for any prosecution whatever, as the apprehension of Angelo [petitioner’s brother] and seizure of the ‘eleven pieces’ led to the discovery of appellant’s participation in the violations of federal law for which he has been convicted; and the sequence of cause and effect is clear.” 244 F. 2d, at 390.
A complementary distinction was made in Rea v. United States, 350 U. S. 214. There this Court reversed the denial of an injunction against a federal agent who had seized evidence in violation of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and, being unable to introduce the evidence in federal court, was about to do so in a state prosecution. In answer to the argument that such an injunction would interfere with state judicial procedure, the decision states: “The command of the federal Rules is in no way affected by anything that happens in a state court. They are designed as standards for federal agents. The fact that their violation may be condoned by state practice has no relevancy to our problem.” Id., at 217.
The first divulgence appearing on the record occurred in court, but we do not mean to imply that an out-of-court violation of the statute would not also lead to the invalidation of a subsequent conviction.
It has remained an open question in this Court whether evidence obtained solely by state agents in an illegal search may be admissible in federal court despite the Fourth Amendment. See Lustig v. United States, 338 U. S. 74, 78-79. The instant decision is not concerned with the scope of the Fourth Amendment.
308 U. S., at 340.
Goldstein v. United States, 316 U. S. 114, is not to the contrary. The holding of that decision is that one not a party to an intercepted conversation may not bar the testimony of one who has been induced to testify by exposure of the fact that his own conversations have been wiretapped. Id., at 122. The broad language in the decision that the policy of the Fourth Amendment applies to § 605 is placed in the context of a discussion of the right of one not a party to the conversation to complain. Id., at 120, 121. This right was rejected on the ground that since the statute allows the “sender” of a message to consent to its divulgence, it meant to protect only him.
N. Y. Const., Art. I, § 12; N. Y. Code of Criminal Procedure, § 813-a (1942).
The Federal Communications Act was the response to a Presidential message calling to the attention of Congress the disjointed exercise of federal authority over the forms of communication. The primary purpose of the Act was to create a commission “to regulate all forms of communication and to consider needed additional legislation.” H. R. Rep. No. 1850, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 3. Note also the remarks of Senator Dill, Chairman of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, who introduced the bill in the Senate, that the Act would correct the theretofore cursory federal regulation of telephone and telegraph companies. 78 Cong. Rec. 8822.
308 U. S., at 328.
47 U. S. C. § 220 (h) allows the Federal Communications Commission to place carriers under state authority in regard to accounting systems and methods of depreciation accounting. See H. R. Rep. No. 1850, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 7. 47 U. S. C. § 221 (b), as originally enacted, enabled state commissions “to regulate exchange services in metropolitan areas overlapping State lines.” S. Rep. No. 781, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 5; H. R. Rep. No. 1850, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 7. State authority over intrastate communication is reserved by 47 U. S. C. (Supp. II) § 152 (b), which removes the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission from “charges, classifications, practices, services, facilities, or regulations for or in connection with intrastate communication service by wire or radio of any carrier.” See S. Rep. No. 781, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 3.
Cf. Nardone v. United States, 302 U. S. 379; Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338; Weiss v. United States, 308 U. S. 321.
In passing, it should be pointed out that several Attorneys General of the United States have urged Congress to grant exceptions to § 605 to federal agents under limited circumstances. See, e. g., Hearings before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 762, 867, 4513, 4728, 5096, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 28; Rogers, The Case for Wire Tapping, 63 Yale L. J. 792 (1954). But Congress has declined to do so. In view of this, it would seem unreasonable to believe that Congress is willing to allow this same sort of exception to state agents with no further legislation on its part.
Schwartz v. Texas, supra, is not to the contrary. While it refused to overturn a state rule of evidence, the Court was satisfied that the action of the state officials nonetheless violated § 605. 344 U. S., at 202.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Plaintiff-respondent Tsui Yuan Tseng was subjected to an intrusive security search at John P. Kennedy International Airport in New York before she boarded an El A1 Israel Airlines May 22, 1993 flight to Tel Aviv. Tseng seeks tort damages from El A1 for this occurrence. The episode-in-suit, both parties now submit, does not qualify as an “accident” within the meaning of the treaty popularly known as the Warsaw Convention, which governs air carrier liability for “all international transportation.” Tseng alleges psychic or psychosomatic injuries, but no “bodily injury,” as that term is used in the Convention. Her case presents a question of the Convention’s exclusivity: When the Convention allows no recovery for the episode-in-suit, does it correspondingly preclude the passenger from maintaining an action for damages under another source of law, in this case, New York tort law?
The exclusivity question before us has been settled prospectively in a Warsaw Convention protocol (Montreal Protocol No. 4) recently ratified by the Senate. In accord with the protocol, Tseng concedes, a passenger whose injury is not compensable under the Convention (because it entails no “bodily injury” or was not the result of an “accident”) will have no recourse to an alternate remedy. We conclude that the protocol, to which the United States has now subscribed, clarifies, but does not change, the Convention’s exclusivity domain. We therefore hold that recovery for a personal injury suffered “on board [an] aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking,” Art. 17, 49 Stat. 3018, if not allowed under the Convention, is not available at all.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled otherwise. In that court’s view, a plaintiff who did not qualify for relief under the Convention could seek relief under local law for an injury sustained in the course of international air travel. 122 F. 3d 99 (1997). We granted certiorari, 523 U. S. 1117 (1998), and now reverse the Second Circuit’s judgment. Recourse to local law, we are persuaded, would undermine the uniform regulation of international air carrier liability that the Warsaw Convention was designed to foster.
rH
We have twice reserved decision on the Convention’s exclusivity. In Air France v. Saks, 470 U. S. 392 (1985), we concluded that a passenger’s injury was not caused by an “accident” for which the airline could be held accountable under the Convention, but expressed no view whether that passenger could maintain “a state cause of action for negligence.” Id., at 408. In Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, 499 U. S. 530 (1991), we held that mental or psychic injuries unaccompanied by physical injuries are not compensable under Article 17 of the Convention, but declined to reach the question whether the Convention “provides the exclusive cause of action for injuries sustained during international air transportation.” Id., at 558. We resolve in this case the question on which we earlier reserved judgment. the
At the outset, we highlight key provisions of the treaty we are interpreting. Chapter I of the Warsaw Convention, entitled “Scope — DEFINITIONS,” declares in Article 1(1) that the “[Cjonvention shall apply to all international transportation of persons, baggage, or goods performed by aircraft for hire.” 49 Stat. 3014. Chapter III, entitled “Liability op the Carrier,” defines in Articles 17, 18, and 19 the three kinds of liability for which the Convention provides. Article 17 establishes the conditions of liability for personal injury to passengers:
“The carrier shall be liable for damage sustained in the event of the death or wounding of a passenger or any other bodily injury suffered by a passenger, if the accident which caused the damage so sustained took place on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking.” 49 Stat. 3018.
Article 18 establishes the conditions of liability for damage to baggage or goods. Id., at 3019. Article 19 establishes the conditions of liability for damage caused by delay. Ibid. Article 24, referring back to Articles 17,18, and 19, instructs:
eases covered by articles 18 and 19 any action for damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in this convention.
“(2) In the eases covered by article 17 the provisions of the preceding paragraph shall also apply, without prejudice to the questions as to who are the persons who have the right to bring suit and what are their respective rights.” Id., at 3020.
i
With the key treaty provisions as the backdrop, we next describe the episode-in-suit. On May 22, 1993, Tsui Yuan Tseng arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport (hereinafter JFK) to board an El A1 Israel Airlines flight to Tel Aviv. In conformity with standard El A1 preboarding procedures, a security guard questioned Tseng about her destination and travel plans. The guard considered Tseng’s responses “illogical,” and ranked her as a “high risk” passenger. Tseng was taken to a private security room where her baggage and person were searched for explosives and detonating devices. She was told to remove her shoes, jacket, and sweater, and to lower her blue jeans to mid-hip. A female security guard then searched Tseng’s body outside her clothes by hand and with an electronic security wand.
After the search, which lasted 15 minutes, El A1 personnel decided that Tseng did not pose a security threat and allowed her to board the flight. Tseng later testified that she “was really sick and very upset” during the flight, that she was “emotionally traumatized and disturbed” during her month-long trip in Israel, and that, upon her return, she underwent medical and psychiatric treatment for the lingering effects of the body search. 122 F. 3d 99, 101 (CA2 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Tseng filed suit against El A1 in 1994 in a New York state court of first instance. Her complaint alleged a state-law personal injury claim based on the May 22, 1993 episode at JFK. Tseng’s pleading charged, inter alia, assault and false imprisonment, but alleged no bodily injury. El A1 removed the case to federal court.
The District Court, after a bench trial, dismissed Tseng’s personal injury claim. See 919 F. Supp. 155 (SDNY 1996). That claim, the court concluded, was governed by Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention, which creates a cause of action for personal injuries suffered as a result of an “accident... in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking,” 49 Stat. 3018. See 919 F. Supp., at 157-158. Tseng’s claim was not compensable under Article 17, the District Court stated, because Tseng “sustained no bodily injury” as a result of the search, id., at 158, and the Convention does not permit “recovery for psychic or psychosomatic injury unaccompanied by bodily injury,” ibid, (citing Floyd, 499 U. S., at 552). The District Court further concluded that Tseng could not pursue her claim, alternately, under New York tort law; as that court read the Convention, Article 24 shields the carrier from liability for personal injuries not compensable under Article 17. See 919 F. Supp., at 158.
The Court of Appeals reversed in relevant part. See 122 F. 3d 99 (CA2 1997). The Second Circuit concluded first that no “accident” within Article 17’s compass had occurred; in the Court of Appeals’ view, the Convention drafters did not “ai[m) to impose close to absolute liability” for an individual’s “personal reaction” to “routine operating procedures,” measures that, although “ineonvenien[t] and embarass[ing],” are the “price passengers pay for... airline safety.” Id., at 103-104. In some tension with that reasoning, the Second Circuit next concluded that the Convention does not shield the very same “routine operating procedures” from assessment under the diverse laws of signatory nations (and, in the ease of the United States, States within one Nation) governing assault and false imprisonment. See id., at 104.
Article 24 of the Convention, the Court of Appeals said, “clearly states that resort to local law is precluded only where the incident is ‘covered’ by Article 17, meaning where there has been an accident, either on the plane or in the course of embarking or disembarking, which led to death, wounding or other bodily injury.” Id., at 104-105. The court found support in the drafting history of the Convention, which it construed to “indicate that national law was intended to provide the passenger’s remedy where the Convention did not expressly apply.” Id., at 105. The Second Circuit also rejected the argument that allowance of state-law claims when the Convention does not permit recovery would contravene the treaty’s goal of uniformity. The court read our decision in Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U. S. 217 (1996), to “instruct specifically that the Convention expresses no compelling interest in uniformity that would warrant... supplanting an otherwise applicable body of law.” 122 F. 3d, at 107.
Ill
We accept it as given that El Al’s search of Tseng was not an “accident” within the meaning of Article 17, for the parties do not place that Court of Appeals conclusion at issue. See supra, at 165 and this page, n. 9. We also accept, again only for purposes of this decision, that El Al’s actions did not constitute “wilful misconduct”; accordingly, we confront no issue under Article 25 of the Convention, see supra, at 163, n. 7. The parties do not dispute that the episode-in-suit occurred in international transportation in the course of embarking.
Our inquiry begins with the text of Article 24, which prescribes the exclusivity of the Convention’s provisions for air carrier liability. “[I]t is our responsibility to give the specific words of the treaty a meaning consistent with the shared expectations of the contracting parties.” Saks, 470 U. S., at 399. “Because a treaty ratified by the United States is not only the law of this land, see U. S. Const., Art. II, §2, but also an agreement among sovereign powers, we have traditionally considered as aids to its interpretation the negotiating and drafting history (travaux préparatoires) and the postratification understanding of the contracting parties.” Zicherman, 516 U. S., at 226.
Article 24 provides that “eases covered by article 17” — or in the governing French text, “les cas prévus á (’article 17” — may “only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in th[e] [Convention.” 49 Stat. 3020. That prescription is not a model of the clear drafter’s art. We recognize that the words lend themselves to divergent interpretation.
In Tseng’s view, and in the view of the Court of Appeals, “les cas prévus á l’article 17” means those cases in which a passenger could actually maintain a claim for relief under Article 17. So read, Article 24 would permit any passenger whose personal injury suit did not satisfy the liability conditions of Article 17 to pursue the claim under local law.
In El Al’s view, on the other hand, and in the view of the United States as amicus curiae, “les cas prévus á l’article 17” refers generically to all personal injury eases stemming from occurrences on board an aircraft or in embarking or disembarking, and simply distinguishes that class of cases (Article 17 cases) from cases involving damaged luggage or goods, or delay (which Articles 18 and 19 address). So read, Article 24 would preclude a passenger from asserting any air transit personal injury claims under local law, including claims that failed to satisfy Article 17’s liability conditions, notably, because the injury did not result from an “accident,” see Saks, 470 U. S., at 405, or because the “accident” did not result in physical injury or physical manifestation of injury, see Floyd, 499 U. S., at 552.
Respect is ordinarily due the reasonable views of the Executive Branch concerning the meaning of an international treaty. See Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U. S. 176, 184-185 (1982) (“Although not conclusive, the meaning attributed to treaty provisions by the Government agencies charged with their negotiation and enforcement is entitled to great weight.”). We conclude that the Government’s construction of Article 24 is most faithful to the Convention’s text, purpose, and overall structure.
A
The cardinal purpose of the Warsaw Convention, we have observed, is to “achiev[e] uniformity of rules governing claims arising from international air transportation.” Floyd, 499 U. S., at 552; see Zicherman, 516 U. S., at 230. The Convention signatories, in the treaty’s preamble, specifically "recognized the advantage of regulating in a uniform manner the conditions of... the liability of the carrier.” 49 Stat. 3014. To provide the desired uniformity, Chapter III of the Convention sets out an array of liability rules which, the treaty declares, "apply to all international transportation of persons, baggage, or goods performed by aircraft.” Ibid. In that Chapter, the Convention describes and defines the three areas of air carrier liability (personal injuries in Article 17, baggage or goods loss, destruction, or damage in Article 18, and damage occasioned by delay in Article 19), the conditions exempting air carriers from liability (Article 20), the monetary limits of liability (Article 22), and the circumstances in which air carriers may not limit liability (Articles 23 and 25). See supra, at 162-163, and n. 7. Given the Convention’s comprehensive scheme of liability rules and its textual emphasis on uniformity, we would be hard put to conclude that the delegates at Warsaw meant to subject air carriers to the distinct, nonuniform liability rules of the individual signatory nations.
The Court of Appeals looked to our precedent for guidance on this point, but it mispereeived our meaning. It misread our decision in Zicherman to say that the Warsaw Convention expresses no compelling interest in uniformity that would warrant preempting an otherwise applicable body of law, here New York tort law. See 122 F. 3d, at 107; supra, at 166. Zicherman acknowledges that the Convention een-trally endeavors “to foster uniformity in the law of international air travel.” 516 U. S., at 230. It further recognizes that the Convention addresses the question whether there is airline liability vel non. See id., at 231. The Zicherman case itself involved auxiliary issues: who may seek recovery in lieu of passengers, and for what harms they may be compensated. See id., at 221,227. Looking to the Convention’s text, negotiating and drafting history, contracting states’ postratification understanding of the Convention, and scholarly commentary, the Court in Zicherman determined that Warsaw drafters intended to resolve whether there is liability, but to leave to domestic law (the local law identified by the forum under its choice-of-law rules or approaches) determination of the compensatory damages available to the suitor. See id., at 231.
A complementary purpose of the Convention is to accommodate or balance the interests of passengers seeking recovery for personal injuries, and the interests of air carriers seeking to limit potential liability. Before the Warsaw accord, injured passengers could file suits for damages, subject only to the limitations of the forum’s laws, including the forum’s choice-of-law regime. This exposure inhibited the growth of the then-fledgling international airline industry. See Floyd, 499 U. S., at 546; Lowenfeld & Mendelsohn, The United States and the Warsaw Convention, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 497, 499-500 (1967). Many international air carriers at that time endeavored to require passengers, as a condition of air travel, to relieve or reduce the carrier’s liability in case of injury. See Second International Conference on Private Aeronautical Law, October 4-12, 1929, Warsaw, Minutes 47 (R. Horner & D. Legrez transís. 1975) (hereinafter Minutes). The Convention drafters designed Articles 17, 22, and 24 of the Convention as a compromise between the interests of air carriers and their customers worldwide. In Article 17 of the Convention, carriers are denied the contractual prerogative to exclude or limit their liability for personal injury. In Articles 22 and 24, passengers are limited in the amount of damages they may recover, and are restricted in the claims they may pursue by the conditions and limits set out in the Convention.
Construing the Convention, as did the Court of Appeals, to allow passengers to pursue claims under local law when the Convention does not permit recovery could produce several anomalies. Carriers might be exposed to unlimited liability under diverse legal regimes, but would be prevented, under the treaty, from contracting out of such liability. Passengers injured physically in an emergency landing might be subject to the liability caps of the Convention, while those merely traumatized in the same mishap would be free to sue outside of the Convention for potentially unlimited damages. The Court of Appeals’ construction of the Convention would encourage artful pleading by plaintiffs seeking to opt out of the Convention’s liability scheme when local law promised recovery in excess of that prescribed by the treaty. See Potter v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 98 F. 3d 881, 886 (CA5 1996). Such a reading would scarcely advance the predictability that adherence to the treaty has achieved worldwide.
The Second Circuit feared that if Article 17 were read to exclude relief outside the Convention for Tseng, then a passenger injured by a malfunctioning escalator in the airline’s terminal would have no recourse against the airline, even if the airline recklessly disregarded its duty to keep the escalator in proper repair. See 122 F. 3d, at 107. As the United States pointed out in its amicus curiae submission, however, the Convention addresses and concerns, only and exclusively, the airline’s liability for passenger injuries occurring “on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking.” Art. 17, 49 Stat. 3018; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16. “[T]he Convention’s preemptive effect on local law extends no further than the Convention’s own substantive scope.” Ibid. A carrier, therefore, “is indisputably subject to liability under local law for injuries arising outside of that scope: e. g., for passenger injuries occurring before ‘any of the operations of embarking’” or disembarking. Ibid, (quoting Article 17).
Tseng raises a different concern. She argues that air carriers will escape liability for their intentional torts if passengers are not permitted to pursue personal injury claims outside of the terms of the Convention. See Brief for Respondent 15-16. But we have already cautioned that the definition of “accident” under Article 17 is an “unusual event... external to the passenger,” and that “[tjhis definition should be flexibly applied.” Saks, 470 U. S., at 405 (emphasis added). In Saks, the Court concluded that no “accident” occurred because the injury there — a hearing loss — “indisputably resulted] from the passenger’s own internal reaction to the usual, normal, and expected operation of the aircraft.” Id., at 406 (emphasis added). As we earlier noted, see supra, at 165-166, n. 9, Tseng and El A1 chose not to pursue in this Court the question whether an “accident” occurred, for an affirmative answer would still leave Tseng unable to recover under the treaty; she sustained no “bodily injury” and could not gain compensation under Article 17 for her solely psychic or psychosomatic injuries.
B
The drafting history of Article 17 is consistent with our understanding of the preemptive effect of the Convention. The preliminary draft of the Convention submitted to the conference at Warsaw made air carriers liable “in the ease of death, wounding, or any other bodily injury suffered by a traveler.” Minutes 264; see Saks, 470 U. S., at 401. In the later draft that prescribed what is now Article 17, airline liability was narrowed to encompass only bodily injury caused by an “accident.” See Minutes 205. It is improbable that, at the same time the drafters narrowed the conditions of air carrier liability in Article 17, they intended, in Article 24, to permit passengers to skirt those conditions by pursuing claims under local law.
Inspecting the drafting history, the Court of Appeals stressed a proposal made by the Czechoslovak delegation to state in the treaty that, in the absence of a stipulation in the Convention itself, “'the provisions of laws and national rules relative to carriage in each [signatory] State shall apply.’” 122 F. 3d, at 105 (quoting Minutes 176). That proposal was withdrawn upon amendment of the Convention’s title to read: “Convention For The Unification Of Certain Rules Relating To International Transportation By Air.” 49 Stat. 3014 (emphasis added); see 122 F. 3d, at 105. The Second Circuit saw in this history an indication “that national law was intended to provide the passenger’s remedy where the Convention did not expressly apply.” 122 F. 3d, at 105.
The British House of Lords, in Sidhu v. British Airways plc, [1997] 1 All E. R. 193, considered the same history, but found it inconclusive. Inclusion of the word “certain” in the Convention’s title, the Lords reasoned, accurately indicated that “the [Convention is concerned with certain rules only, not with all the rules relating to international carriage by air.” Id., at 204. For example, the Convention does not say “anything... about the carrier’s obligations of insurance, and in particular about compulsory insurance against third party risks.” Ibid. The Convention, in other words, is “a partial harmonisation, directed to the particular issues with which it deals,” ibid., among them, a carrier’s liability to passengers for personal injury. As to those issues, the Lords concluded, “the aim of the [Cjonvention is to unify.” Ibid. Pointing to the overall understanding that the Convention’s objective was to “ensure uniformity,” id., at 209, the Lords suggested that the Czechoslovak delegation may have meant only to underscore that national law controlled “chapters of law relating to international carriage by air with which the [Cjonvention was not attempting to deal.” Ibid. In light of the Lords’ exposition, we are satisfied that the withdrawn Czechoslovak proposal will hot bear the weight the Court of Appeals placed on it.
C
Montreal Protocol No. 4, ratified by the Senate on September 28, 1998, amends Article 24 to read, in relevant part: “In the carriage of passengers and baggage, any action for damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in this Convention....” Both parties agree that, under the amended Article 24, the Convention’s preemptive effect is clear: The treaty precludes passengers from bringing actions under local law when they cannot establish air carrier liability under the treaty. Revised Article 24, El A1 urges and we agree, merely clarifies, it does not alter, the Convention’s rule of exclusivity.
Supporting the position that revised Article 24 provides for preemption not earlier established, Tseng urges that federal preemption of state law is disfavored generally, and particularly when matters of health and safety are at stake. See Brief for Respondent 31-33. See also post, at 181 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“[A] treaty, like an Act of Congress, should not be construed to preempt state law unless its intent to do so is clear.”). Tseng overlooks in this regard that the nation-state, not subdivisions within one nation, is the focus of the Convention and the perspective of our treaty partners. Our home-centered preemption analysis, therefore, should not be applied, mechanically, in construing our international obligations.
Decisions of the courts of other Convention signatories corroborate our understanding of the Convention’s preemptive effect. In Sidhu, the British House of Lords considered and decided the very question we now face concerning the Convention’s exclusivity when a passenger alleges psychological damages, but no physical injury, resulting from an occurrence that is not an “accident” under Article 17. See 1 All E. R., at 201, 207. Reviewing the text, structure, and drafting history of the Convention, the Lords concluded that the Convention was designed to “ensure that, in all questions relating to the carrier’s liability, it is the provisions of the [Convention which apply and that the passenger does not have access to any other remedies, whether under the common law or otherwise, which may be available within the particular country where he chooses to raise his action.” Ibid. Courts of other nations bound by the Convention have also recognized the treaty’s encompassing preemptive ef-feet. The "opinions of our sister signatories,” we have observed, are “entitled to considerable weight.” Saks, 470 U. S., at 404 (internal quotation marks omitted). The text, drafting history, and underlying purpose of the Convention, in sum, counsel us to adhere to a view of the treaty’s exclusivity shared by our treaty partners.
* * *
For the reasons stated, we hold that the Warsaw Convention precludes a passenger from maintaining an action for personal injury damages under local law when her claim does not satisfy the conditions for liability under the Convention. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Second Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules tional Transportation by Air, Oct. 12, 1929, 49 Stat. 3000, 3014, T. S. No. 876 (1934), note following 49 U. S. C. §40105.
Montreal Protocol No. 4 to of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage By Air, signed at Warsaw on October 12, 1929, as amended by the Protocol Done at the Hague on September 8, 1955 (hereinafter- Montreal Protocol No. 4), reprinted in S. Exec. Rep. No. 105-20, pp. 21-32 (1998).
Federal Courts of Appeals have divided on the treaty interpretation question at issue. See Krys v. Lufthansa German Airlines, 119 F. 3d 1515, 1518, n. 8 (CA11 1997) (recognizing the split). In accord with the Second Circuit, the Third Gircuit has held that the Warsaw Convention does not preclude passengers, unable to recover for personal injuries under the terms of the Convention, from maintaining actions against air carriers under local law. See Abramson v. Japan Airlines Co., 739 F. 2d 130, 134 (1984), cert. denied, 470 U. S. 1059 (1985). In contrast, the Fifth Circuit has held that the Convention creates the exclusive cause of action against international air carriers for personal injuries arising from international air travel. See Potter v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 98 F. 3d 881, 885 (1996).
Citations in this opinion are to the official English translation of the Convention. See 49 Stat. 3014-3023. Where relevant, we set out, in addition, the Convention’s governing French text. See 49 Stat. 3000-3009; Air France v. Saks, 470 U. S. 392, 397 (1985).
Article 18 provides, in relevant part:
"(1) The destruction or loss of, or of damage to, any checked baggage or any goods, if the occurrence which caused the damage so sustained took place during the transportation by air.” 49 Stat. 3019.
Article 19 provides:
“The carrier shall be liable for damage occasioned by delay in the transportation by air of passengers, baggage, or goods.” Ibid. 7
Chapter III of the Convention sets forth a number of other rules governing air carrier liability. Among these, Article 20 relieves a carrier of liability if it has “taken ali necessary measures to avoid the damage.” Ibid. Article 22 sets monetary limits on a carrier’s liability for harm to passengers and baggage. See ibid. Article 23 invalidates “[a]ny [contract] provision tending to relieve the carrier of liability or to fix a lower limit than that which is laid down in th[e] [Convention.” Id., at 8020. Article 25(1) renders the Convention’s limits on liability inapplicable if the damage is caused by a carrier’s “wilful misconduct.” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, without discussion, the District Court’s judgment in favor of Tseng on her claim, under the Warsaw Convention, for damage to her baggage. See 122 F. 3d, at 108. We denied El AL's petition for certiorari regarding that issue. See 528 U. S. 1117 (1998). 9
An “accident” under Article 17 is “an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger.” Safes, 470 U. S., at 405. That definition, we have cautioned, should “be flexibly applied after assessment of all the circumstances surrounding a passenger’s injuries.” Ibid.
The District Court, “[u]sing the flexible application prescribed by the Supreme Court,” concluded that El ATs search of Tseng was an “accident”: “[A] routine search, applied erroneously to plaintiff in the course of embarking on the aircraft, is fairly accurately characterized as an accident.” 919 F. Supp. 155, 158 (SDNY 1996).
The Court of Appeals disagreed. That court described security searches as “routine” in international air travel, part of a terrorism-prevention effort that is “widely recognized and encouraged in the law,” and “the price passengers pay for the degree of airline safety so far afforded them.” 122 F. 3d, at 103. The court observed that passengers reasonably should be aware of “routine operating procedures” of the kind El A1 conducts daily. Ibid. The risk of mistakes, i. e., that innocent persons will be erroneously searched, is “[i]nherent in any effort to detect malefactors,” the court explained. Ibid. Tseng thus encountered “ordinary events and procedures of air transportation,” the court concluded, and not “an unexpected or unusual event.” Id., at 104.
It is questionable whether the Court of Appeals “flexibly applied” the definition of “accident” we set forth in Saks. Both parties, however, now accept the Court of Appeals’ disposition of that issue. In any event, even if El Al’s search of Tseng was an “accident,” the core question of the Convention’s exclusivity would remain. The Convention provides for compensation under Article 17 only when the passenger suffers “death, physical injury, or physical manifestation of injury,” Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, 499 U. S. 530, 552 (1991), a condition that both the District Court and the Court of Appeals determined Tseng did not meet, see 919 F. Supp., at 158; 122 F. 3d, at 104. The question whether the Convention precludes an action under local law when a passenger’s claim fails to satisfy Article 17’s conditions for liability does not turn on which of those conditions the claim fails to satisfy.
In the lower courts, Tseng urged that Article 25 took her case outside the Convention's limits on liability. Article 25, now altered by Montreal Protocol No. 4, concerned damage caused by “wilful misconduct.” 49 Stat. 3020. On that matter, the District Court found “no evidence and no basis for inferring that [the selection of Tseng to be searched] was anything more than a mistake. Even if such a mistake can be characterized as misconduct,” the District Court added, “there is no basis for inferring that it was wilful.” 919 F. Supp., at 158. The Court of Appeals left the District Court’s finding on the absence of “wilful misconduct” undisturbed. See 122 F. 3d, at 104. Tseng’s brief in opposition to certiorari did not cite Article 25. We agree with the United States, as amicus curiae, that Tseng has not preserved any argument putting Article 25 at issue in this Court. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18, n. 10. 11
The french text of Article 24 reads:
“(1) Dans les cas prévus aux articles 18 et 19 toute action en responsabi-lité, á quelque titre que ce soit, ne peut étre exercée que dans les conditions et limites prévues par la présente Convention.
“(2) Dans les cas prévus a l’artide 17, s’appliquent également les dispositions de l’alinéa précédent, sans prejudice de la détermination des per-sonnes qui ont le droit d’agir et de leurs droits respeetifs.” 49 Stat. 3006.
Literally translated, “les cas prévus á l’article 17” means “the cases anticipated by Article 17,” see The New Cassell’s French Dictionary 132, 592 (D. Girard ed. 1973), or “the cases provided for by Article 17,” see The Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary 645 (M. Corréard & V. Grundy eds. 1994).
The Court of Appeals recognized that the Convention aimed to “balance the interests of the passenger and the carrier,” but concluded that, with the “increasing strength of the airline industry, the balance has properly shifted away from protecting the carrier and toward protecting the passenger.” 122 F. 3d, at 107. Postratification adjustments, however, are appropriately made by the treaty’s signatories. See S. Exec. Rep. No. 105-20, at 5-6.
Sir Alfred Dennis of Great Britain stated at the Warsaw Conference that Article 24 is “a very important stipulation which touches the very substance of the Convention, because [it] excludes recourse to common law.” Minutes 213.
See 144 Cong. Ree. S11059 (Sept. 28,1998). The President signed the instrument of ratification for Montreal Protocol No. 4 on November 5, 1998. The Protocol will enter into force in the United States on March 4, 1999.
Article 24, as amended by Montreal Protocol No. 4, provides:
“1. In the carriage of passengers and baggage, any action for damages, however founded, can only be brought subject to the conditions and limits set out in this Convention, without prejudice to the question as to who are the persons who have the right to bring suit and what are their respective rights.
“2. In the carriage of cargo, any
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) extends the federal workers’ compensation scheme established in the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U. S. C. §901 et seq., to injuries “occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf” for the purpose of extracting natural resources from the shelf. 43 U. S. C. § 1333(b). The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit determined that the OCSLA extends coverage to an employee who can establish a substantial nexus between his injury and his employer’s extractive operations on the Outer Continental Shelf. We affirm.
I
Petitioner Pacific Operators Offshore, LLP (Pacific), operates two drilling platforms on the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of California and an onshore oil and gas processing facility in Ventura County, California. Pacific employed Juan Valladolid as a general manual laborer — known in the trade as a roustabout — in its oil exploration and extraction business. Valladolid spent about 98 percent of his time on one of Pacific’s offshore drilling platforms performing maintenance duties, such as picking up litter, emptying trashcans, washing decks, painting, maintaining equipment, and helping to load and unload the platform crane. Valladolid spent the remainder of his time working at Pacific’s onshore processing facility, where he also performed maintenance duties, including painting, sandblasting, pulling weeds, cleaning drain culverts, and operating a forklift.
While on duty at the onshore facility, Valladolid died in a forklift accident. His widow, a respondent here (hereinafter respondent), filed a claim for benefits under the LHWCA pursuant to the extension of that Act contained within the OCSLA. The OCSLA provides, in relevant part:
“With respect to disability or death of an employee resulting from any injury occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf for the purpose of exploring for, developing, removing, or transporting by pipeline the natural resources, or involving rights to the natural resources, of the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf, compensation shall be payable under the provisions of the [LHWCA].” 43U.S. C. § 1333(b).
After a hearing, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dismissed respondent’s claim. The ALJ reasoned that Valla-dolid’s fatal injury was not covered under § 1333(b) because his accident occurred on land, rather than on the Outer Continental Shelf. On appeal, the United States Department of Labor’s Benefits Review Board affirmed, concluding that Congress intended to limit the coverage provided by the OCSLA to injuries suffered by employees within the “geographical locale” of the Outer Continental Shelf. L. V. v. Pacific Operations Offshore, LLP, 42 BRBS 67, 71 (2008) (per curiam).
The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that § 1333(b) neither contains a “situs-of-injury” requirement, as the Fifth Circuit has held, nor imposes a “but for” causation requirement, as the Third Circuit has held. See 604 F. 3d 1126, 1130-1140 (2010) (rejecting the holdings of Mills v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, 877 F. 2d 356 (CA5 1989) (en banc); Curtis v. Schlumberger Offshore Service, Inc., 849 F. 2d 805 (CA3 1988)). Instead, the Ninth Circuit concluded that “the claimant must establish a substantial nexus between the injury and extractive operations on the shelf” to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits under the OCSLA. 604 F. 3d, at 1139. We granted Pacific’s petition for a writ of certiorari to resolve this conflict. 562 U. S. 1215 (2011).
II
In 1953, Congress enacted the Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 et seq., which extended the boundaries of Coastal States up to three geographic miles into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and up to three marine leagues into the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, Congress enacted the OCSLA, affirming the Federal Government’s authority and control over the “outer Continental Shelf,” defined as the submerged lands subject to the jurisdiction and control of the United States lying seaward and outside of the submerged lands within the extended state boundaries. 67 Stat. 462, 43 U. S. C. §§ 1331(a), 1332(1). As defined by the OCSLA, the Outer Continental Shelf includes the “submerged lands” beyond the extended state boundaries, § 1331(a), but not the waters above those submerged lands or artificial islands or installations attached to the seabed. For simplicity’s sake, we refer to the entire geographical zone as the “OCS.”
Section 1333 extends various provisions of state and federal law to certain aspects of the OCS. For example, § 1333(a)(1) extends the Constitution and federal laws of civil and political jurisdiction “to the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf and to all artificial islands, and all installations and other devices permanently or temporarily attached to the seabed,” for the purpose of extracting its natural resources. Section 1333(a)(2)(A) makes the civil and criminal laws of each adjacent State applicable to “that portion of the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf, and artificial islands and fixed structures erected thereon, which would be within the area of the State if its boundaries were extended seaward to the outer margin of the outer Continental Shelf.” Section 1333(b), the provision involved in this case, makes LHWCA workers’ compensation benefits available for the “disability or death of an employee resulting from any injury occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf” for the purpose of extracting its natural resources.
The question before us is the scope of coverage under § 1333(b). The parties agree that § 1333(b) covers employees, such as oil rig and drilling platform workers, who are injured while working directly on the OCS to extract its natural resources. They disagree, however, whether employees who are involved in extraction operations but who are injured beyond the OCS are also covered under the OCSLA. This dispute focuses on the meaning of the phrase “any injury occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf” in § 1333(b).
The Courts of Appeals have offered competing interpretations. In Curtis v. Schlumberger Offshore Service, Inc., 849 F. 2d, at 811, the Third Circuit held that, because Congress intended LHWCA coverage to be expansive, § 1333(b) extends to all injuries that would not have occurred “but for” operations on the OCS. The Third Circuit thus concluded that an employee who worked on a semisubmersible drill rig, but who was killed in a car accident on the way to the helicopter that was to fly him to that rig, was eligible for § 1333(b) benefits. Id., at 806, 811. As the Third Circuit summarized, “ ‘But for’ [Curtis’] travelling to [his drill rig] for the purpose of conducting ‘operations’ within § 1333(b), employee Curtis would not have sustained injuries in the automobile accident.” Id., at 811.
In Mills v. Director, supra, the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, adopted a narrower interpretation of § 1333(b). The court concluded that Congress intended to establish “a bright-line geographic boundary for § 1333(b) coverage,” and held that § 1333(b) extends coverage only to employees engaged in OCS extractive activities who “suffer injury or death on an OCS platform or the waters above the OCS.” Id., at 362. Applying its “situs-of-injury” test, the Fifth Circuit held that a welder who was injured on land during the construction of an offshore oil platform was not eligible for § 1333(b) benefits. Id., at 357, 362.
In the case below, the Ninth Circuit rejected the Fifth Circuit’s “situs-of-injury” requirement as unsupported by the text of § 1333(b), and the Third Circuit’s “but for” test as too broad to be consistent with Congress’ intent. 604 F. 3d, at 1137,1139. Instead, the Ninth Circuit adopted a third interpretation of § 1333(b), holding that a “claimant must establish a substantial nexus between the injury and extractive operations on the shelf” to be eligible for § 1333(b) benefits. Id., at 1139. “To meet the standard,” the Ninth Circuit explained, “the claimant must show that the work performed directly furthers outer continental shelf operations and is in the regular course of such operations.” Ibid.
The Solicitor General suggests yet a fourth interpretation of § 1333(b). This interpretation would extend coverage to two categories of injuries: (1) all on-OCS injuries suffered by employees of companies engaged in resource extraction on the OCS; and (2) the off-OCS injuries of those employees who spend a substantial portion of their worktime on the OCS engaging in extractive operations. Brief for Federal Respondent 32-33. According to the Solicitor General, this test would provide § 1333(b) coverage for off-OCS injuries only to those employees whose duties contribute to operations on the OCS and who perform work on the OCS itself that is substantial in both duration and nature. Id., at 35.
III
Pacific argues that the Fifth Circuit s situs-of-mjury test presents the best interpretation of § 1333(b). The crux of Pacific’s argument is that off-OCS injuries cannot be “the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf” for purposes of § 1333(b). Pacific asserts that because Valladolid was injured on dry land, his death did not occur as the result of extraction operations conducted on the OCS, and therefore respondent is ineligible for LHWCA workers’ compensation benefits. We disagree.
A
The OCSLA extends the provisions of the LHWCA to the “disability or death of an employee resulting from any injury .occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf.” § 1333(b). Contrary to the view of Pacific and the Fifth Circuit, nothing in that language suggests that the injury to the employee must occur on the OCS. Section 1333(b) states only two requirements: The extractive operations must be “conducted on the outer Continental Shelf,” and the employee’s injury must occur “as the result of” those operations.
Despite the lack of a textual “situs-of-injury” requirement in § 1333(b), Pacific argues that it is logically impossible for an off-OCS employee to be injured “as the result of” on-OCS operations. Pacific offers no basis for this assertion, and we find none. Indeed, given that many OCS platforms are physically connected to onshore processing facilities via oil and gas pipelines, it is not difficult to imagine an accident occurring on an OCS platform that could injure employees located off the OCS.
Moreover, if, as Pacific suggests, the purpose of § 1333(b) was to geographically limit the extension of LHWCA coverage to injuries that occurred on the OCS, Congress could easily have achieved that goal by omitting the following six words in §1333(b)’s text: “as the result of operations conducted.” Had Congress done so, the statute would extend LHWCA coverage to the “disability or death of an employee resulting from any injury occurring on the outer Continental Shelf.” But that is not the text of the statute Congress enacted.
Pacific also argues that, because all of § 1333(b)’s neighboring subsections contain specific situs limitations, we should infer that Congress intended to include a situs-of-injury requirement in § 1333(b). See, e. g., § 1333(a)(2)(A) (adopting the civil and criminal laws of the adjacent State as federal law “for that portion of the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf, and artificial islands and fixed structures erected thereon, which would be within the area of the State if its boundaries were extended seaward to the outer margin of the outer Continental Shelf”)- But our usual practice is to make the opposite inference. Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (“Where 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” (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted)). Congress’ decision to specify, in scrupulous detail, exactly where the other subsections of § 1333 apply, but to include no similar restriction on injuries in § 1333(b), convinces us that Congress did not intend § 1333(b) to apply only to injuries suffered on the OCS. Rather, § 1333(b) extends LHWCA workers’ compensation coverage to any employee injury, regardless of where it happens, as long as it occurs “as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf.”
Pacific argues that this conclusion is foreclosed by language in Herb’s Welding, Inc. v. Gray, 470 U. S. 414 (1985), and Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, All U. S. 207 (1986); but neither of those cases held that § 1333(b) extends only to injuries that occur on the OCS. In Herb’s Welding, this Court considered whether an oil platform welder, who worked both within the territorial waters of Louisiana and on the OCS, was covered under the LHWCA after suffering an injury in the waters of Louisiana. 470 U. S., at 416-417. The Court explicitly declined to address whether the employee was eligible for workers’ compensation benefits under § 1333(b) because that question was neither passed upon by the Court of Appeals nor fully briefed and argued before this Court. Id., at 426, n. 12. Although the Court acknowledged that an employee might walk in and out of workers’ compensation coverage during his employment due to the “explicit geographic limitation to the [OCSLA’s] incorporation of the LHWCA,” id., at 427, the exact meaning of that statement is unclear. We cannot ascertain whether the comment was a reference to § 1333(b)’s explicit situs-of-operations requirement, as respondents suggest, or the recognition of an implicit situs-of-injury requirement, as Pacific argues. In any event, the ambiguous comment was made without analysis in dicta and does not control this case.
The same is true of the Court’s opinion in Offshore Logistics. In that case, the Court considered whether the widows of oil platform workers who were killed when their helicopter crashed into the high seas could file wrongful-death suits under Louisiana law. In the Court’s analysis of §1333, it stated, “Congress determined that the general scope of OCSLA’s coverage . . . would be determined principally by locale, not by the status of the individual injured or killed.” 477 U. S., at 219-220 (citing the situs requirement in § 1333(a)(2)(A)). In a footnote, the Court commented: “Only one provision of OCSLA superimposes a status requirement on the otherwise determinative OCSLA situs requirement; § 1333(b) makes compensation for the death or injury of an ‘employee’ resulting from certain operations on the Outer Continental Shelf payable under the [LHWCA].” Ibid., n. 2. These comments about the scope of the OCSLA’s coverage and its determinative “situs requirement” do not provide definitive evidence that § 1333(b) applies only to injuries that occur on the OCS. As in Herb’s Welding, it is unclear whether the statement in the Offshore Logistics footnote regarding § 1333(b) was referring to the explicit situs-of-operations requirement or to an implicit situs-of-injury requirement. Moreover, the entire footnote is dictum because, as the Court explicitly stated, § 1333(b) had no bearing on the case. 470 U. S., at 219-220.
Finally, Pacific argues that including off-OCS injuries within the scope of the workers’ compensation coverage created by § 1333(b) runs counter to Congress’ intent in drafting the OCSLA. According to Pacific, Congress intended to create a uniform OCS compensation scheme that both filled the jurisdictional voids and eliminated jurisdictional overlaps between existing state and federal programs. Pacific points out that, without a situs-of-injury requirement to narrow the scope of § 1333(b), an off-OCS worker could be eligible for both state and federal workers’ compensation coverage.
There is no indication in the text, however, that the OCSLA excludes OCS workers from LHWCA coverage when they are also eligible for state benefits. To the contrary, the LHWCA workers’ compensation scheme incorporated by the OCSLA explicitly anticipates that injured employees might be eligible for both state and federal benefits. An offsetting provision in the LHWCA provides that “any amounts paid to an employee for the same injury, disability, or death for which benefits are claimed under [the LHWCA] pursuant to any other workers’ compensation law or [the Jones Act] shall be credited against any liability imposed by [the LHWCA].” 33 U. S. C. § 903(e). This provision, in addition to the lack of any textual support for Pacific’s argument, convinces us that Congress did not limit the scope of 43 U. S. C. § 1333(b)’s coverage to only those geographic areas where state workers’ compensation schemes do not apply.
B
Pacific also offers an alternative argument derived from the interaction of § 1333(b) and a provision of the LHWCA. Specifically, Pacific argues that because the LHWCA contains an explicit situs-of-injury requirement, see 33 U. S. C. § 903(a) (providing benefits only for injuries occurring “upon the navigable waters” of the United States), and because 43 U. S. C. § 1333(b) extends the LHWCA workers’ compensation scheme to the OCS, § 1333(b) incorporates the strict LHWCA situs-of-injury requirement from § 903(a). According to Pacific, the words “occurring as the result of operations” in § 1333(b) impose a status requirement in addition to the imported LHWCA situs-of-injury requirement, with the result that employees who are injured on the OCS, but whose jobs are not related to extractive operations, are excluded from the workers’ compensation coverage created by § 1333(b). Thus, an accountant who is injured on a field trip to the drilling platform would be ineligible under § 1333(b) despite being an employee who is injured on the OCS.
Although this alternative argument has the advantage of assigning some meaning to the words “occurring as the result of operations” in § 1333(b), we still find it unpersuasive. First, it is unlikely that Congress intended to impose a situs-of-injury requirement in § 1333(b) through such a nonintu-itive and convoluted combination of two separate legislative Acts. As we have already noted, creating an express situs-of-injury requirement in the text of § 1333(b) would have been simple. Second, combining the § 1333(b) definition of “United States” with the LHWCA situs-of-injury requirement in 33 U. S. C. § 903(a) would result in an OCS workers’ compensation scheme that applies only to the seabed of the OCS and to any artificial islands and fixed structures thereon. See 43 U. S. C. § 1333(b)(3) (stating that “the term ‘United States’ when used in a geographical sense includes the outer Continental Shelf and artificial islands and fixed structures thereon”). Pacific concedes that this scheme would exclude the navigable waters above the shelf, including the waters immediately adjacent to any drilling platforms. Consequently, under Pacific’s view, even employees on a crew ship immediately adjacent to an OCS platform who are injured during a platform explosion would be excluded from § 1333(b) coverage. That view cannot be squared with the text of the statute, which applies to “any injury occurring as the result of operations conducted” on the OCS.
C
Pacific also makes several policy arguments in favor of a situs-of-injury requirement, but policy concerns cannot justify an interpretation of § 1333(b) that is inconsistent with the text of the OCSLA. “[I]f Congress’ coverage decisions are mistaken as a matter of policy, it is for Congress to change them. We should not legislate for them.” Herb’s Welding, 470 U. S., at 427. The language of § 1333(b) simply does not support a categorical exclusion of injuries that occur beyond the OCS.
IV
The Solicitor General urges us to adopt a status-based inquiry that applies one test to on-OCS injuries and a different test to off-OCS injuries. Specifically, the Government proposes that when a worker is injured on the OCS, he is eligible for workers’ compensation benefits if he is employed by a company engaged in extractive operations on the OCS. But if the employee is injured off the OCS, the employee will be covered only if his “duties contribute to operations” on the OCS and if he performs “work on the [OCS] itself that is substantial in terms of both its duration and nature.” Brief for Federal Respondent 35. This approach is derived from our decision in Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U. S. 347 (1995) (establishing criteria by which an employee qualifies as a “seaman” under the Jones Act), and might well have merit as legislation. But it has no basis in the text of the OCSLA as presently enacted. The “occurring as the result of operations” language in § 1333(b) plainly suggests causation. Although the Government asserts that a status-based test would be preferable to a causation-based test, we cannot ignore the language enacted by Congress.
The Third Circuit’s “but for” test is nominally based on causation, but it is also incompatible with § 1333(b). Taken to its logical conclusion, the “but for” test would extend workers’ compensation coverage to all employees of a business engaged in the extraction of natural resources from the OCS, no matter where those employees work or what they are doing when they are injured. This test could reasonably be interpreted to cover land-based office employees whose jobs have virtually nothing to do with extractive operations on the OCS. Because Congress extended LHWCA coverage only to injuries “occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf,” we think that § 1333(b) should be interpreted in a manner that focuses on injuries that result from those “operations.” This view is consistent with our past treatment of similar language in other contexts. In Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U. S. 258 (1992), we considered a provision of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that provided a cause of action to “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962.” 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c) (emphasis added). We rejected a “but for” interpretation, stating that such a construction was “hardly compelled” and that it was highly unlikely that Congress intended to allow all factually injured plaintiffs to recover. 503 U. S., at 265-266. Instead, we adopted a proximate-cause standard consistent with our prior interpretation of the same language in the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Id., at 267-268. Similarly, 43 U. S. C. § 1333(b)’s language hardly compels the Third Circuit’s expansive “but for” interpretation.
Accordingly, we conclude that the Ninth Circuit’s “substantial-nexus” test is more faithful to the text of § 1333(b). We understand the Ninth Circuit’s test to require the injured employee to establish a significant causal link between the injury that he suffered and his employer’s on-OCS operations conducted for the purpose of extracting natural resources from the OCS.
Although the Ninth Circuit’s test may not be the easiest to administer, it best reflects the text of § 1333(b), which establishes neither a situs-of-injury nor a “but for” test. We are confident that ALJs and courts will be able to determine whether an injured employee has established a significant causal link between the injury he suffered and his employer’s on-OCS extractive operations. Although we expect that employees injured while performing tasks on the OCS will regularly satisfy the test, whether an employee injured while performing an off-OCS task qualifies — like Valladolid, who died while tasked with onshore scrap metal consolidation — is a question that will depend on the individual circumstances of each case. The Ninth Circuit remanded the case for the Benefits Review Board to apply the “substantial-nexus” test in the first instance, and we agree with that disposition.
The judgment is affirmed, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, is a respondent in this case because the Director administers the OCSLA workers’ compensation scheme established by § 1333(b).
See also 43 U. S. C. § 1333(a)(1) (extending the Constitution and federal laws of civil and political jurisdiction “to the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf and to all artificial islands, and all installations and other devices permanently or temporarily attached to the seabed, which may be erected thereon for the purpose of exploring for, developing, or producing resources therefrom, or any such installation or other device (other than a ship or vessel) for the purpose of transporting such resources, to the same extent as if the outer Continental Shelf were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State”); § 1333(c) (making the National Labor Relations Act applicable to any unfair labor act “occurring upon any artificial island, installation, or other device referred to in subsection (a) of this section”); § 1333(d)(1) (granting the Coast Guard enforcement authority “on the artificial islands, installations, and other devices referred to in subsection (a) of this section or on the waters adjacent thereto”); § 1333(d)(2) (granting the Coast Guard authority to mark “any artificial island, installation, or other device referred to in subsection (a) of this section” for the protection of navigation); § 1333(e) (granting the Army authority to prevent the obstruction of access “to the artificial islands, installations, and other devices referred to in subsection (a) of this section”); § 1333(f) (saving clause applying “to the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf and the artificial islands, installations, and other devices referred to in subsection (a) of this section”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a State, or an official of the State while acting in his or her official capacity, is a “person” within the meaning of Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
Petitioner Ray Will filed suit in Michigan Circuit Court alleging various violations of the United States and Michigan Constitutions as grounds for a claim under §1983. He alleged that he had been denied a promotion to a data systems analyst position with the Department of State Police for an improper reason, that is, because his brother had been a student activist and the subject of a “red squad” file maintained by respondent. Named as defendants were the Department of State Police and the Director of State Police in his official capacity, also a respondent here.
The Circuit Court remanded the case to the Michigan Civil Service Commission for a grievance hearing. While the grievance was pending, petitioner filed suit in the Michigan Court of Claims raising an essentially identical § 1983 claim. The Civil Service Commission ultimately found in petitioner’s favor, ruling that respondents had refused to promote petitioner because of “partisan considerations.” App. 46. On the basis of that finding, the state-court judge, acting in both the Circuit Court and the Court of Claims cases, concluded that petitioner had established a violation of the United States Constitution. The judge held that the Circuit Court action was barred under state law but that the Claims Court action could go forward. The judge also ruled that respondents were persons for purposes of § 1983.
The Michigan Court of Appeals vacated the judgment against the Department of State Police, holding that a State is not a person under § 1983, but remanded the case for determination of the possible immunity of the Director of State Police from liability for damages. The Michigan Supreme Court granted discretionary review and affirmed the Court of Appeals in part and reversed in part. Smith v. Department of Pub. Health, 428 Mich. 540, 410 N. W. 2d 749 (1987). The Supreme Court agreed that the State itself is not a person under § 1983, but held that a state official acting in his or her official capacity also is not such a person.
The Michigan Supreme Court’s holding that a State is not a person under § 1983 conflicts with a number of state- and federal-court decisions to the contrary. We granted certio-rari to resolve the conflict. 485 U. S. 1005 (1988).
Prior to Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 668 (1978), the question whether a State is a person within the meaning of § 1983 had been answered by this Court in the negative. In Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 187-191 (1961), the Court had held that a municipality was not a person under § 1983. “[T]hat being the case,” we reasoned, § 1983 “could not have been intended to include States as parties defendant.” Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 446, 452 (1976).
But in Monell, the Court overruled Monroe, holding that a municipality was a person under § 1983. 436 U. S., at 690. Since then, various members of the Court have debated whether a State is a person within the meaning of § 1983, see Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 700-704 (1978) (Brennan, J., concurring); id., at 708, n. 6 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), but this Court has never expressly dealt with that issue.
Some courts, including the Michigan Supreme Court here, have construed our decision in Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332 (1979), as holding by implication that a State is not a person under § 1983. See Smith v. Department of Pub. Health, supra, at 581, 410 N. W. 2d, at 767. See also, e. g., State v. Green, 633 P. 2d 1381, 1382 (Alaska 1981); Woodbridge v. Worcester State Hospital, 384 Mass. 38, 44-45, n. 7, 423 N. E. 2d 782, 786, n. 7 (1981); Edgar v. State, 92 Wash. 2d 217, 221, 595 P. 2d 534, 537 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1077 (1980). Quern held that §1983 does not override a State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity, a holding that the concurrence suggested was “patently dicta” to the effect that a State is not a person, 440 U. S., at 350 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment).
Petitioner filed the present § 1983 actions in Michigan state court, which places the question whether a State is a person under § 1983 squarely before us since the Eleventh Amendment does not apply in state courts. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1, 9, n. 7 (1980). For the reasons that follow, we reaffirm today what we had concluded prior to Monell and what some have considered implicit in Quern: that a State is not a person within the meaning of § 1983.
We observe initially that if a State is a “person” within the meaning of § 1983, the section is to be read as saying that “every person, including a State, who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects . . . .” That would be a decidedly awkward way of expressing an intent to subject the States to liability. At the very least, reading the statute in this way is not so clearly indicated that it provides reason to depart from the often-expressed understanding that “fin common usage, the term ‘person’ does not include the sovereign, [and] statutes employing the [word] are ordinarily construed to exclude it.’” Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U. S. 653, 667 (1979) (quoting United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U. S. 600, 604 (1941)). See also United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 275 (1947).
This approach is particularly applicable where it is claimed that Congress has subjected the States to liability to which they had not been subject before. In Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, supra, we followed this rule in construing the phrase “white person” contained in 25 U. S. C. § 194, enacted as Act of June 30, 1834, 4 Stat. 729, as not including the “sovereign States of the Union.” 442 U. S., at 667. This common usage of the term “person” provides a strong indication that “person” as used in § 1983 likewise does not include a State.
The language of § 1983 also falls far short of satisfying the ordinary rule of statutory construction that if Congress intends to alter the “usual constitutional balance between the States and the Federal Government,” it must make its intention to do so “unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.” Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 242 (1985); see also Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 99 (1984). Atascadero was an Eleventh Amendment case, but a similar approach is applied in other contexts. Congress should make its intention “clear and manifest” if it intends to pre-empt the historic powers of the States, Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947), or if it intends to impose a condition on the grant of federal moneys, Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 16 (1981); South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 207 (1987). “In traditionally sensitive areas, such as legislation affecting the federal balance, the requirement of clear statement assures that the legislature has in fact faced, and intended to bring into issue, the critical matters involved in the judicial decision.” United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349 (1971).
Our conclusion that a State is not a “person” within the meaning of § 1983 is reinforced by Congress’ purpose in enacting the statute. Congress enacted § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, the precursor .to § 1983, shortly after the end of the Civil War “in response to the widespread deprivations of civil rights in the Southern States and the inability or unwillingness of authorities in those States to protect those rights or punish wrongdoers.” Felder v. Casey, 487 U. S. 131, 147 (1988). Although Congress did not establish federal courts as the exclusive forum to remedy these deprivations, ibid., it is plain that “Congress assigned to the federal courts a paramount role” in this endeavor, Patsy v. Board of Regents of Florida, 457 U. S. 496, 503 (1982).
Section 1983 provides a federal forum to remedy many deprivations of civil liberties, but it does not provide a federal forum for litigants who seek a remedy against a State for alleged deprivations of civil liberties. The Eleventh Amendment bars such suits unless the State has waived its immunity, Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U. S. 468, 472-473 (1987) (plurality opinion), or unless Congress has exercised its undoubted power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to override that immunity. That Congress, in passing § 1983, had no intention to disturb the States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity and so to alter the federal-state balance in that respect was made clear in our decision in Quern. Given that a principal purpose behind the enactment of § 1983 was to provide a federal forum for civil rights claims, and that Congress did not provide such a federal forum for civil rights claims against States, we cannot accept petitioner’s argument that Congress intended nevertheless to create a cause of action against States to be brought in state courts, which are precisely the courts Congress sought to allow civil rights claimants to avoid through § 1983.
This does not mean, as petitioner suggests, that we think that the scope of the Eleventh Amendment and the scope of § 1983 are not separate issues. Certainly they are. But in deciphering congressional intent as to the scope of § 1983, the scope of the Eleventh Amendment is a consideration, and we decline to adopt a reading of § 1983 that disregards it.
Our conclusion is further supported by our holdings that in enacting §1983, Congress did not intend to override well-established immunities or defenses under the common law. “One important assumption underlying the Court’s decisions in this area is that members of the 42d Congress were familiar with common-law principles, including defenses previously recognized in ordinary tort litigation, and that they likely intended these common-law principles to obtain, absent specific provisions to the contrary.” Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U. S. 247, 258 (1981). Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U. S. 349, 356 (1978); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 247 (1974); Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 554 (1967); and Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 376 (1951), are also to this effect. The doctrine of sovereign immunity was a familiar doctrine at common law. “The principle is elementary that a State cannot be sued in its own courts without its consent.” Railroad Co. v. Tennessee, 101 U. S. 337, 339 (1880). It is an “established principle of jurisprudence” that the sovereign cannot be sued in its own courts without its consent. Beers v. Arkansas, 20 How. 527, 529 (1858). We cannot conclude that § 1983 was intended to disregard the well-established immunity of a State from being sued without its consent.
The legislative history of § 1983 does not suggest a different conclusion. Petitioner contends that the congressional debates on § 1 of the 1871 Act indicate that § 1983 was intended to extend to the full reach of the Fourteenth Amendment and thereby to provide a remedy “ ‘against all forms of official violation of federally protected rights.”’ Brief for Petitioner 16 (quoting Monell, 436 U. S., at 700-701). He refers us to various parts of the vigorous debates accompanying the passage of § 1983 and revealing that it was the failure of the States to take appropriate action that was undoubtedly the motivating force behind § 1983. The inference must be drawn, it is urged, that Congress must have intended to subject the States themselves to liability. But the intent of Congress to provide a remedy for unconstitutional state action does not without more include the sovereign States among those persons against whom § 1983 actions would lie. Construing § 1983 as a remedy for “official violation of federally protected rights” does no more than confirm that the section is directed against state action — action “under color of” state law. It does not suggest that the State itself was a person that Congress intended to be subject to liability.
Although there were sharp and heated debates, the discussion of § 1 of the bill, which contained the present § 1983, was not extended. And although in other respects the impact on state sovereignty was much talked about, no one suggested that § 1 would subject the States themselves to a damages suit under federal law. Quern, 440 U. S., at 343. There was complaint that § 1 would subject state officers to damages liability, but no suggestion that it would also expose the States themselves. Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 366, 385 (1871). We find nothing substantial in the legislative history that leads us to believe that Congress intended that the word “person” in § 1983 included the States of the Union. And surely nothing in the debates rises to the clearly expressed legislative intent necessary to permit that construction.
Likewise, the Act of Feb. 25, 1871, §2, 16 Stat. 431 (the “Dictionary Act”), on which we relied in Monell, supra, at 688-689, does not counsel a contrary conclusion here. As we noted in Quern, that Act, while adopted prior to § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, was adopted after §2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, from which § 1 of the 1871 Act was derived. 440 U. S., at 341, n. 11. Moreover, we disagree with Justice Brennan that at the time the Dictionary Act was passed “the phrase ‘bodies politic and corporate’ was understood to include the States.” Post, at 78. Rather, an examination of authorities of the era suggests that the phrase was used to mean corporations, both private and public (municipal), and not to include the States. In our view, the Dictionary Act, like § 1983 itself and its legislative history, fails to evidence a clear congressional intent that States be held liable.
Finally, Monell itself is not to the contrary. True, prior to Monell the Court had reasoned that -if municipalities were not persons then surely States also were not. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S., at 452. And Monell overruled Monroe, undercutting that logic. But it does not follow that if municipalities are persons then so are States. States are protected by the Eleventh Amendment while municipalities are not, Monell, 436 U. S., at 690, n. 54, and we consequently limited our holding in Monell “to local government units which are not considered part of the State for Eleventh Amendment purposes,” ibid. Conversely, our holding here does not cast any doubt on Monell, and applies only to States or governmental entities that are considered “arms of the State” for Eleventh Amendment purposes. See, e. g., Mt. Healthy Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 280 (1977).
Petitioner asserts, alternatively, that state officials should be considered “persons” under § 1983 even though acting in their official capacities. In this case, petitioner named as defendant not only the Michigan Department of State Police but also the Director of State Police in his official capacity.
Obviously, state officials literally are persons. But a suit against a state official in his or her official capacity is not a suit against the official but rather is a suit against the official’s office. Brandon v. Holt, 469 U. S. 464, 471 (1985). As such, it is no different from a suit against the State itself. See, e. g., Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S. 159, 165-166 (1985); Monell, supra, at 690, n. 55. We see no reason to adopt a different rule in the present context, particularly when such a rule would allow petitioner to circumvent congressional intent by a mere pleading device.
We hold that neither a State nor its officials acting in their official capacities are “persons” under § 1983. The judgment of the Michigan Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Section 1983 provides as follows:
“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. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.” 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
Also named as defendants were the Michigan Department of Civil Service and the State Personnel Director, but those parties were subsequently dismissed by the state courts.
The courts in the following cases have taken the position that a State is a person under § 1983. See Della Grotta v. Rhode Island, 781 F. 2d 343, 349 (CA1 1986); Gay Student Services v. Texas A&M University, 612 F. 2d 160, 163-164 (CA5), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 1034 (1980); Uberoi v. University of Colorado, 713 P. 2d 894, 900-901 (Colo. 1986); Stanton v. Godfrey, 415 N. E. 2d 103, 107 (Ind. App. 1981); Gumbhir v. Kansas State Bd. of Pharmacy, 231 Kan. 507, 512-513, 646 P. 2d 1078, 1084 (1982), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 1103 (1983); Rahmah Navajo School Bd., Inc. v. Bureau of Revenue, 104 N. M. 302, 310, 720 P. 2d 1243, 1251 (App.), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 940 (1986).
A larger number of courts have agreed with the Michigan Supreme Court that a State is not a person under § 1983. See Ruiz v. Estelle, 679 F. 2d 1115, 1137 (CA5), modified on other grounds, 688 F. 2d 266 (1982), cert. denied, 460 U. S. 1042 (1983); Toledo, P. & W. R. Co. v. Ilinois, 744 F. 2d 1296, 1298-1299, and n. 1 (CA7 1984), cert. denied, 470 U. S. 1051 (1985); Harris v. Missouri Court of Appeals, 787 F. 2d 427, 429 (CA8), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 851 (1986); Aubuchon v. Missouri, 631 F. 2d 581, 582 (CA8 1980) (per curiam), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 915 (1981); State v. Green, 633 P. 2d 1381, 1382 (Alaska 1981); St. Mary’s Hospital and Health Center v. State, 150 Ariz. 8, 11, 721 P. 2d 666, 669 (App. 1986); Mezey v. State, 161 Cal. App. 3d 1060, 1065, 208 Cal. Rptr. 40, 43 (1984); Hill v. Florida Dept. of Corrections, 513 So. 2d 129, 132 (Fla. 1987), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 1064 (1988); Merritt ex rel. Merritt v. State, 108 Idaho 20, 26, 696 P. 2d 871, 877 (1985); Woodbridge v. Worcester State Hospital, 384 Mass. 38, 44-45, n. 7, 423 N. E. 2d 782, 786, n. 7 (1981); Bird v. State Dept. of Public Safety, 375 N. W. 2d 36, 43 (Minn. App. 1985); Shaw v. St. Louis, 664 S. W. 2d 572, 576 (Mo. App. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 849 (1984); Fuchilla v. Layman, 109 N. J. 319, 323-324, 537 A. 2d 652, 654, cert. denied, 488 U. S. 826 (1988); Burkey v. Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, 38 Ohio App. 3d 170, 170-171, 528 N. E. 2d 607, 608 (1988); Gay v. State, 730 S. W. 2d 154, 157-158 (Tex. App. 1987); Edgar v. State, 92 Wash. 2d 217, 221, 595 P. 2d 534, 537 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1077 (1980); Boldt v. State, 101 Wis. 2d 566, 584, 305 N. W. 2d 133, 143-144, cert. denied, 454 U. S. 973 (1981).
Petitioner cites a number of cases from this Court that he asserts have “assumed” that a State is a person. Those cases include ones in which a State has been sued by name under § 1983, see, e. g., Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980); Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277 (1980), various eases awarding attorney’s fees against a State or a state agency, Maine v. Thiboutot, supra; Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 (1978), and various cases discussing the waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity by States, see, e. g., Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S. 159, 167, n. 14 (1985); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974). But the Court did not address the meaning of person in any of those cases, and in none of the eases was resolution of that issue necessary to the decision. Petitioner’s argument evidently rests on the proposition that whether a State is a person under § 1983 is “jurisdictional” and “thus could have been raised by the Court on its own motion” in those cases. Brief for Petitioner 25, n. 15. Even assuming that petitioner’s premise and characterization of the cases is correct, “this Court has never considered itself bound [by prior sub silentio holdings] when a subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue before us.” Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 535, n. 5 (1974).
Jefferson County Pharmaceutical Assn. v. Abbott Laboratories, 460 U. S. 160 (1983), on which petitioner relies, is fully reconcilable with our holding in the present case. In Jefferson County, the Court held that States were persons that could be sued under the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 13(a) and 13(f). 460 U. S., at 155-157. But the plaintiff there was seeking only injunctive relief and not damages against the State defendant, the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama; the District Court had dismissed the plaintiff’s damages claim as barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Id., at 153, n. 5. Had the present § 1983 action been brought in federal court, a similar disposition would have resulted. Of course, the Court would never be faced with a case such as Jefferson County that had been brought in a state court because the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over claims under the federal antitrust laws. 15 U. S. C. §§ 15 and 26. Moreover, the Court in Jefferson County was careful to limit its holding to “state purchases for the purpose of competing against private enterprise ... in the retail market.” 460 U. S., at 154. It assumed without deciding “that Congress did not intend the Act to apply to state purchases for consumption in traditional governmental functions,” ibid., which presents a more difficult question because it may well “affec[t] the federal balance.” See United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349 (1971).
. Petitioner argues that Congress would not have considered the Eleventh Amendment in enacting § 1983 because in 1871 this Court had not yet held that the Eleventh Amendment barred federal-question cases against States in federal court. This argument is no more than an attempt to have this Court reconsider Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332 (1979), which we decline to do.
Our recognition in Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), that a municipality is a person under § 1983, is fully consistent with this reasoning. In Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622 (1980), we noted that by the time of the enactment of § 1983, municipalities no longer retained the sovereign immunity they had previously shared with the States. “[B]y the end of the 19th century, courts regularly held that in imposing a specific duty on the municipality either in its charter or by statute, the State had impliedly withdrawn the city’s immunity from liability for the nonperformance or misperformance of its obligation,” id., at 646, and, as a result, municipalities had been held liable for damages “in a multitude of cases” involving previously immune activities, id., at 646-647.
. The Dictionary Act provided that
“in all acts hereafter passed . . . the word ‘person’ may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate . . . unless the context shows that such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense.” Act of Feb. 25, 1871, §2, 16 Stat. 431.
See United States v. Fox, 94 U. S. 315, 321 (1877); 1 B. Abbott, Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence 155 (1879) (“most exact expression” for “public corporation”); W. Anderson, A Dictionary of Law 127 (1893) (“most exact expression for a public corporation or corporation having powers of government”); Black’s Law Dictionary 143 (1891) (“body politic” is “term applied to a corporation, which is usually designated as a ‘body corporate and politic’ ” and “is particularly appropriate to a public corporation invested with powers and duties of government”); 1 A. Burrill, A Law Dictionary and Glossary 212 (2d ed. 1871) (“body politic” is “term applied to a corporation, which is usually designated as a body corporate and politic”). A public corporation, in ordinary usage, was another term for a municipal corporation, and included towns, cities, and counties, but not States. See 2 Abbott, supra, at 347; Anderson, supra, at 264-265; Black, supra, at 278; 2 Burrill, supra, at 352.
Justice BRENNAN appears to confuse this precise definition of the phrase with its use “in a rather loose way,” see Black, supra, at 143, to refer to the state (as opposed to a State). This confusion is revealed most clearly in Justice Brennan’s reliance on the 1979 edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, which defines “body politic or corporate” as “[a] social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.” Post, at 79. To the extent Justice Brennan’s citation of other authorities does not suffer from the same confusion, those authorities at best suggest that the phrase is ambiguous, which still renders the Dictionary Act incapable of supplying the necessary clear intent.
Of course a state official in his or her official capacity, when sued for injunctive relief, would be a person under § 1983 because “official-capacity actions for prospective relief are not treated as actions against the State.” Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S., at 167, n. 14; Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 159-160 (1908). This distinction is “commonplace in sovereign immunity doctrine,” L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 3-27, p. 190, n. 3 (2d ed. 1988), and would not have been foreign to the 19th-century Congress that enacted § 1983, see, e. g., In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 506-507 (1887); United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196, 219-222 (1882); Board of Liquidation v. McComb, 92 U. S. 531, 541 (1876); Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738 (1824). City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U. S. 507, 513 (1973), on which Justice Stevens relies, see post, at 93, n. 8, is not to the contrary. That case involved municipal liability under § 1983, and the fact that nothing in § 1983 suggests its “bifurcated application to municipal corporations depending on the nature of the relief sought against them,” 412 U. S., at 513, is not surprising, since by the time of the enactment of § 1983 municipalities were no longer protected by sovereign immunity. Supra, at 67-68, n. 7.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We are called upon to determine the effect of Rule 12 (b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure on a post-conviction motion for relief which raises for the first time a claim of unconstitutional discrimination in the composition of a grand jury. An indictment was returned in the District Court charging petitioner Davis, a Negro, and two white men with entry into a federally insured bank with intent to commit larceny in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§2 and 2113 (a). Represented by appointed counsel, petitioner entered a not-guilty plea at his arraignment and was given 30 days within which to file pretrial motions. He timely moved to quash his indictment on the ground that it was the result of an illegal arrest, but made no other pretrial motions relating to the indictment.
On the opening day of the trial, following voir dire of the jury, the District Judge ruled on petitioner’s pretrial motions in chambers and ordered that the motion to quash on the illegal arrest ground be carried with the case. He then asked twice if there were anything else before commencing trial. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment. His conviction was affirmed on appeal. 409 F. 2d 1095 (CA5 1969).
Post-conviction motions were thereafter filed and denied, but none dealt with the issue presented in this case. Almost three years after his conviction, petitioner filed the instant motion to dismiss the indictment, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2255, alleging that the District Court had acquiesced in the systematic exclusion of qualified Negro jurymen by reason of the use of a “key man” system of selection, an asserted violation of the “mandatory requirement of the statute laws set forth ... in title 28, U. S. C. A. Section 1861, 1863, 1864, and the 5th amendment of the United States Constitution.” His challenge only went to the composition of the grand jury and did not include the petit jury which found him guilty. The District Court, though it took no evidence on the motion, invited additional briefs on the issue of waiver. It then denied the motion. In its memorandum opinion it relied on Shotwell Mfg. Co. v. United States, 371 U. S. 341 (1963), and concluded that petitioner had waived his right to object to the composition of the grand jury because such a contention is waived under Rule 12 (b)(2) unless raised by motion prior to trial. Also, since the “key man” method of selecting grand jurors had been openly followed for many years prior to petitioner’s indictment; since the same grand jury that indicted petitioner indicted his two white accomplices; and since the case against petitioner was “a strong one,” the court determined that there was nothing in the facts of the case or in the nature of the claim justifying the exercise of the power to grant relief under Rule 12 (b) (2) for “cause shown.”
The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of Shotwell, supra, and Rule 12 (b)(2). Because its decision is contrary to decisions of the Ninth Circuit in Fernandez v. Meier, 408 F. 2d 974 (1969), and Chee v. United States, 449 F. 2d 747 (1971), we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict.
Petitioner contends that because his § 2255 motion alleged deprivation of a fundamental constitutional right, one which has been recognized since Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880), his case is controlled by this Court’s dispositions of Kaufman v. United States, 394 U. S. 217 (1969), and Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), rather than Shotwell Mfg. Co. v. United States, supra, and Rule 12 (b)(2). Accordingly, he urges that his collateral attack on his conviction may be precluded only after a hearing in which it is established that he “deliberately bypassed” or “understandingly and knowingly” waived his claim of unconstitutional grand jury composition. See Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), and Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938).
I
Rule 12 (b)(2) provides in pertinent part that “[defenses and objections based on defects in the institution of the prosecution or in the indictment . . . may be raised only by motion before trial,” and that failure to present such defenses or objections “constitutes a waiver thereof, but the court for cause shown may grant relief from the waiver.” By its terms, it applies to both procedural and constitutional defects in the institution of prosecutions which do not affect the jurisdiction of the trial court. According to the Notes of the Advisory Committee on Rules, the waiver provision was designed to continue existing law, which as exemplified by this Court’s decision in United States v. Gale, 109 U. S. 65 (1883), was, inter alia, that defendants who pleaded to an indictment and went to trial without making any non-jurisdictional objection to the grand jury, even one unconstitutionally composed, waived any right of subsequent complaint on account thereof. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Advisory Committee’s Notes expressly indicate that claims such as petitioner’s are meant to be within the Rule’s purview:
“These two paragraphs [12 (b)(1) and (2)] classify into two groups all objections and defenses to be interposed by motion prescribed by Rule 12 (a). In one group are defenses and objections which must be raised by motion, failure to do so constituting a waiver. . . .
“. . . Among the defenses and objections in this group are the following: Illegal selection or organization of the grand jury . . . .” Notes of Advisory Committee following Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 12, 18 U. S. C. App.
This Court had occasion to consider the Rule’s application in Shotwell Mfg. Co. v. United States, supra, a case involving tax-evasion convictions. In a motion filed more than four years after their trial, but before the conclusion of direct review, petitioners alleged that both the grand and petit jury arrays were illegally constituted because, inter alia, “the Clerk of the District Court failed to employ a selection method designed to secure a cross-section of the population.” 371 U. S., at 361-362. Deeming the case controlled by Rule 12 (b)(2), the District Court held a hearing to determine whether there was “cause” warranting relief from the waiver provision and it found that “the facts concerning the selection of the grand and petit juries were notorious and available to petitioners in the exercise of due diligence before the trial.” Id., at 363. It concluded that their failure to exercise due diligence combined with the absence of prejudice from the alleged illegalities precluded the raising of the issue, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. In this Court, petitioners conceded that Rule 12 (b) (2) applied to their objection to the grand jury array, but they denied that it applied to the petit jury. Both objections were held foreclosed by the petitioners’ years of inaction, and the lower courts’ application of the Rule was affirmed.
Shotwell thus confirms that Rule 12 (b) (2) precludes untimely challenges to grand jury arrays, even when such challenges are on constitutional grounds. Despite the strong analogy between the effect of the Rule as construed in Shotwell and petitioner’s § 2255 allegations, he nonetheless contends that Kaufman v. United States, supra, establishes that he is not precluded from raising his constitutional challenge in a § 2255 proceeding. See Fay v. Noia, supra. We disagree.
In Kaufman, the defendant in a bank robbery conviction sought collateral relief under § 2255 alleging that illegally seized evidence had been admitted against him at trial, over a timely objection, and that this evidence resulted in the rejection of his only defense to the charge. The application was denied in both the District Court and the Court of Appeals on the ground that it had not been raised on appeal from the judgment of conviction and “that a motion under § 2255 cannot be used in lieu of an appeal.” 394 U. S., at 223. This Court reversed, however, holding that when constitutional claims are asserted, post-conviction relief cannot be denied solely on the ground that relief should have been sought by appeal. Ibid.
But the Court in Kaufman was not dealing with the sort of express waiver provision contained in Rule 12 (b) (2) which specifically provides for the waiver of a particular kind of constitutional claim if it be not timely asserted. The claim in Kaufman was that the applicable provisions of § 2255 by implication forbade the assertion of a constitutional claim of unlawful search and seizure where the defendant failed to assert the claim on appeal from the judgment of conviction. See, e. g., Sunal v. Large, 332 U. S. 174, 179 (1947). The Court held that the statute did not preclude the granting of relief on such a claim simply because it had not been asserted on appeal, where there was no indication of a knowing and deliberate bypass of the appeal procedure. But here the Government’s claim is not that § 2255 itself limits or precludes the assertion of petitioner’s claim, but that the separate provisions of Rule 12 (b) (2) do so. Kaufman, therefore, is dispositive only if the absence of a statutory provision for waiver in § 2255 and the federal habeas statute by implication precludes the application to post-conviction proceedings of the express waiver provision found in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Shotwell held that a claim of unconstitutional grand jury composition raised four years after conviction, but while the appeal proceedings were still alive, was governed by Rule 12 (b) (2). Both the reasons for the Rule and the normal rules of statutory construction clearly indicate that no more lenient standard of waiver should apply to a claim raised three years after conviction simply because the claim is asserted by way of collateral attack rather than in the criminal, proceeding itself.
The waiver provisions of Rule 12 (b) (2) are operative only with respect to claims of defects in the institution of criminal proceedings. If its time limits are followed, inquiry into an alleged defect may be concluded and, if necessary, cured before the court, the witnesses, and the parties have gone to the burden and expense of a trial. If defendants were allowed to flout its time limitations, on the other hand, there would be little incentive to comply with its terms when a successful attack might simply result in a new indictment prior to trial. Strong tactical considerations would militate in favor of delaying the raising of the claim in hopes of an acquittal, with the thought that if those hopes did not materialize, the claim could be used to upset an otherwise valid conviction at a time when reprosecution might well be difficult.
Rule 12 (b) (2) promulgated by this Court and, pursuant to 18 U. S. C. § 3771, “adopted” by Congress, governs by its terms the manner in which the claims of defects in the institution of criminal proceedings may be waived. See Singer v. United States,, 380 U. S. 24, 37 (1965). Were we confronted with an express conflict between the Rule and a prior statute, the force of § 3771, providing that “[a] 11 laws in conflict with such rules shall be of no further force or effect,” is such that the prior inconsistent statute would be deemed to have been repealed. Cf. Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U. S. 1, 10 (1941). The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure do not ex proprio vigore govern post-conviction proceedings, and had Congress in enacting the statutes governing federal collateral relief specifically there dealt with the issue of waiver, we would be faced with a difficult question of repeal by implication of such a provision by the later enacted rules of criminal procedure. But Congress did not deal with the question of waiver in the federal collateral relief statutes, and in Kaufman this Court held that, since § 2255 had not spoken on the subject of waiver with respect to claims of unlawful search and seizure, a particular doctrine of waiver would be applied by this Court in interpreting the statute.
We think it inconceivable that Congress, having in the criminal proceeding foreclosed the raising of a claim such as this after the commencement of trial in the absence of a showing of “cause” for relief from waiver, nonetheless intended to perversely negate the Rule’s purpose by permitting an entirely different but much more liberal requirement of waiver in federal habeas proceedings. We believe that the necessary effect of the congressional adoption of Rule 12 (b) (2) is to' provide that a claim once waived pursuant to that Rule may not later be resurrected, either in the criminal proceedings or in federal habeas, in the absence of the showing of “cause” which that Rule requires. We therefore hold that the waiver standard expressed in Rule 12 (b) (2) governs an untimely claim of grand jury discrimination, not only during the criminal proceeding, but also later on collateral review.
Our conclusion in this regard is further buttressed by the Court’s observation in Parker v. North Carolina, 397 U. S. 790, 798 (1970), decided the year after Kaufman, that “[w]hether the question of racial exclusion in the selection of the grand jury is open in a federal habeas corpus action we need not decide.” The context of the Court’s language makes it apparent that the question was framed in terms of waiver and timely assertion of such a claim in state criminal proceedings. But if the question were left open with respect to state proceedings, it must have been at least patently open with respect to federal habeas review of federal convictions, where Congress is the lawgiver both as to the procedural rules governing the criminal trial and the principles governing collateral review.
II
The principles of Rule 12 (b) (2), as construed in Shot-well, are not difficult to apply to the facts of this case. Petitioner alleged the deprivation of a substantial constitutional right, recognized by this Court as applicable to state criminal proceedings from Bush v. Kentucky, 107 U. S. 110 (1883), through Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S. 625 (1972). But he failed to assert the claim until long after his trial, verdict, sentence, and appeal had run their course. In findings challenged only halfheartedly here, the District Court determined that no motion, oral or otherwise, raised the issue of discrimination in the selection of the grand jurors prior to trial. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and on petition for rehearing conducted its own search of the record in a vain effort to see whether the files or docket entries in the case supported petitioner’s contention that he had made such a motion. We will not disturb the coordinate findings of these two courts on a question such as this.
The waiver provision of the Eule therefore coming into play, the District Court held that there had been no “cause shown” which would justify relief. It said:
“Petitioner offers no plausible explanation of his failure to timely make his objection to the composition of the grand jury. The method of selecting grand jurors then in use was the same system employed by this court for years. No reason has been suggested why petitioner or his attorney could not have ascertained all of the facts necessary to present the objection to the court prior to trial. The same grand jury that indicted petitioner also indicted his two white accomplices. The case had no racial overtones. The government’s case against petitioner was, although largely circumstantial, a strong one. There was certainly sufficient evidence against petitioner to justify a grand jury in determining that he should stand trial for the offense with which he was charged. . . . Petitioner has shown no cause why the court should grant him relief from his waiver of the objection to the composition of the grand jury.....”
In denying the relief, the court took into consideration the question of prejudice to petitioner. This approach was approved in Shotwell where the Court stated:
“[W]here, as here, objection to the jury selection has not been timely raised under Rule 12 (b)(2), it is entirely proper to take absence of prejudice into account in determining whether a sufficient showing has been made to warrant relief from the effect of that Rule.” 371 U. S., at 363.
Petitioner seeks to avoid this aspect of Shotwell by asserting that there both lower courts had found that petitioners were not prejudiced in any way by the alleged illegalities whereas under Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S. 493 (1972), prejudice is presumed in cases where there is an allegation of racial discrimination in grand jury composition. But Peters dealt with whether or not a white man had a substantive constitutional right to set aside his conviction upon proof that Negroes had been systematically excluded from the state grand and petit juries which indicted and tried him. Three Justices dissented from the Court’s upholding of such a substantive right on the ground that no prejudice had been shown, and three concurred separately in the judgment. But the three opinions delivered in Peters, supra, all indicate a focus on the existence of the constitutional right, rather than its possible loss through delay in asserting it. The presumption of prejudice which supports the existence of the right is not inconsistent with a holding that actual prejudice must be shown in order to obtain relief from a statutorily provided waiver for failure to assert it in a timely manner.
We hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioner relief from the application of the waiver provision of Rule 12(b)(2), and that having concluded he was not entitled to such relief, it properly dismissed his motion under § 2255. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Petitioner was represented throughout the trial by competent, court-appointed counsel, whose advocacy prompted the Court of Appeals to compliment him saying:
“We have rarely witnessed a more thorough or more unstinted expenditure of effort by able counsel on behalf of a client.” 409 F. 2d 1095, 1101 (CA5 1969).
The use of the “key man” system was approved in. Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203, 259 (1961), affirming 260 F. 2d 21, 44-46 (CA4 1958). The adoption of the Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1861-1869, has precluded its further use.
Petitioner also alleged that a timely oral motion in open court prior to trial was made preserving for him the right to contest the grand jury array, and that a law student who was researching the grand jury array was stopped from seeing him.
Petitioner attempts to distinguish Shotwell on the ground that the case “involved legal irregularities which did not rise to the dimension of the fundamental constitutional right asserted” herein. (Brief for Petitioner 18.) At 362-363 of the Court's opinion in Shotwell, however, the majority accepted petitioners’ assertion of constitutional deprivation at face value before rejecting their claims on the basis of Rule 12 (b) (2).
We are comforted in this conclusion by the concurrence of all but one of the courts of appeals that have considered the issue. See Moore v. United States, 432 F. 2d 730, 740 (CA3 1970) (en banc); Juelich v. Harris, 425 F. 2d 814 (CA7 1970); United States v. Williams, 421 F. 2d 529, 532 (CA8 1970); Bastillo v. United States, 421 F. 2d 131 (CA5 1970); and Poliafico v. United States, 237 F. 2d 97 (CA6 1956). Contra, Fernandez v. Meier, 408 F. 2d 974 (CA9 1969).
Petitioner relies on the reasoning of Fernandez, supra, in arguing that a different waiver rule should apply in § 2255 proceedings. In that case, the defendant argued that the exclusion of Spanish Americans from his grand and petit juries constituted a deprivation of constitutional right. The claim was untimely raised and the Court of Appeals conceded that failure to present it as provided in Rule 12 (b) (2) resulted in a waiver. Relying, however, on this Court’s decisions in Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), and Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), that court held that collateral relief could be denied under § 2255 only upon a showing of a “knowing and deliberate by-pass” of a timely objection. Petitioner concedes that the court misread Sanders, supra, but he argues that it applied the correct waiver rule. Although we find it difficult to conceptualize the application of one waiver rule for purposes of federal appeal and another for purposes of federal habeas corpus, we will nonetheless give consideration to petitioner’s claim that the cases interpreting the federal habeas corpus statute set the applicable standard.
The Court in Kaufman made reference to the possibility of the denial of § 2255 relief as a result of a deliberate bypass of the suppression procedures established in Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 41 (e). Kaufman v. United States, 394 U. S. 217, 227 n. 8 (1969). But it had no occasion to consider that Rule’s effects on § 2255 motions since there “[a]ppointed counsel had objected at trial to the admission of certain evidence on grounds of unlawful search and seizure,” id., at 220 n. 3, and the District Court’s rationale for denying relief was that “this matter was not assigned as error on Kaufman’s appeal from conviction and is not available as a ground for collateral attack . . . .” See id., at 219.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 petitioner, Sears, Roebuck and Company (Sears), filed a charge with the NLRB Regional Director, alleging that the respondent union was engaged in unlawful secondary picketing of the petitioner’s premises in violation of § 8 (b) (4) (B) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. The Regional Director investigated the charge and, finding there was reasonable cause to believe it was true, issued an unfair labor practice complaint with the Board. He also petitioned a Federal District Court for injunctive relief pursuant to § 10 (l) of the Act, which directs him to apply for such temporary relief “pending the final adjudication of the Board with respect to such matter.”
Counsel for Sears appeared at the hearing before the District Court, but Sears did not seek to intervene formally. After hearing testimony the court declined to issue an injunction, believing that Sears was not likely to prevail before the Board on its unfair labor practice charge. The Regional Director did not appeal the court’s decision, but Sears sought to do so. 410 F. 2d 1148. The Court of Appeals dismissed Sears’ appeal on the ground that under the Act only the Regional Director could appeal from the denial of a § 10 (l) injunction. Thereafter the Board issued its decision and order in the underlying unfair labor practice proceeding, finding that the respondent union had violated § 8 (b) (4) (B) of the Act, and ordering it to cease and desist from its unlawful conduct. 176 N. L. R. B. No. 120, 71 L. R. R. M. 1372 (1969).
Under these circumstances the question whether Sears could appeal the District Court’s denial of an injunction has now become moot. For even if the Court of Appeals was wrong in dismissing Sears’ appeal, any relief that that court might have given would now have terminated. “ 'To adjudicate a cause which no longer exists is a proceeding which this Court uniformly has declined to entertain.’ ” Oil Workers Union v. Missouri, 361 U. S. 363, 371, quoting from Brownlow v. Schwartz, 261 U. S. 216, 217-218. See also Hall v. Beals, 396 U. S. 45; Brockington v. Rhodes, 396 U. S. 41; Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103.
Sears concedes that an injunction, had one issued, would terminate upon “final” Board resolution of the underlying unfair labor practice charge. But it argues that the Board’s action cannot be considered final where, as here, one of the parties, in this case the respondent union, has sought review of the Board’s order. In this situation, Sears maintains, the injunctive relief, if granted, would remain in effect until the Board’s order with respect to the underlying unfair labor practice were either enforced or denied enforcement by the Court of Appeals. It is argued that because the Court of Appeals has not yet acted on the Board’s order here, Sears may still be entitled to injunctive relief, and thus the question of whether it was entitled to appeal the denial of a § 10 (i) injunction remains a viable one.
But neither the language, the legislative history, nor the policies of the Act support this construction. For by its terms § 10 (l) merely authorizes the issuance of an injunction “pending the final adjudication of the Board with respect to [the] matter.” (Emphasis added.) Once the Board has acted, it can itself seek injunctive relief from the Court of Appeals, pursuant to § 10 (e) of the Act, which empowers that court to grant “such temporary relief or restraining order as it deems just and proper.” See McLeod v. Business Machine Mechanics Conference Board, 300 F. 2d 237, 241. The legislative history makes clear that the purpose of enacting §10 (l) in 1947 was simply to supplement the pre-existing § 10 (e) power of the Board by authorizing injunctive relief prior to Board action. It was thus relief prior to Board action that Congress was concerned with providing when it enacted § 10 (i), and any injunction issued pursuant to that section terminates when the Board resolves the underlying dispute.
Where the Board ultimately finds no unfair labor practice, it would clearly be contrary to the policies of the Act to permit a district court injunction to remain in effect pending Court of Appeals review of the District Court’s action. And where the Board does find an unfair labor practice, § 10 (e) provides an adequate remedy should its order be disobeyed. Yet on the petitioner’s reading of the Act, the District Court injunction would remain in effect until Court of Appeals review, whatever the Board did. This is not what was intended by § 10 (l), and the courts that have confronted the issue have consistently so held. Carpenters’ District Council v. Boire, 288 F. 2d 454, 455; Monique, Inc. v. Boire, 344 F. 2d 1017, 1018; NLRB v. Nashville Bldg. Trades Council, 383 F. 2d 562, 564. See also this Court’s disposition in Los Angeles Bldg. & Construction Trades Council v. LeBaron, 342 U. S. 802. But see Houston Insulation Contractors Assn. v. NLRB, 339 F. 2d 868.
Because any injunctive relief to which Sears might have been entitled under § 10 (l) would now have terminated in any event, the question of whether Sears was entitled to challenge the denial of such relief has become moot.
Accordingly the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the complaint as moot.
It is so ordered.
Sec. 8 (b). “It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“(4) (i) to engage, in, or to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce to engage in, a strike or a refusal in the course of his employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services; or (ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is— . . . (B) forcing or requiring any person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person, or forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 9 . . . .” (61 Stat. 141, 73 Stat. 542, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b).)
29 U. S. C. §160 (l).
The District Court decision is unreported.
29 U. S. C. § 160 (e).
“Under the present act the Board is empowered to seek interim relief only after it has filed in the appropriate circuit court of appeals its order and the record on which it is based. . . .
“In subsections (j) and (1) . . . the Board is given additional authority to seek injunctive relief. . . . Thus the Board need not wait, if the circumstances call for such relief, until it has held a hearing, issued its order, and petitioned for enforcement of its order.” S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 27 (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: | 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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
New York’s Human Rights Law forbids discrimination in employment, including discrimination in employee benefit plans on the basis of pregnancy. The State’s Disability Benefits Law requires employers to pay sick-leave benefits to employees unable to work because of pregnancy or other nonoccupational disabilities. The question before us is whether these New York laws are pre-empted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
The Human Rights Law, N. Y. Exec. Law §§290-301 (McKinney 1982 and Supp. 1982-1983), is a comprehensive antidiscrimination statute prohibiting, among other practices, employment discrimination on the basis of sex. § 296.1 (a). The New York Court of Appeals has held that a private employer whose employee benefit plan treats pregnancy differently from other nonoccupational disabilities engages in sex discrimination within the meaning of the Human Rights Law. Brooklyn Union Gas Co. v. New York State Human Rights Appeal Board, 41 N. Y. 2d 84, 359 N. E. 2d 393 (1976). In contrast, two weeks before the decision in Brooklyn Union Gas, this Court ruled that discrimination based on pregnancy was not sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e et seq. General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125 (1976). Congress overcame the Gilbert ruling by enacting § 1 of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 2076, 42 U. S. C. §2000e(k) (1976 ed., Supp. V), which added subsection (k) to §701 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC, 462 U. S. 669, 678 (1983). Until that Act took effect on April 29, 1979, see §2(b), 92 Stat. 2076, the Human Rights Law in this respect had a reach broader than Title VII.
The Disability Benefits Law, N. Y. Work. Comp. Law §§200-242 (McKinney 1965 and Supp. 1982-1983), requires employers to pay certain benefits to employees unable to work because of nonoccupational injuries or illness. Disabled employees generally are entitled to receive, the lesser of $95 per week or one-half their average weekly wage, for a maximum of 26 weeks in any 1-year period. §§ 204.2, 205.1. Until August 1977, the Disability Benefits Law provided that employees were not entitled to benefits for pregnancy-related disabilities. §205.3 (McKinney 1965). From August 1977 to June 1981, employers were required to provide eight weeks of benefits for pregnancy-related disabilities. 1977 N. Y. Laws, ch. 675, §29 (formerly codified as N. Y. Work. Comp. Law §205.3). This limitation was repealed in 1981, see 1981 N. Y. Laws, ch. 352, §2, and the Disability Benefits Law now requires employers to provide the same benefits for pregnancy as for any other disability.
B
The federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V), subjects to federal regulation plans providing employees with fringe benefits. ERISA is a comprehensive statute designed to promote the interests of employees and their beneficiaries in employee benefit plans. See Nachman Corp. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 446 U. S. 359, 361-362 (1980); Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504, 510 (1981). The term “employee benefit plan” is defined as including both pension plans and welfare plans. The statute imposes participation, funding, and vesting requirements on pension plans. §§201-306, 29 U. S. C. §§ 1051-1086 (1976 ed. and Supp. V). It also sets various uniform standards, including rules concerning reporting, disclosure, and fiduciary responsibility, for both pension and welfare plans. §§101-111, 401-414, 29 U. S. C. §§ 1021— 1031, 1101-1114 (1976 ed. and Supp. V). ERISA does not mandate that employers provide any particular benefits, and does not itself proscribe discrimination in the provision of employee benefits.
Section 514(a) of ERISA, 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), pre-empts “any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan” covered by ERISA. State laws regulating insurance, banking, or securities are exempt from this pre-emption provision, as are generally applicable state criminal laws. §§ 514(b)(2)(A) and (b)(4), 29 U. S. C. §§ 1144(b)(2)(A) and (b)(4). Section 514(d), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(d), moreover, provides that “[njothing in this title shall be construed to alter, amend, modify, invalidate, impair, or supersede any law of the United States... or any rule or regulation issued under any such law.” And § 4(b)(3) of ERISA, 29 U. S. C. § 1003(b)(3), exempts from ERISA coverage employee benefit plans that are “maintained solely for the purpose of complying with applicable workmen’s]compensation laws or unemployment compensation or disability insurance laws.” j
Appellees in this litigation, Delta Air Lines, Inc., and other airlines (Airlines), Burroughs Corporation (Burroughs) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (Metropolitan), provided their employees with various medical and disability benefits through welfare plans subject to ERISA. These plans, prior to the effective date of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, did not provide benefits to employees disabled by pregnancy as required by the New York Human Rights Law and the State’s Disability Benefits Law. Appellees brought three separate federal declaratory judgment aqtions against appellant state agencies and officials, alleging that the Human Rights Law was pre-empted by ERISA. The Airlines in their action alleged that the Disability Benefits Law was similarly pre-empted. |
The United States District Court in each case held that the Human Rights Law was pre-empted, at least insofar as it required the provision of pregnancy benefits prior to the effective date of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. With respect to the Airlines’ challenge to the Disability Benefits Law, the District Court construed § 4(b)(3) of ERISA as exempting from the federal statute “those provisions of an employee plan which are maintained to comply with” state disability insurance laws. Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Kramarsky, 485 F. Supp. 300, 307 (SDNY 1980). Because it concluded that the Airlines would have provided pregnancy benefits solely to comply with the Disability Benefits Law, the court dismissed the portion of their complaint seeking relief from that law.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed as to the Human Rights Law. Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Kramarsky, 666 F. 2d 21 (1981); Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Kramarsky, 666 P. 2d 26 (1981); Burroughs Corp. v. Kramarsky, 666 F. 2d 27 (1981). Relying onjthis Court’s decision in Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504 (1981), and on its own ruling in Pervel Industries, Inc. v. Connecticut Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 603 F. 2d 214 (1979), order aff’g 468 F. Supp. 490 (Conn. 1978), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1031 (1980), the court held that § 514(a) of ERISA operated to pre-empt the Hulmán Rights Law, and that § 514(d) did not save that law from ¡preemption. With respect to the Disability Benefits Law, the Court of Appeals had concluded earlier that § 4(b)(3)’s exemption from pre-emption applied only when a benefit plan; “as an integral unit,” is maintained solely to comply with a disability law. Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Kramarsky, 650 F. 2d 1287, 1304 (1981). The court remanded for inquiries into whether the Airlines provided disability benefits through plans constituting separate administrative units, in which event the Disability Benefits Law would be enforceable, or through portions of comprehensive benefit plans, in which case ERISA regulation would be exclusive.
Because courts have disagreed about the scope of ERISA’s pre-emption provisions, and because of the continuing importance of the issues presented, we noted probable jurisdiction in all three cases. 456 U. S. 924 (1982).
HH I — i l-H
In deciding whether a federal law pre-empts a state statute, our task is to ascertain Congress’ intent in enacting the federal statute at issue. “Pre-emption may be either express or implied, and ‘is compelled whether Congress’ command is explicitly stated in the statute’s language or implicitly contained in its structure and purpose.’ Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525 (1977).” Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. De la Cuesta, 458 U. S. 141, 152-153 (1982). See Exxon Corp. v. Eagerton, 462 U. S. 176, 180-182 (1983); Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm’n, 461 U. S. 190, 203-204 (1983). In these cases, we address the scope of several provisions of ERISA that speak expressly to the question of pre-emption. The issues] are whether the Human Rights Law and Disability Benefits ¡Law “relate to” employee benefit plans within the meaning of § 514(a), see n. 6, supra, and, if so, whether any exception in ERISA saves them from pre-emption.
We have no difficulty in concluding that the Human Rights Law and Disability Benefits Law “relate to” employee benefit plans. The breadth of §514(a)’s pre-emptive reach is apparent from that section’s language. A law “relates to” an employee benefit plan, in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan. Employing this definition, the Human Rights Law, which prohibits employers from structuring their employee benefit plans in a manner that discriminates on the basis of pregnancy, and the Disability Benefits Law, which requires employers to pay employees specific benefits, clearly “relate to” benefit plans. We must give effect to this plain language unless there is good reason to believe Congress intended the language to have some more restrictive meaning. Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 108 (1980); see North Dakota v. United States, 460 U. S. 300, 460 312 (1983); Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., U. S. 103, 110 (1983).
In fact, however, Congress used the words “relate to” in § 514(a) in their broad sense. To interpret § 514(a) to preempt only state laws specifically designed to affect employee benefit plans would be to ignore the remainder of § 5141 It would have been unnecessary to exempt generally applicable state criminal statutes from pre-emption in § 514(b). for example, if § 514(a) applied only to state laws dealing specifically with ERISA plans.
Nor, given the legislative history, can § 514(a) be interpreted to pre-empt only state laws dealing with the subject matters covered by ERISA — reporting, disclosure, fiduciary responsibility, and the like. The bill that became ERISA originally contained a limited pre-emption clause, applicable only to state laws relating to the specific subjects covered by ERISA. The Conference Committee rejected these provisions in favor of the present language, and indicated thaj the section’s pre-emptive scope was as broad as its language. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1280, p. 383 (1974); S. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1090, p. 383 (1974). Statements by the bill’s sponsors during the subsequent debates stressed the breadth of federal pre-emption. Representative Dent, for example, stated:
“Finally, I wish to make note of what is to many the crowning achievement of this legislation, the reservation to Federal authority the sole power to regulate the field of employee benefit plans. With the preemption of the field, we round out the protection afforded participants by eliminating the threat of conflicting and inconsistent State and local regulation.” 120 Cong. Rec. 29197 (1974).
Senator Williams echoed these sentiments:
“It should be stressed that with the narrow exceptions specified in the bill, the substantive and enforcement provisions of the conference substitute are intended to preempt the field for Federal regulations, thus eliminating the threat of conflicting or inconsistent State and local regulation of employee benefit plans. This principle is intended to apply in its broadest sense to all actions of State or local governments, or any instrumentality thereof, which have the force or effect of law.” Id., at 29933.
Given the plain language of § 514(a), the structure of the Act, and its legislative history, we hold that the Human Rights Law and the Disability Benefits Law “relate to any employee benefit plan” within the meaning of ERISA’s § 514(a).
IV
We next consider whether any of the narrow exceptions to § 514(a) saves these laws from pre-emption.
A
Appellants argue that the Human Rights Law is exempt from pre-emption by § 514(d), which provides that § 514(a) shall not “be construed to alter, amend, modify, invalidate, impair, or supersede any law of the United States.” According to appellants, pre-emption of state fair employment laws would impair and modify Title VII because it would change the means by which it is enforced.
State laws obviously play a significant role in the enforcement of Title VII. See, e. g., Kremer v. Chemical Construction Corp., 456 U. S. 461, 468-469, 472, 477 (1982); id., at 504 (dissenting opinion); New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U. S. 54, 63-65 (1980). Title VII expressly preserves nonconflicting state laws in its §708:
“Nothing in this title shall be deemed to exempt or relieve any person from any liability, duty, penalty, or punishment provided by any present or future law of any State or political subdivision of a State, other than any such law which purports to require or permit the doing of any act which would be an unlawful employment practice under this title.” 78 Stat. 262, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-7.
Moreover, Title VII requires recourse to available state administrative remedies. When an employment practice prohibited by Title VII is alleged to have occurred in a State or locality which prohibits the practice and has established an agency to enforce that prohibition, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) refers the charges to the state agency. The EEOC may not actively process the charges “before the expiration of sixty days after proceedings have been commenced under the State or local law, unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated.” § 706(c), 86 Stat. 104, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(c); see Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522 (1972). In its subsequent proceedings, the EEOC accords “substantial weight” to the state administrative determination. § 706(b), 86 Stat. 104, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(b).
Given the importance of state fair employment kws to the federal enforcement scheme, pre-emption of the Human Rights Law would impair Title VII to the extent that the Human Rights Law provides a means of enforcing Title VII’s commands. Before the enactment of ERISA, an employee claiming discrimination in connection with a benefit plan would have had his complaint referred to the New York State Division of Human Rights. If ERISA were interpreted to pre-empt the Human Rights Law entirely with respect to covered benefit plans, the State no longer could prohibit the challenged employment practice and the state agenjcy no longer would be authorized to grant relief. The EEOC thus would be unable to refer the claim to the state agency. | This would frustrate the goal of encouraging joint state/federal enforcement of Title VII; an employee’s only remedies for discrimination prohibited by Title VII in ERISA plans would be federal ones. Such a disruption of the enforcement scheme contemplated by Title VII would, in the words of § 514(d), “modify” and “impair” federal law.
Insofar as state laws prohibit employment practices that are lawful under Title VII, however, pre-emption would not impair Title VII within the meaning of § 514(d). Although Title VII does not itself prevent States from extending their nondiscrimination laws to areas not covered by Title VII, see §708, 78 Stat. 262, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-7, it in no way depends on such extensions for its enforcement. Title VII would prohibit precisely the same employment practices, and be enforced in precisely the same manner, even if no State made additional employment practices unlawful. Quite simply, Title VII is neutral on the subject of all employment practices it does not prohibit. We fail to see how federal law would be impaired by pre-emption of a state law prohibiting conduct that federal law permitted. I
ERISA’s structure and legislative history, while not particularly illuminating with respect to § 514(d), caution against applying it too expansively. As we have detailed above, Congress applied the principle of pre-emption “in its broadest sense to foreclose any non-Federal regulation of employee benefit plans,” creating only very limited exceptions tc> preemption. 120 Cong. Rec. 29197 (1974) (remarks of Rep. Dent); see id., at 29933 (remarks of Sen. Williams). Sections 4(b)(3) and 514(b), which list specific exceptions, do not refer to state fair employment laws. While § 514(d) may operate to exempt provisions of state laws upon which federal laws depend for their enforcement, the combination of Congress’ enactment of an all-inclusive pre-emption provision and its enumeration of narrow, specific exceptions to that provision makes us reluctant to expand § 514(d) into a more general saving clause.
The references to employment discrimination in the legislative history of ERISA provide no basis for an expansive! construction of § 514(d). During floor debates, Senator Moiidale questioned whether the Senate bill should be amended to require nondiscrimination in ERISA plans. Senator Williams replied that no such amendment was necessary or desirable. He noted that Title VII already prohibited discrimination in benefit plans, and stated: “I believe that the thrust toward centralized administration of nondiscrimination in employment must be maintained. And I believe this can be done by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under terms of existing law.” 119 Cong. Rec. 30409 (1973). Senator Mondale, “with the understanding that nondiscrimination in pension and profit-sharing plans is fully required under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act,” id., at 30410, chose not to offer a nondiscrimination amendment. This colloquy was repeated on the floor of the House by Representatives Abzug and Dent. 120 Cong. Rec. 4726 (1974).
These exchanges demonstrate only the obvious: that § 514(d) does not pre-empt federal law. The speakers referred to federal law, the EEOC, and the need for centralized enforcement. The limited legislative history dealing with § 514(d) is entirely consistent with Congress’ goal of ensuring that employers would not face “conflicting or inconsistent State and local regulation of employee benefit plans,” 120 Cong. Rec. 29933 (1974) (remarks of Sen. Williams). Congress might well have believed, had it considered the precise issue before us, that ERISA plans should be subject only to the nondiscrimination provisions of Title VII, and not also to state laws prohibiting other forms of discrimination. By establishing benefit plan regulation “as exclusively a federal concern,” Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S., at 523, Congress minimized the need for interstate employers to administer their plans differently in each State in which they have employees.
We recognize that our interpretation of § 514(d) as requiring partial pre-emption of state fair employment laws may cause certain practical problems. Courts and state agencies, rather than considering whether employment practices are unlawful under a broad state law, will have to determine whether they are prohibited by Title VII. If they are not, the state law will be superseded and the agency will lack authority to act. It seems more than likely, however, that state agencies and courts are sufficiently familiar with Title VII to apply it in their adjudicative processes. Many States look to Title VII law as a matter of course in defining the scope of their own laws. In any event, these minor practical difficulties do not represent the kind of “impairment” or “modification” of federal law that can save a state law from pre-emption under § 514(d). To the extent that our construction of ERISA causes any problems in the administration of state fair employment laws, those problems are the result of congressional choice and should be addressed by congressional action. To give § 514(d) the broad construction advocated by appellants would defeat the intent of Congress to provide comprehensive pre-emption of state law.
B
The Disability Benefits Law presents a different problem. Section 514(a) of ERISA pre-empts state laws that relate to benefit plans “described in section 4(a) and not exempt under section 4(b).” Consequently, while the Disability Benefits Law plainly is a state law relating to employee benefit plans, it is not pre-empted if the plans to which it relates are exempt from ERISA under §4(b). Section 4(b)(3) exempts “any employee benefit plan... maintained solely for the purpose of complying with applicable... disability insurance laws.” The Disability Benefits Law is a “disability insurance law,” of course; the difficulty is that at least some of the benefit plans offered by the Airlines provide benefits not required by that law. The question is whether, with respect to those among the Airlines using multibenefit plans, the Disability Benefits Law’s requirement that employers provide particular benefits remains enforceable.
As the Court of Appeals recognized, § 4(b)(3) excludes “plans,” not portions of plans, from ERISA coverage; those portions of the Airlines’ multibenefit plans maintained to comply with the Disability Benefits Law, therefore, are not exempt from ERISA and are not subject to state regulation. There is no reason to believe that Congress used the word “plan” in § 4(b) to refer to individual benefits offered by an employee benefit plan. To the contrary, § 4(b)(3)’s use of the word “solely” demonstrates that the purpose of the entire plan must be to comply with an applicable disability insurance law. As the Court noted in Alessi, plans that not only provide benefits required by such a law, but also “more broadly serve employee needs as a result of collective bargaining,” are not exempt. 451 U. S., at 523, n. 20. The test is not one of the employer’s motive — any employer could claim that it provided disability benefits altruistically, to attract good employees, or to increase employee productivity, as well as to obey state law — but whether the plan, as an administrative unit, provides only those benefits required by the applicable state law.
Any other rule, it seems to us, would make little sense. Under the District Court’s approach, for which appellants argue here, one portion of a multibenefit plan would be subject only to state regulation, while other portions would be exclusively within the federal domain. An employer with employees in several States would find its plan subject to a different jurisdictional pattern of regulation in each State, depending on what benefits the State mandated under disability, workmen’s compensation, and unemployment compensation laws. The administrative impracticality of permitting mutually exclusive pockets of federal and state jurisdiction within a plan is apparent. We see no reason to torture the plain language of § 4(b)(3) to achieve this result. Only separately administered disability plans maintained solely to comply with the Disability Benefits Law are exempt from ERISA coverage under § 4(b)(3).
This is not to say, however, that the Airlines are completely free to circumvent the Disability Benefits Law by adopting plans that combine disability benefits inferior to those required by that law with other types of benefits. Congress surely did not intend, at the same time it preserved the role of state disability laws, to make enforcement of those laws impossible. A State may require an employer to maintain a disability plan complying with state law as a separate administrative unit. Such a plan would be exempt under § 4(b)(3). The fact that state law permits employers to meet their state-law obligations by including disability insurance benefits in a multibenefit ERISA plan, see N. Y. Work. Comp. Law App. §355.6 (McKinney Supp. 1982-1983), does not make the state law wholly unenforceable as to employers who choose that option.
In other words, while the State may not require an employer to alter its ERISA plan, it may force the employer to choose between providing disability benefits in a separately administered plan and including the state-mandated benefits in its ERISA plan. If the State is not satisfied that the ERISA plan comports with the requirements of its disability insurance law, it may compel the employer to maintain a separate plan that does comply. The Court of Appeals erred, therefore, in holding that appellants are not at all free to enforce the Disability Benefits Law against those appellees that provide disability benefits as part of multibenefit plans.
V
We hold that New York’s Human Rights Law is preempted with respect to ERISA benefit plans only insofar as it prohibits practices that are lawful under federal law. To this extent, the judgments of the Court of Appeals are affirmed. To the extent the Court of Appeals held any more of the Human Rights Law pre-empted, we vacate its judgments and remand the cases.
We further hold that the Disability Benefits Law is not pre-empted by ERISA, although New York may not enforce its provisions through regulation of ERISA-covered benefit plans. We therefore vacate the Court of Appeals’ judgment in the Airlines’ case on this ground and remand that case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
No costs are allowed.
It is so ordered.
Section 296.1 (McKinney 1982) provides:
“1. It shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice:
“(a) For an employer or licensing agency, because of the age, race, creed, color, national origin, sex, or disability, or marital status of any individual, to refuse to hire or employ or to bar or to discharge from employment such individual or to discriminate against such individual in compensation or in terms, conditions or privileges of employment.”
The New York court in Brooklyn Union Gas noted the Gilbert decision, but declined to follow it in interpreting the analogous provision of the Human Rights Law. 41 N. Y. 2d, at 86, n. 1, 359 N. E. 2d, at 395, n. 1. Most state courts have done the same. See Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. State, 289 N. W. 2d 396, 399, n. 2 (Minn. 1979) (collecting cases), appeal dism’d, 444 U. S. 1041 (1980).
Subsection (k) provides in relevant part:
“The terms ‘because of sex’ or ‘on the basis of sex’ include, but are not limited to, because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; and women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt of benefits under fringe benefit programs, as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work, and nothing in section 703(h) of this title shall be interpreted to permit otherwise.”
The current version of the Disability Benefits Law provides in relevant part:
Ҥ 204. Disability during employment
“1. Disability benefits shall be payable to an eligible employee for disabilities... beginning with the eighth consecutive day of disability and thereafter during the continuance of disability, subject to the limitations as to maximum and minimum amounts and duration and other conditions and limitations in this section and in sections two hundred five and two hundred six....
“2. The weekly benefit which the disabled employee is entitled to receive for disability commencing on or after July first, nineteen hundred seventy-four shall be one-half of the employee’s average weekly wage, but in no case shall such benefit exceed ninety-five dollars nor be less than twenty dollars; except that if the employee’s average weekly wage is less than twenty dollars, his benefit shall be such average weekly wage.... “§205. Disabilities and disability periods for which benefits are not payable
“No employee shall be entitled to benefits under this article:
“1. For more than twenty-six weeks during a period of fifty-two consecutive calendar weeks or during any one period of disability.”
ERISA § 3(3), 29 U. S. C. § 1002(3). An “employee pension benefit plan” provides income deferral or retirement income. § 3(2), 29 U. S. C. § 1002(2). An “employee welfare benefit plan” includes any program that provides benefits for contingencies such as illness, accident, disability, death, or unemployment. § 3(1), 29 U. S. G. § 1002(1).
Section 514(a) provides:
“Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, the provisions of this title and title IV shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan described in section 4(a) and not exempt under section 4(b).”
The term “State law” includes “all laws, decisions, rules, regulations, or other State action having the effect of law, of any State.” § 514(c)(1), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(c)(1). The term “Státe” includes “a State, any political subdivisions thereof, or any agency or instrumentality of either, which purports to regulate, directly or indirectly, the terms and conditions of employee benefit plans covered by this title.” § 514(c)(2), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(c)(2).
The Airlines brought their action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and named as defendants the New York State Division of Human Rights, the Division’s Commissioner, the1 Division’s General Counsel, the New York State Workmen’s Compensation Board, and the Board’s Chairman. App. 28. Burroughs brought its action in the Western District of New York against only the Commissioner of the Division of Human Rights. Id., at 81. Metropolitan, suing in the Southern District of New York, named the Commissioner, the Division, and the New York State Human Rights Appeal Board. Id., at 88.
The Airlines also contended that the Human Rights Law and Disability Benefits Law were pre-empted by the Railway Labor Act, 45 U. S. C. §151 et seq.; the Equal Pay Act, 29 U. S. C. § 206(d); Exec. Order No. 11246, 3 CFR 339 (1964-1965 Comp.); and Title VII. These Haims were resolved against the Airlines, see Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Kramarsky, 666 F. 2d 21, 26, n. 2 (CA2 1981); Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Kramarsky, 650 F. 2d 1287, 1296-1302 (CA2 1981), and are not before us.
The opinion in the Airlines’ ease is reported as Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Kramarsky, 485 F. Supp. 300 (SDNY 1980); the District Court opinions in the two other cases are not reported. In the Airlines’ case, the District Court enjoined appellants from enforcing the Human Rights Law against the Airlines’ benefit plans with respect to the period from December 20, 1976 (the date of the New York Court of Appeals’ decision in Brooklyn Union Gas) to April 29, 1979 (the effective date of the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act). See App. to Juris. Statement A75. As of the latter date, the court held, the Airlines’ claims for relief were moot because federal law required the Airlines to include pregnancy disabilities in their employee benefit plans. 485 F. Supp., at 302.
In Burroughs’ case, the District Court enjoined prosecution of Burroughs for its refusal to compensate New York employees for pregnancy-related disability claims between January 1, 1975 (the effective date of ERISA) and April 1, 1979 (which the court mistakenly believed to be the effective date of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act). App. to Juris. Statement A103-A104. In Metropolitan’s case, the District Court enjoined enforcement of the Human Rights Law with respect to employee benefit plans subject to ERISA. The court’s order was not limited to pregnancy benefits and did not refer specifically to any time period. Id., at A119-A120.
The cases, of course, are not moot with respect to the period before the effective date of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, since enforcement of the Human Rights Law would subject appellees to liability.
The three cases were not consolidated on appeal, but were arguep the same day. The court treated the Airlines’ appeal as the “lead” case:
Initially, the Court of Appeals had reversed the District Courts’ holdings that ERISA pre-empted the Human Rights Law. Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. Kramarsky, 650 F. 2d 1287 (1981); Burroughs Corp. v. Kramarsky, 650 F. 2d 1308 (1981); Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Kramarsky, 650 F. 2d 1309 (1981). Although Pervel ordinarily would have been controlling, the court concluded that it was bound by this Court’s dismissals, for want of a substantial federal question, of the appeals in Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. State, 289 N. W. 2d 396 (Minn. 1979), appeal dism’d, 444 U. S. 1041 (1980), and Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Commissioner of Labor & Industry, 187 Mont. 22, 608 P. 2d 11047 (1979), appeal dis
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether, in an action brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against a public official whose position might entitle him to qualified immunity, a plaintiff must allege that the official has acted in bad faith in order to state a claim for relief or, alternatively, whether the defendant must plead good faith as an affirmative defense.
I
Petitioner Carlos Rivera Gomez brought this action against respondent, the Superintendent of the Police of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, contending that respondent had violated his right to procedural due process by discharging him from employment with the Police Department’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Basing jurisdiction on 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3), petitioner alleged the following facts in his complaint. Petitioner had been employed as an agent with the Puerto Rican police since 1968. In April 1975, he submitted a sworn statement to his supervisor in which he asserted that two other agents had offered false evidence for use in a criminal case under their investigation. As a result of this statement, petitioner was immediately transferred from the Criminal Investigation Corps for the Southern Area to Police Headquarters in San Juan, and a few weeks later to the Police Academy in Gurabo, where he was given no investigative authority. In the meantime respondent ordered an investigation of petitioner’s claims, and the Legal Division of the Police Department concluded that all of petitioner's factual allegations were true.
In April 1976, while still stationed at the Police Academy, petitioner was subpoenaed to give testimony in a criminal case arising out of the evidence that petitioner had alleged to be false. At the trial petitioner, appearing as a defense witness, testified that the evidence was in fact false. As a result of this testimony, criminal charges, filed on the basis of information furnished by respondent, were brought against petitioner for the allegedly unlawful wiretapping pf the agents’ telephones. Respondent suspended petitioner in May 1976 and discharged him without a hearing in July. In October, the District Court of Puerto Rico found no probable cause to believe that petitioner was guilty of the allegedly unlawful wiretapping and, upon appeal by the prosecution, the Superior Court affirmed. Petitioner in turn sought review of his discharge before the Investigation, Prosecution, and Appeals Commission of Puerto Rico, which, after a hearing, revoked the discharge order rendered by respondent and ordered that petitioner be reinstated with backpay.
Based on the foregoing factual allegations, petitioner brought this suit for damages, contending that his discharge violated his right to procedural due process, and that it had caused him anxiety, embarrassment, and injury to his reputation in the community. In his answer, respondent denied a number of petitioner’s allegations of fact and asserted several affirmative defenses. Respondent then moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6), and the District Court granted the motion. Observing that respondent was entitled to qualified immunity for acts done in good faith within the scope of his official duties, it concluded that petitioner was required to plead as part of his claim for relief that, in committing the actions alleged, respondent was motivated by bad faith. The absence of any such allegation, it held, required dismissal of the complaint. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. 602 F. 2d 1018 (1979).
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals. 444 U. S. 1031 (1980). We now reverse.
II
Section 1983 provides a cause of action for “the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws” by any person acting “under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory.” 42 U. S. C. § 1983. This statute, enacted to aid in “ The preservation of human liberty and human rights,’ ” Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622, 636 (1980), quoting Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 68 (1871) (Rep. Shellabarger), reflects a congressional judgment that a “damages remedy against the offending party is a vital component of any scheme for vindicating cherished constitutional guarantees,” 445 U. S., at 651. As remedial legislation, § 1983 is to be construed generously to further its primary purpose. See 445 U. S., at 636.
In certain limited circumstances, we have held that public officers are entitled to a qualified immunity from damages liability under § 1983. This conclusion has been based on an unwillingness to infer from legislative silence a congressional intention to abrogate immunities that were both “well established at common law” and “compatible with the purposes of the Civil Rights Act.” 445 U. S., at 638. Findings of immunity have thus been “predicated upon a considered inquiry into the immunity historically accorded the relevant official at common law and the interests behind it.” Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409, 421 (1976). In Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 555 (1967), for example, we concluded that a police officer would be “excus[ed] from liability for acting under a statute that he reasonably believed to be valid but that was later held unconstitutional, on its face or as applied.” And in other contexts we have held, on the basis of “[c]ommon-law tradition . . . and strong public-policy reasons,” Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308, 318 (1975), that certain categories of executive officers should be allowed qualified immunity from liability for acts done on the basis of an objectively reasonable belief that those acts were lawful. See Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U. S. 555 (1978) (prison officials); O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U. S. 563 (1975) (superintendent of state hospital); Wood v. Strickland, supra (local school board members); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232 (1974) (state Governor and other executive officers). Cf. Owen v. City of Independence, supra (no qualified immunity for municipalities).
Nothing in the language or legislative history of § 1983, however, suggests that in an action brought against a public official whose position might entitle him to immunity if he acted in good faith, a plaintiff must allege bad faith in order to state a claim for relief. By the plain terms of § 1983, two — and only two — allegations are required in order to state a cause of action under that statute. First, the plaintiff must allege that some person has deprived him of a federal right. Second, he must allege that the person who has deprived him of that right acted under color of state or territorial law. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 171 (1961). Petitioner has made both of the required allegations. He alleged that his discharge by respondent violated his right to procedural due process, see Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564 (1972), and that respondent acted under color of Puerto Rican law. See Monroe v. Pape, supra, at 172-187.
Moreover, this Court has never indicated that qualified immunity is relevant to the existence of the plaintiff’s cause of action; instead we have described it as a defense available to the official in question. See Procunier v. Navarette, supra, at 562; Pierson v. Ray, supra, at 556, 557; Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 508 (1978). Since qualified immunity is a defense, the burden of pleading it rests with the defendant. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8 (c) (defendant must plead any “matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense”) ; 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1271 (1969). It is for the official to claim that his conduct was justified by an objectively reasonable belief that it was lawful. We see no basis for imposing on the plaintiff an obligation to anticipate such a defense by stating in his complaint that the defendant acted in bad faith.
Our conclusion as to the allocation of the burden of pleading is supported by the nature of the qualified immunity defense. As our decisions make clear, whether such immunity has been established depends on facts peculiarly within the knowledge and control of the defendant. Thus we have stated that “[i]t is the existence of reasonable grounds for the belief formed at the time and in light of all the circumstances, coupled with good-faith belief, that affords a basis for qualified immunity of executive officers for acts performed in the course of official conduct.” Scheuer v. Rhodes, supra, at 247-248. The applicable test focuses not only on whether the official has an objectively reasonable basis for that belief, but also on whether “[t]he official himself [is] acting sincerely and with a belief that he is doing right,” Wood v. Strickland, supra, at 321. There may be no way for a plaintiff to know in advance whether the official has such a belief or, indeed, whether he will even claim that he does. The existence of a subjective belief will frequently turn on factors which a plaintiff cannot reasonably be expected to know. For example, the official’s belief may be based on state or local law, advice of counsel, administrative practice, or some other factor of which the official alone is aware. To impose the pleading burden on the plaintiff would ignore this elementary fact and be contrary to the established practice in analogous areas of the law.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins the opinion of the Court, reading it as he does to leave open the issue of the burden of persuasion, as opposed to the burden of pleading, with respect to a defense of qualified immunity.
The complaint originally named the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the police of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as additional defendants, but petitioner consented to their dismissal from the action. See App. 14, n. 1.
That section grants the federal district courts jurisdiction “[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.”
At this stage of the proceedings, of course, all allegations of the complaint must be accepted as true.
This decision was in accord with earlier decisions in that Circuit. See, e. g., Gaffney v. Silk, 488 F. 2d 1248 (1973); Kostka v. Hogg, 560 F. 2d 37 (1977); Maiorana v. MacDonald, 596 F. 2d 1072 (1979).
Other Courts of Appeals have held that the burden of pleading a defense of good faith lies with the defendant. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 456 F. 2d 1339, 1348 (CA2 1972) ; Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 538 F. 2d 53, 61-62 (CA3) (en banc), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 979 (1976); Bryan v. Jones, 530 F. 2d 1210, 1213 (CA5) (en banc), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 865 (1976); Jones v. Perrigan, 459 F. 2d 81, 83 (CA6 1972); Tritsis v. Backer, 501 F. 2d 1021, 1022-1023 (CA7 1974); Landrum v. Moats, 576 F. 2d 1320, 1324-1325, 1329 (CA8), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 912 (1978); Martin v. Duffie, 463 F. 2d 464, 468 (CA10 1972); Dellums v. Powell, 184 U. S. App. D. C. 275, 284-285, 566 F. 2d 167, 175-176 (1977), cert. denied, 438 U. S. 916 (1978). Cf. McCray v. Burrell, 516 F. 2d 357, 370 (CA4 1975) (en banc) (burden of proof), cert. dism’d, 426 U. S. 471 (1976); Gilker v. Baker, 576 F. 2d 245 (CA9 1978) (same).
Section 1983 provides in full: “Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, 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.”
Actions under Puerto Rican law come within both § 1983 and its jurisdictional predicate, 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3). Examining Board v. Flores de Otero, 426 U. S. 672 (1976).
As then Dean Charles Clark stated over 40 years ago: “It seems to be considered only fair that certain types of things which in common law pleading were matters in confession and avoidance — i. e., matters which seemed more or less to admit the general complaint and yet to suggest some other reason why there was no right — must be specifically pleaded in the answer, and that has been a general rule.” ABA, Proceedings Institute at Washington and Symposium at New York City on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 49 (1939). See also 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §§ 1270-1271 (1969). Cf. FTC v. A. E. Staley Mfg. Co., 324 U. S. 746, 759 (1945) (good-faith defense under Robinson-Patman Act); Barcellona v. Tiffany English Pub., Inc., 597 F. 2d 464, 468 (CA5 1979); Cohen v. Ayers, 596 F. 2d 733, 739-740 (CA7 1979); United States v. Kroll, 547 F. 2d 393 (CA7 1977).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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.
United Air Lines, Inc., challenged the constitutionality of the Illinois general revenue use tax as applied to aviation fuel stored in Illinois and then loaded aboard aircraft there and consumed in interstate flights. The Supreme Court of Illinois upheld the state tax as currently applied, concluding that it did not impose an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. 49 Ill. 2d 45, 273 N. E. 2d 585 (1971). We noted probable jurisdiction. 405 U. S. 986 (1972). We now affirm that holding, but we vacate the judgment and remand the case for consideration of an issue under state law.
Since 1953, United has purchased aviation fuel from a supplier for delivery from the supplier’s Indiana facilities. This fuel is utilized by United in its extensive operations out of O’Hare and Midway airports in the Chicago area of Illinois. Although the method of delivery varies for different types of fuel and for the two airports, all fuel is delivered by common carrier and is held for periods ranging from two to 12 days in ground storage facilities maintained in Illinois by United. Fuel for both interstate and intrastate operations is delivered in the same manner. United voluntarily has paid the tax on fuel consumed in purely intrastate operations. Only the tax as applied to fuel used in interstate flights is in issue.
In 1955, Illinois enacted a general tax on the “privilege of using” tangible personal property in the State. Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 120, § 439.3 (1971). “Use” was defined to include the “exercise ... of any right or power over tangible personal property incident to the ownership of that property.” § 439.2. Some exceptions from this inclusive definition were made. One of these exceptions, which the statute recites, § 439.3, is “[t]o prevent actual or likely multistate taxation,” is the temporary-storage provision. This denies application of the tax to property brought from another State and stored temporarily in Illinois before use solely outside the State.
Since this general use tax, apart from its exceptions, reached all tangible personal property, it applied by its terms to fuel stored for use in vehicles. From 1955 to 1963, the Illinois Department of Revenue allowed interstate common carriers to benefit from the temporary-storage provision to the extent that fuel, although loaded aboard in Illinois, was not consumed by the vehicle in that State. The amount of aviation fuel used over Illinois could be calculated because scheduled airline routes are precise and the rate of consumption by each type of aircraft is known. This “burn off” interpretation was changed in 1963, however, when the Department announced by bulletin that it was reinterpreting the temporary-storage provision to mean that “temporary storage ends and a taxable use occurs when the fuel is taken out of storage facilities and is placed into the tank of the airplane, railroad engine or truck.” Thus, as the Illinois court described it, “all fuel loaded on United’s planes at the two airports was deemed to measure the tax.” 49 Ill. 2d, at 49, 273 N. E. 2d, at 587.
United’s suit attacked the new interpretation on both state and federal grounds. All justices of the Supreme Court of Illinois agreed that the new interpretation did not run afoul of the Federal Constitution, but the justices disagreed over the applicability and validity of the “burn off” alternative discussed in the several opinions. 49 Ill. 2d, at 50-53, 56, 57-59, 273 N. E. 2d, at 587-589, 591-592.
I
Two decisions of this Court were relied upon by the Illinois court in reaching its conclusion that the present application of the state tax was not offensive to the Federal Constitution. The cases are Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, 289 U. S. 249 (1933), and Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249 (1933). We agree that these cases support the application of the Illinois tax to all fuel stored in Illinois and loaded aboard United’s aircraft for in-flight consumption.
In Edelman, this Court upheld a state gasoline use tax, even when imposed on gasoline imported from outside the State, stored in tanks at an airport, and loaded aboard planes departing on interstate flights. The decision in Edelman followed the holding in Nashville that oil purchased by a railroad outside Tennessee but stored in Tennessee solely for the purpose of providing motive power for the railroad’s interstate and intrastate operations could be subjected constitutionally to a Tennessee privilege tax. In Nashville, as in this case, none of the fuel stored was held as inventory for sale, and the tax was not one for the use of special services furnished by the State to the taxpayer railroad.
In Edelman, the Court accepted the State’s determination that the taxable event was withdrawal from storage rather than consumption. 289 U. S., at 251. The airline in Edelman contended, id., at 252, that the state tax was invalid under Helson v. Kentucky, 279 U. S. 245 (1929). In Helson, the Court held that a Kentucky tax on the use of gasoline within the State fell too directly on interstate commerce when it was imposed on fuel loaded in Illinois but consumed in the course of an interstate ferry’s trip through Kentucky. In Edelman, the Court distinguished Helson because storage, rather than consumption, was the taxable event. See Southern Pacific Co. v. Gallagher, 306 U. S. 167 (1939).
The Supreme Court of Illinois characterized the taxable “use” under the Illinois statute as either storage or withdrawal from storage. United argued in the state court that the temporary-storage provision constituted a legislative waiver of the right to tax storage prior to loading. The Illinois court rejected this contention, noting that United stored fuel at the airport for general use. On these facts, the Supreme Court of Illinois concluded that the Illinois use tax applied to storage by United before loading and that this application was constitutional:
“Under the circumstances, the 'storage’ becomes something more than a 'temporary storage’ for safekeeping prior to its use solely outside of Illinois. Such storage, under the plain words of the statute, does not qualify under the temporary storage exemption and, as the authorities already discussed reveal, either the storage itself or the withdrawal therefrom are uses which may be taxed without offending the commerce clause of the Federal constitution.” 49 Ill. 2d, at 55-56, 273 N. E. 2d, at 590 (emphasis added).
The Illinois dissenters, too, treated the taxable event as storage or withdrawal. 49 Ill. 2d, at 57, 273 N. E. 2d, at 591.
This Court usually has deferred to the interpretation placed on a state tax statute by the highest court of the State. Scripto, Inc. v. Carson, 362 U. S. 207, 210 (1960); General Trading Co. v. State Tax Comm’n, 322 U. S. 335, 337 (1944). See Evco v. Jones, 409 U. S. 91 (1972). As in Edelman, we see no reason to ignore, or to disagree with, the state court’s determination that the taxable event is storage rather than consumption.
We hold that Edelman and Nashville support the conclusion of the Supreme Court of Illinois that this tax, as applied to all fuel withdrawn from storage for consumption in an interstate vehicle, does not place an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. Further, we decline to hold that Edelman has outlived its usefulness. We must concede that for a long time this area of state tax law has been cloudy and complicated, primarily because the varied nature of interstate activities makes line drawing difficult. This Court has established some precedents, however, and Edelman and Nashville remain useful guidelines.
The line drawn between an impermissible tax on mere consumption of fuel, as in Helson, and a permissible tax on storage of fuel before loading, as in Edelman and Nashville, continues to serve rational purposes. Retaining the line at this point minimizes the danger of double taxation and yet provides a source of revenue having a relation to the event taxed. Double taxation is minimized because the fuel cannot be taxed by States through which it is transported, under Michigan-Wiscousin Pipe Line Co. v. Calvert, 347 U. S. 157 (1954), nor by the State in which it is merely consumed, under Helson. A fair result is achieved because a State in which preload-ing storage facilities are maintained is likely to provide substantial services to those facilities, including police protection and the maintenance of public access roads.
Since no persuasive reason has been advanced for changing the established rule, we reaffirm Edelman and Nashville as precedents.
II
United contended in state court that the Illinois temporary-storage exemption should be interpreted, as a matter of state law, to encompass the “burn off” rule which, as noted above, had received administrative sanction for eight years. 49 Ill. 2d, at 49, 273 N. E. 2d, at 587. Two justices of the Illinois court deemed themselves bound under Helson to regard the “burn off” rule as invalid under the Federal Constitution. 49 Ill. 2d, at 50, 273 N. E. 2d, at 587. This basis for construing a state statute creates a federal question. Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit Co., 264 U. S. 109, 120 (1924). The possibility that the state court might have reached the same conclusion if it had decided the question purely as a matter of state law does not create an adequate and independent state ground that relieves this Court of the necessity of considering the federal question. Beecher v. Alabama, 389 U. S. 35, 37 n. 3 (1967); see C. Wright, Federal Courts § 107, p. 488 (2d ed. 1970). Since the other justices of the Illinois court divided three to two on the state law issue, the votes of the two who felt bound by Helson could be determinative of the state issue. Under these circumstances, we proceed to consider the validity of the “burn off” rule in the light of Helson, as United has urged us to do. See Perkins v. Benguet Mining Co., 342 U. S. 437, 441-443 (1952).
The facts in Helson are different from the facts here. In Helson, the operators of the interstate ferry boat purchased and took delivery of fuel in Illinois. The office, the place of business, and the situs of all the taxpayer’s property were in Illinois. The boat crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky on regular runs, and Kentucky sought to impose a tax on the use of gasoline consumed in Kentucky. The Court invalidated the tax “computed and imposed upon the use of the gasoline thus consumed.” 279 U. S., at 248.
In the present case, Illinois is the State of storage of United’s fuel before loading. If Illinois imposed a tax on the basis of that storage but measured the tax only by the fuel consumed over Illinois, a lower tax would result. The dangers of multiple taxation and possible tax windfalls, already suggested as justifying the Helson decision, would not be present if the tax were imposed on storage prior to loading but were measured by consumption. Multiple taxation and tax windfalls are avoided because only one State — the State of storage before loading — has a local event upon which a tax is imposed. Under Helson, States over which the planes fly will be unable to impose a tax on mere consumption.
The use of a method of tax measurement that is intimately related to interstate commerce is not automatically unconstitutional. Tolls on the use of facilities that aid interstate commerce have been upheld even when measured by passengers or by mileage traveled on the highways of a State. Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority District v. Delta Airlines, 405 U. S. 707 (1972); Interstate Busses Corp. v. Blodgett, 276 U. S. 245 (1928). Upon the facts before us, we see no constitutional barrier to the use of the “burn off” rule by Illinois to measure the tax imposed for storage before loading.
Since we now determine that the federal compulsion felt by two justices of the Illinois court is not warranted, we remand the case to avoid the risk of “an affirmance of a decision which might have been decided differently if the court below had felt free, under our decisions, to do so.” Perkins v. Benguet Mining Co., 342 U. S., at 443. We, of course, express no opinion on the construction of the temporary-storage provision under state law.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois is vacated and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings.
T. ■ , , It is so ordered.
Turbine (jet) fuel for use at O’Hare is shipped by common carrier pipeline from the supplier’s Indiana terminals to a 15-million-gallon storage facility at Des Plaines, Illinois. App. 168-169. Normally, three deliveries are made each month to this facility. App. 129. Smaller quantities of fuel are transferred by pipeline to facilities maintained by United at O’Hare.
Turbine fuel for use at Midway and aviation gasoline for both airports is transported from Indiana by common carrier tank truck to airport storage facilities. App. 159.
The parties have stipulated that the period of storage ranges from two to 12 days. App. 38. The Des Plaines storage facilities are not owned by United; it and another airline jointly lease the facilities. United shares in the cost of repairs, the risk of loss, and the employment of a managing agent. App. 132, 168.
App. 173-174. United uses fuel from the storage facilities for its intrastate training flights and for the intrastate leg of flights that stop at both Chicago and Moline, Illinois. 49 Ill. 2d 45, 47-48, 273 N. E. 2d 585, 586. United also engages in interstate charter flights. App. 37 n. 6.
The temporary-storage provision excepts
“(d) the temporary storage, in this State, of tangible personal property which is acquired outside this State and which, subsequent to being brought into this State and stored here temporarily, is used solely outside this State or physically attached to or incorporated into other tangible personal property that is used solely outside this State.” § 439.3.
The Illinois court’s interpretation of the temporary-storage provision makes it clear that loading into the tanks of the airplane is a relevant event but is not the taxable event. The court indicated that the temporary storage exemption suspended the effect of otherwise taxable events:
“To put it another way, the legislature has stated that the temporary storage and the withdrawal therefrom are not taxable uses, if the property in question is to be used solely outside the State. It is clear that if United was to withdraw its fuel from storage at Des Plaines and the airports and transport it outside the State for use elsewhere, as for example at an airport in nearby Wisconsin, the exemption would apply and neither the storage, nor the withdrawal, nor the transportation of the fuel outside the State would be uses subject to the tax.” 49 Ill. 2d, at 55, 273 N. E. 2d, at 590.
Under this view, all the fuel is “used” and subject to Illinois tax when it is temporarily stored or withdrawn from storage. The taxable event is nullified, however, if the fuel is transported from the State for consumption elsewhere.
Although this use of a subsequent event to define the effect of a prior event may appear somewhat unusual, the result may be said to be compelled since fuel in transit may not be constitutionally taxed. See Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Calvert, 347 U. S. 157 (1954). A similar exemption for gasoline “exported or sold for exportation from the State” was present in the Wyoming statute challenged in Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, 289 U. S. 249, 250 (1933).
Amici have urged reconsideration of Edelman, arguing that it represents “a high-water mark in the Court’s search in the early thirties for formulas that would assist states in finding additional sources of revenue.” Brief for American Airlines et al. 13.
Although this is a general state tax, rather than a toll on commerce, this Court has recognized that interstate commerce can be “required to pay a nondiscriminatory share of the tax burden.” Braniff Airways v. Nebraska State Board of Equalization, 347 U. S. 590, 598 (1954). In Helson v. Kentucky, 279 U. S. 245 (1929), in contrast, the ferry boat was asked to bear more than its “nondiscriminatory share” when it was taxed only for passing through Kentucky waters.
Those justices of the Illinois court who relied on Helson did not consider, apparently, any interpretation of Helson that would prevent multistate taxation. They suggested that an adoption of the “burn off” rule would allow taxation by every State over which United’s planes fly. 49 Ill. 2d, at 51, 273 N. E. 2d, at 588.
United successfully calculated and paid the state tax under the “bum off” interpretation for eight years. App. 41. No suggestion has been made that the recordkeeping procedures were an intolerable burden on commerce or that special equipment must be installed to measure fuel consumption.
Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 120, § 439.1 et seq.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to determine whether federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over personal injury and indemnity cases arising under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 67 Stat. 462, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 1331 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. III). We also consider whether the rule of Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Liepelt, 444 U. S. 490 (1980), that the jury be instructed that personal injury damages awards are not subject to federal income taxation, is applicable to such a case.
I
Respondent, Mobil Oil Corp., contracted with petitioner, Gulf Offshore Co., for the latter to perform certain completion operations on oil drilling platforms offshore of Louisiana. As part of the agreement, petitioner promised to indemnify Mobil for all claims resulting directly or indirectly from the work. While the work was in progress in September 1975, the advent of Hurricane Eloise required that workers be evacuated from oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Steven Gaedecke was an employee of petitioner working on an oil drilling platform above the seabed of the Outer Continental Shelf. As the storm approached, a boat chartered by Mobil took him safely aboard. Shortly thereafter, while assisting crewmen attempting to evacuate other workers from the platforms in turbulent sea, he was washed across the deck of the vessel by a wave. He suffered injuries primarily to his back.
Gaedecke brought this suit for damages in the District Court of Harris County, a Texas state court, alleging negligence by Mobil and the boatowner. Mobil filed a third-party complaint for indemnification against petitioner. In its third-party answer, petitioner denied that the state court had subject-matter jurisdiction over the third-party complaint. Petitioner argued that Mobil’s cause of action arose under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), and that OCSLA vested exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction in a United States district court. The Texas trial court rejected this contention, and the case went to trial before a jury.
In submitting the case to the jury, the trial court denied a request by petitioner to instruct them that personal injury damages awards are not subject to federal income taxation and that they should not increase or decrease an award in contemplation of tax consequences. The jury found Mobil negligent and awarded Gaedecke $900,000 for his injuries. The jury also found, however, that Gaedecke sustained his injuries while performing work subject to the contract of indemnification. Based on the two verdicts, the trial judge entered judgment against petitioner in the amount of $900,000.
The Texas Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. 594 S. W. 2d 496 (1979). It held that the Texas state courts had subject-matter jurisdiction over the causes of action. It acknowledged that OCSLA governed the case, but found no explicit command in the Act that federal-court jurisdiction be exclusive. The court also observed that exclusive federal-court jurisdiction was unnecesary because the Act incorporates as federal law in personal injury actions the laws of the State adjacent to the scene of the events, when not inconsistent with other federal laws. 43 U. S. C. § 1333 (a)(2). Thus, the court reasoned, “[t]he end result would be an application of the same laws no matter where the forum was located, whether state or federal.” 594 S. W. 2d, at 502. The court also held that the trial court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury that damages awards are not subject to federal income taxation. The Texas Supreme Court denied review.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict over whether federal courts have exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction over suits arising under OCSLA and to consider whether an instruction that damages are not taxable is appropriate in such a case. 449 IT. S. 1033 (1980).
II
A
The general principle of state-court jurisdiction over cases arising under federal laws is straightforward: state courts may assume subject-matter jurisdiction over a federal cause of action absent provision by Congress to the contrary or disabling incompatibility between the federal claim and state-court adjudication. Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U. S. 502, 507-508 (1962); Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 136 (1876). This rule is premised on the relation between the States and the National Government within our federal system. See The Federalist No. 82 (Hamilton). The two exercise concurrent sovereignty, although the Constitution limits the powers of each and requires the States to recognize federal law as paramount. Federal law confers rights binding on state courts, the subject-matter jurisdiction of which is governed in the first instance by state laws.
In considering the propriety of state-court jurisdiction over any particular federal claim, the Court begins with the presumption that state courts enjoy concurrent jurisdiction. See California v. Arizona, 440 U. S. 59, 66-67 (1979); Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U. S., at 507-508. Congress, however, may confine jurisdiction to the federal courts either explicitly or implicitly. Thus, the presumption of concurrent jurisdiction can be rebutted by an explicit statutory directive, by unmistakable implication from legislative history, or by a clear incompatibility between state-court jurisdiction and federal interests. See ibid.; Claflin, supra, at 137. See also Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485 (1953) (grievance within jurisdiction of National Labor Relations Board to prevent unfair labor practice not subject to relief by injunction in state court).
B
No one argues that Congress explicitly granted federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over cases arising under OCSLA. Congress did grant United States district courts “original jurisdiction of cases and controversies arising out of or in connection with any operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf . . . 43 U. S. C. § 1333 (b). It is black letter law, however, that the mere grant of jurisdiction to a federal court does not operate to oust a state court from concurrent jurisdiction over the cause of action. United States v. Bank of New York & Trust Co., 296 U. S. 463, 479 (1936).
OCSLA declares the Outer Continental Shelf to be an area of “exclusive federal jurisdiction.” 43 U. S. C. § 1333 (a) (1). Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 100 (1971). Petitioner does contend that the assertion of exclusive political jurisdiction over the Shelf evinces a congressional intent that federal courts exercise exclusive jurisdiction over controversies arising from operations on the Shelf. See Fluor Ocean Services, Inc. v. Rucker Co., 341 F. Supp. 757, 760 (ED La. 1972). This argument is premised on a perceived incompatibility between exclusive federal sovereignty over the Outer Continental Shelf and state-court jurisdiction over controversies relating to the Shelf. We think petitioner mistakes the purpose of OCSLA and the policies necessitating exclusive federal-court jurisdiction.
OCSLA extends the “Constitution and laws and civil and political jurisdiction of the United States” to the subsoil and seabed of the Outer Continental Shelf and to “artificial islands and fixed structures” built for discovery, extraction, and transportation of minerals. 43 U. S. C. § 1333 (a)(1). All law applicable to the Outer Continental Shelf is federal law, but to fill the substantial “gaps” in the coverage of federal law, OCSLA borrows the “applicable and not inconsistent” laws of the adjacent States as surrogate federal law. § 1333 (a) (2); Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty Co., 395 U. S. 352, 355-359 (1969). Thus, a personal injury action involving events occurring on the Shelf is governed by federal law, the content of which is borrowed from the law of the adjacent State, here Louisiana. See id., at 362-365. Cf. United States v. Kimbell Foods, Inc., 440 U. S. 715 (1979) (state law incorporated as federal common law concerning priority of liens created by federal law).
The OCSLA plan is not inimical to state-court jurisdiction over personal injury actions. Nothing inherent in exclusive federal sovereignty over a territory precludes a state court from entertaining a personal injury suit concerning events occurring in the territory and governed by federal law. Ohio River Contract Co. v. Cordon, 244 U. S. 68 (1917). See 16 U. S. C. § 457 (personal injury and wrongful-death actions involving events occurring “within a national park or other place subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, within the exterior boundaries of any State” shall be maintained as if the place were under the jurisdiction of the State). Cf. Evans v. Cornman, 398 U. S. 419, 424 (1970) (residents of an area of exclusive federal jurisdiction within a State are “subject to the process and jurisdiction of state courts”). “The judiciary power of every government looks beyond its own local or municipal laws, and in civil cases lays hold of all subjects of litigation between parties within its jurisdiction, though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most distant part of the globe.” The Federalist No. 82, p. 514 (H. Lodge ed. 1908) (Hamilton), quoted in Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S., at 138. State courts routinely exercise subject-matter jurisdiction over civil cases arising from events in other States and governed by the other States’ laws. See, e. g., Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U. S. 11 (1881). Cf. Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U. S. 302 (1981). That the location of the event giving rise to the suit is an area of exclusive federal jurisdiction rather than another State, does not introduce any new limitation on the forum State’s subject-matter jurisdiction. Ohio River Contract Co. v. Gordon, supra, at 72.
Section 1333 (a) (3) provides that “adoption of State law as the law of the United States shall never be interpreted as a basis for claiming any interest in or jurisdiction on behalf of any State for any purpose over the seabed and subsoil of the outer Continental Shelf, or the property and natural resources thereof or the revenues therefrom.” Petitioner argues that state-court jurisdiction over this personal injury case would contravene this provision. This argument again confuses the political jurisdiction of a State with its judicial jurisdiction. Section 1333 (a)(3) speaks to the geographic boundaries of state sovereignty, because Congress primarily was concerned in enacting OCSLA to assure federal control over the Shelf and its resources. See n. 7, supra. The language of the provision refers to “any interest in or jurisdiction over” real property, minerals, and revenues, not over causes of action. Indeed, opponents of OCSLA urged Congress to extend the political boundaries of the States seaward over the Shelf, at least for some purposes. See 99 Cong. Rec. 7230 (remarks of Sen. Ellender), 7232 (remarks of Sen. Long) (1953). The Senate Report explains that § 1333 (a)(3) was intended to make plain that the adoption of state law as federal law cannot be the basis for a claim by the State “for participation in the administration of or revenues from the areas outside of State boundaries.” 1953 S. Rep., at 23.
We do not think the legislative history of OCSLA can be read to rebut the presumption of concurrent state-court jurisdiction, given Congress’ silence on the subject in the statute itself. Petitioner relies principally on criticisms by the two Senators from Louisiana, Ellender and Long, who opposed the bill that eventually became OCSLA. Yet “[t]he fears and doubts of the opposition are no authoritative guide to the construction of legislation.” Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U. S. 384, 394 (1951). Moreover, the amendments offered by the Senators sought to confer political control over the Shelf and its mineral wealth on the States, not jurisdiction on the state courts over OCSLA cases. See 99 Cong. Rec. 7230 (Sen. Ellender), 7232 (Sen. Long) (1953).
C
The operation of OCSLA will not be frustrated by state-court jurisdiction over personal injury actions. The factors generally recommending exclusive federal-court jurisdiction over an area of federal law include the desirability of uniform interpretation, the expertise of federal judges in federal law, and the assumed greater hospitality of federal courts to peculiarly federal claims. These factors cannot support exclusive federal jurisdiction over claims whose governing rules are borrowed from state law. There is no need for uniform interpretation of laws that vary from State to State. State judges have greater expertise in applying these laws and certainly cannot be thought unsympathetic to a claim only because it is labeled federal rather than state law.
Allowing personal injury and contract actions in state courts will advance interests identified by Congress in enacting OCSLA. A recurring consideration in the deliberations leading to enactment was “the special relationship between the men working on these [platforms] and the adjacent shore to which they commute to visit their families.” Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty Co., 395 U. S., at 365. Allowing state-court jurisdiction over these cases will allow these workers, and their lawyers, to pursue individual claims in familiar, convenient, and possibly less expensive fora. See Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S., at 103 (state statute of limitations applies to personal injury actions arising under OCSLA).
In summary, nothing in the language, structure, legislative history, or underlying policies of OCSLA suggests that Congress intended federal courts to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over personal injury actions arising under OCSLA. The Texas courts had jurisdiction over this case.
Ill
The Court of Civil Appeals held that petitioner was not entitled to an instruction cautioning the jury that personal injury damages awards are not subject to federal income taxation, § 104 (a) (2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. §104 (a)(2). In so ruling the court relied on Johnson v. Penrod Drilling Co., 510 F. 2d 234, 236-237 (CA5) (en banc) (per curiam), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 839 (1975), a Jones Act case where the Court of Appeals prohibited presenting evidence or instructing the jury as to the impact of taxes on damages awards based on lost wages. This Court subsequently held that a defendant in a suit brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 45 U. S. C. § 51 et seq., is entitled to an instruction that damages for lost future wages are not subject to federal income taxation. Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Liepelt, 444 U. S. 490 (1980). Petitioner now argues that Liepelt applies to an OCSLA personal injury action and that this case should be remanded for a new trial on damages before a properly instructed jury.
Our first task is to determine the source of law that will govern whether such an instruction must be available in an OCSLA case. OCSLA, as discussed above, mandates that state laws apply as federal laws “[t]o the extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent with this subchapter or with other Federal laws.” 43 U. S. C. § 1333 (a)(2). In any particular case, the adjacent State’s law applies to those areas “which would be within the area of the State if its boundaries were extended seaward to the outer margin of the outer Continental Shelf . . . Ibid. The statute thus contains air explicit choice-of-law provision. See n. 8, supra. The parties agree that the substantive law of Louisiana applies to this case, unless it is inconsistent with federal law.
To apply the statutory directive a court must consider the content of both potentially applicable federal and state law. Subsequent to the decision of the Texas court, as noted above, we held in Liepelt, supra, that a defendant in an FELA case is entitled to an instruction that damages awards are not subject to federal income taxation. As FELA afforded no guidance on this issue, the holding articulated a federal common-law rule. The purpose was to eliminate from the deliberations of juries “an area of doubt or speculation that might have an improper impact on the computation of the amount of damages.” 444 U. S., at 498. Thus, the instruction furthers strong federal policies of fairness and efficiency in litigation of federal claims. If Congress had been silent about the source of federal law in an OCSLA personal injury case, Liepelt would require that the instruction be given.
But Congress was not silent. It incorporated for this case the applicable law of Louisiana, but only “[t]o the extent [it is] not inconsistent” with federal law. The statute does not distinguish between federal statutory and judge-made law. It would seem then that if Louisiana law is “inconsistent,” Liepelt controls. Doubt arises, however, because in OCSLA Congress borrowed a remedy provided by state law and thereby “specifically rejected national uniformity” as a paramount goal. Chevron Oil v. Huson, 404 U. S., at 104. In Chevron, we held that Louisiana rather than federal common law provided the federal statute of limitations for personal injury damages actions under OCSLA. We recognized that “Congress made clear provision for filling the ‘gaps’ in federal law; it did not intend that federal courts fill those 'gaps’ themselves by creating new federal common law.” Id., at 104M05. In this case, we face an analogous question: does the incorporation of state law preclude a court from finding that state law is “inconsistent” with a federal common-law rule generally applicable to federal damages actions?
We need answer this question only if Louisiana law would not require that the instruction be given upon timely request. The court below never addressed this question but relied solely on federal case law now superseded. Under these circumstances it is the better practice to remand this case to the Texas Court of Civil Appeals for a determination of whether Louisiana law requires the instruction and, if it does not, whether Liepelt displaces the state rule in an OCSLA case. If the court decides that it was error to refuse the instruction, it may then address respondents’ argument that petitioner was not prejudiced by the error.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.
Justice Stewart took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mobil claimed indemnification on the grounds of both its contract with petitioner and the allegation that petitioner’s negligence caused the accident. Prior to trial Gaedecke entered into a conditional settlement agreement with Mobil, which limited his potential recovery against Mobil to $200,000; in return Mobil agreed to proceed against petitioner for indemnification only on the basis of the contract. Gaedecke also settled his claim with the boatowner.
Texas had in personam jurisdiction over Mobil and petitioner, each of whom does business in Texas. Gaedecke was a resident of Harris County, Tex.
See Pool v. Kemper Ins. Group, 386 So. 2d 1006 (La. App. 1980) ; Friedrich v. Whittaker Corp., 467 F. Supp. 1012 (SD Tex. 1979); Gravois v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 173 So. 2d 550 (La. App. 1965). See also Fluor Ocean Services, Inc. v. Rucker Co., 341 F. Supp. 757, 760 (ED La. 1972).
Permitting state courts to entertain federal causes of action facilitates the enforcement of federal rights. If Congress does not confer jurisdiction on federal courts to hear a particular federal claim, the state courts stand ready to vindicate the federal right, subject always to review, of course, in this Court. See Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 346-348 (1816). This practical concern was more important before the statutory creation in 1875 of general federal-question jurisdiction.
Congress amended and recodified the jurisdictional provisions of OCSLA in 1978, without effecting any change that casts light on the issue of exclusive federal-court jurisdiction before us today. Pub. L. 95-372, Title II, §208 (b), 92 Stat. 657. See S. Conf. Rep. No. 95-1091, p. 114 (1978). But cf. Pub. L. 95-372, Title II, §208 (a)(2)(B), 92 Stat. 657 (contemplating suit by the Attorney General in state court to remedy violations of the Act). The grant of jurisdiction to a federal district court is now codified at 43 U. S. C. § 1349 (b)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. III). In this opinion, we employ the Code citations prior to the recodification.
This principle defeats petitioner’s reliance on the provision in § 1333 (a) (2): “All of such applicable laws shall be administered and enforced by the appropriate officers and courts of the United States.” The phrase “such applicable laws” refers to the laws of the adjacent States, which § 1333 (a) (2) incorporates as federal law for the Outer Continental Shelf. See infra, at 480-481. The language relied upon merely makes clear that these borrowed state laws are to be enforced like other federal laws, and nothing indicates an intent to exclude state courts from the subject-matter jurisdiction they exercise generally over federal claims.
The legislative history confirms that the purpose of OCSLA was “to assert the exclusive jurisdiction and control of the Federal Government of the United States over the seabed and subsoil of the outer Continental Shelf, and to provide for the development of its vast mineral resources.” S. Rep. No. 411, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1953) (hereinafter 1953 S. Rep.). Congress enacted OCSLA in the wake of decisions by this Court that the Federal Government enjoyed sovereignty and ownership of the seabed and subsoil of the Outer Continental Shelf to the exclusion of adjacent States. See United States v. Texas, 339 U. S. 707 (1950); United States v. Louisiana, 339 U. S. 699 (1950). See also United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947). See generally Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 730 (1981). Congress chose to retain exclusive federal control of the administration of the Shelf because it underlay the high seas and the assertion of sovereignty there implicated the foreign policies of the Nation. See 1953 S. Rep., at 6. Much of OCSLA provides a federal framework for the granting of leases for exploration and extraction of minerals from the submerged lands of the Shelf. See 43 U. S. C. §§ 1334^1343.
Congress was not unaware, however, of the close, longstanding relationship between the Shelf and the adjacent. States. See 1953 S. Rep., at 6. This concern manifested itself primarily in the incorporation of the law of adjacent States to fill gaps in federal law. See Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty Co., 395 U. S. 352, 365 (1969). It should be emphasized that this case only involves state-court jurisdiction over actions based on incorporated state law. We express no opinion on whether state courts enjoy concurrent jurisdiction over actions based on the substantive provisions of OCSLA.
OCSLA does supersede the normal choice-of-law rules that the forum would apply. See Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 102-103 (1971). It also provides where proper venue will be found: “in the judicial district in which any defendant resides or may be found, or in the judicial district of the State nearest the place the cause of action arose.” 43 U. S. C. §1349 (b)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. III).
Petitioner also relies on a report made to the Senate Committee by the Department of Justice, which argued that the Federal Government should “have the exclusive control of lawmaking and law enforcement” on the Shelf. 1953 S. Rep., at 6. But Congress rejected the Department’s premise that the Shelf is “not comparable to . . . federally owned areas within a State.” Ibid. See Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty Co., 395 U. S., at 365. Section 1333 (a)(1) rather provides that the federal laws apply to the Shelf “to the same extent as if the outer Continental Shelf were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State.”
Senator Long did express the fear that OCSLA placed exclusive jurisdiction over all civil suits in federal district courts. 1953 S. Rep., at 66 (minority report); 99 Cong. Rec. 7233 (1953).
Most of the Senators’ statements regarding OCSLA’s effect on state-court jurisdiction criticize placing exclusive criminal jurisdiction in federal courts. See, e. g., id., at 7231-7232 (Sen. Ellender). But the statute that gives federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over federal crimes, 18 U. S. C. § 3231, has no relevance to this case.
Exclusive federal-court jurisdiction over a cause of action generally is unnecessary to protect the parties. The plaintiff may choose the available forum he prefers, and the defendant may remove the case if it could have been brought originally in a federal court. 28 U. S. C. § 1441 (b). Also, exclusive federal jurisdiction will not prevent a state court from deciding a federal question collaterally even if it would not have subject-matter jurisdiction over a case raising the question directly. See Note, Exclusive Jurisdiction of Federal Courts in Private Civil Actions, 70 Harv. L. Rev. 509, 510 (1957).
See Redish & Muench, Adjudication of Federal Causes of Action in State Court, 75 Mich. L. Rev. 311, 329-335 (1976); Note, 70 Harv. L. Rev., supra n. 12, at 511-515.
Liepelt also found error in the trial court’s refusal to allow the defendant to introduce evidence showing the effect of income taxes on the plaintiff’s future earnings. 444 U. S., at 493-496. This case does not present the question whether this second holding is applicable to OCSLA cases.
Respondents argue that we cannot address the necessity of giving the requested instruction because petitioner did not preserve its objection in the trial court in the manner required by Texas law. This argument is incorrect. The Texas Court of Civil Appeals held on the merits that petitioner was not entitled to the instruction.
We also reject respondents’ contention that we are foreclosed from deciding the issue because petitioner did not introduce any evidence about the effect of taxation on Gaedecke’s future earnings. No evidentiary predicate is required to instruct a jury not to consider taxes.
Respondents’ argument that Liepelt should apply prospectively only is insubstantial. Here, we address a change in the law occurring while the case is on direct appeal. "[A]n appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision.” Thorpe v. Housing Authority of City of Durham, 393 U. S. 268, 281 (1969); see United States v. Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch 103 (1801). While there well might be an exception to the rule to prevent “manifest injustice,” Bradley v. Richmond School Board, 416 U. S. 696, 717 (1974), this equitable exception does not reach a private civil suit where the change does not extinguish a cause of action but merely requires a retrial on damages before a properly instructed jury. Lang v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 624 F. 2d 1275, 1279-1280, and n. 9 (CA5 1980). Indeed, considerations of fairness support retroactive application: failure to give the instruction may lead to the plaintiff recovering a windfall award. Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Liepelt, supra, at 497-498.
The overwhelming weight of authority supports retroactive application of this decision. See O’Byrne v. St. Louis Southwestern R. Co., 632 F. 2d 1285 (CA5 1980); Flanigan v. Burlington Northern Inc., 632 F. 2d 880 (CA8 1980); Lang v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., supra; Crabtree v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 89 Ill. App. 3d 35, 411 N. E. 2d 19 (1980). Other eases have applied Liepelt retroactively without comment. Cazad v. Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co., 622 F. 2d 72 (CA4 1980); Seaboard Coast Line R. Co. v. Yow, 384 So. 2d 13 (Ala. 1980). But see Ingle v. Illinois Central Gulf R. Co., 608 S. W. 2d 76 (Mo. App. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 916 (1981).
The general applicability of Liepelt is indicated by the Court’s quotation with approval of the explanation of need for the instruction in Domeracki v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 443 F. 2d 1245, 1251 (CA3), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 883 (1971), a longshoreman’s action based on the unseaworthiness of a vessel.
“ ‘We take judicial notice of the “tax consciousness” of the American public. Yet, we also recognize, as did the court in Dempsey v. Thompson, 363 Mo. 339, 251 S. W. 2d 42 (1952), that few members of the general public are aware of the special statutory exemption for personal injury awards contained in the Internal Revenue Code.
“ ‘ “[T]here is always danger that today’s tax-conscious juries may assume (mistakenly of course) that the judgment will be taxable and therefore make their verdict big enough so that plaintiff would get what they think he deserves after the imaginary tax is taken out of it.”
“TI Harper & James, The Law of Torts §25.12, at 1327-1328 (1956).’” Liepelt, supra, at 497.
None of the Court’s reasoning was directed particularly at FELA.
The Louisiana eases that have come to our attention do not provide conclusive guidance. Compare the earlier case of Guerra v. Young Construction Corp., 165 So. 2d 882 (La. App. 1964) (not error to deny the instruction), with the later cases of DeBose v. Trapani, 295 So. 2d 72 (La. App. 1974), and Francis v. Government Employers’ Ins. Co., 376 So. 2d 609 (La. App. 1979) (proper to give the instruction). These Louisiana cases were considered by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a diversity case, Croce v. Bromley Corp., 623 F. 2d 1084 (1980), cert. denied sub nom. Bromley Corp. v. Cortese, 450 U. S. 981 (1981), and it followed the holding in Guerra.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Petitioner was convicted on one count of conspiracy to import cocaine in violation of 84 Stat. 1260, 21 U. S. C. § 841 (a)(1), and 84 Stat. 1285, 21 U. S. C. § 952 (a). At trial, the Government’s chief witness against petitioner testified on direct examination by the Assistant United States Attorney that no promises had been made to her with respect to three counts of an indictment that had been returned against her involving the same events for which petitioner stands convicted. At the time this witness testified, she had pleaded guilty to one count of that indictment, a fact which she acknowledged. On cross-examination, she repeated her statement to the effect that no promises had been made to her. During summation, petitioner’s counsel indicated that the two other counts against the witness had been dropped in return for her cooperation and testimony in petitioner’s case. The Assistant United States Attorney, in her summation, stated categorically that the two other counts had not in fact been dropped. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction.
As the case comes to this Court, the Solicitor General states that the records of the United States Attorney in whose district the case was tried indicate that the same Assistant United States Attorney who tried the case had entered into an agreement with the witness whereby the Government had agreed to drop two counts of the indictment in return for a guilty plea on a third count. The witness had entered a guilty plea about one month prior to the petitioner’s trial. The Solicitor General states that because “the existence of such an agreement, its terms, and [the witness] Rubio’s knowledge of it, cannot be determined on the record before this Court . . . ,” there is no occasion for this Court to consider whether the Assistant United States Attorney “failed to make any required disclosures.” The better course, however, is to vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court. If, on the basis of documentation offered by the Government on remand, that court is unable to dispose of the question presented for the first time here, that court would be free to remand the case to the District Court for further appropriate proceedings.
The 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 vacated and the case is remanded to that court for proceedings consistent 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 Rutledge
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Again we are asked to decide whether state taxes as applied to an interstate motor carrier run afoul of the commerce clause, Art. I, § 8, of the Federal Constitution.
Two distinct Montana levies are questioned. Both are imposed by that state’s Motor Carriers Act, Rev. Codes Mont. (1935) §§ 3847.1-3847.28. One is a flat tax of $10 for each vehicle operated by a motor carrier over the state’s highways, payable on issuance of a certificate or permit, which must be secured before operations begin, and annually thereafter. § 3847.16 (a). The other is a quarterly fee of one-half of one per cent of the motor carrier’s “gross operating revenue,” but with a minimum annual fee of $15 per vehicle for class C carriers, in which group appellant falls. § 3847.27. Each tax is declared expressly to be laid “in consideration of the use of the highways of this state” and to be “in addition to all other licenses, fees and taxes imposed upon motor vehicles in this state . . . .”
Prior to July 1, 1941, the fees collected pursuant to §§ 3847.16 (a) and 3847.27 were paid into the state treasury and credited to “the motor carrier fund.” After that date, by virtue of Mont. Laws, 1941, c. 14, § 2, they were allocated to the state’s general fund.
Appellant is a Kentucky corporation, with its principal offices in Indianapolis, Indiana. Its business is exclusively interstate. It consists in transporting household goods and office furniture from points in one state to destinations in another. Appellant does no intrastate business in Montana. The volume of its interstate business there is continuous and substantial, not merely casual or occasional. It holds a certificate of convenience and necessity issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission, pursuant to which its business in Montana and elsewhere is conducted.
In 1935 appellant received a class C permit to operate over Montana highways, as required by state law. Until 1937, apparently, it complied with Montana requirements, including the payment of registration and license plate fees for its vehicles operating in Montana and of the 54 per gallon tax on gasoline purchased there. However, in 1937 and thereafter appellant refused to pay the flat $10 fee imposed by § 3847.16 (a) and the $15 minimum “gross revenue” tax laid by § 3847.27. In consequence, after hearing on order to show cause, the appellee board in 1939 revoked the 1935 permit and brought this suit in a state court to enjoin appellant from further operations in Montana.
Upon appellant’s cross-complaint, the trial court issued an order restraining the board from enforcing the “gross revenue” tax laid by § 3847.27. But at the same time it enjoined appellant from operating in Montana until it paid the fees imposed by § 3847.16 (a). On appeal the state supreme court held both taxes applicable to interstate as well as intrastate motor carriers and construed the term “gross operating revenue” in § 3847.27 to mean “gross revenue derived from operations in Montana.” It then sustained both taxes as against appellant’s constitutional objections, state and federal. Accordingly, it reversed the trial court’s judgment insofar as the “gross revenue” tax had been held invalid, but affirmed the decision relating to the flat $10 tax. 119 Mont. 118, 172 P. 2d 452.
We put aside at the start appellant’s suggestion that the Supreme Court of Montana has misconstrued the state statutes and therefore that we should consider them, for purposes of our limited function, according to appellant’s view of their literal import. The rule is too well settled to permit of question that this Court not only accepts but is bound by the construction given to state statutes by the state courts. Accordingly, we accept the state court’s rulings, insofar as they are material, that the two sections apply alike to interstate and intrastate commerce and that “gross operating revenue” as employed in § 3847.27 comprehends only such revenue derived from appellant’s operations within Montana, not outside that state.
Moreover, since Montana has not demanded or sought to enforce payment by appellant of more than the flat $15 minimum fee for class C carriers under § 3847.27, we limit our consideration of the so-called “gross revenue” tax to that fee. This too is in accordance with the state supreme court’s declaration: “Even if it be admitted that the manner of arriving at a sound basis upon which the tax on gross revenue [should be calculated] is not provided by the statute, a contention to which we do not agree, no difficulty would arise in putting into effect the minimum fee of $15.00 required for each company vehicle operated within the state.” Although the state court did not concede that the statute comprehended no workable or sound basis for calculating the tax above the minimum, we take this statement as a clear declaration that it would sustain the minimum charge even if for some reason the amount of the tax above the minimum would have to fall.
With the issues thus narrowed, we have, in effect, two flat taxes, one for $10, the other for $15, payable annually upon each vehicle operated on Montana highways in the course of appellant’s business, with each tax expressly declared to be in addition to all others and to be imposed “in consideration of the use of the highways of this state.”
Neither exaction discriminates against interstate commerce. Each applies alike to local and interstate operations. Neither undertakes to tax traffic or movements taking place outside Montana or the gross returns from such movements or to use such returns as a measure of the amount of the tax. Both levies apply exclusively to operations wholly within the state or the proceeds of such operations, although those operations are interstate in character.
Moreover, it is not material to the validity of either tax that the state also imposes and collects the vehicle registration and license fee and the gallonage tax on gasoline purchased in Montana. The validity of those taxes neither is questioned nor well could be. Hendrick v. Maryland. 235 U. S. 610; Aero Transit Co. v. Georgia Comm’n, 295 U. S. 285; Sonneborn Bros. v. Cureton, 262 U. S. 506; Edelman v. Boeing Air Transp., 289 U. S. 249. Nor does their exaction have any significant relationship to the imposition of the taxes now in question. Dixie Ohio Co. v. Comm’n, 306 U. S. 72, 78; Interstate Busses Corp. v. Blodgett, 276 U. S. 245, 251. They are imposed for distinct purposes and the proceeds, as appellant concedes, are devoted to different uses, namely, the policing of motor traffic and the maintenance of the state’s highways.
Concededly the proceeds of the two taxes presently involved are not allocated to those objects. Rather they now go into the state’s general fund, subject to appropriation for general state purposes. Indeed this fact, in appellant’s view, is the vice of the statute. But in that view appellant misconceives the nature and legal effect of the exactions. It is far too late to question that a state, consistently with the commerce clause, may lay upon motor vehicles engaged exclusively in interstate commerce, or upon those who own and so operate them, a fair and reasonable nondiscriminatory tax as compensation for the use of its highways. Hendrick v. Maryland, supra; Clark v. Poor, 274 U. S. 554; Aero Transit Co. v. Georgia Comm’n, supra; Morf v. Bingaman, 298 U. S. 407; Dixie Ohio Co. v. Comm’n, supra; Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583; cf. S. C. Hwy. Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177. Moreover “common carriers for hire, who make the highways their place of business, may properly be charged an extra tax for such use.” Clark v. Poor, supra at 557.
The present taxes on their face are exacted “in consideration of the use of the highways of this state,” that is, they are laid for the privilege of using those highways. And the aggregate amount of the two taxes taken together is less than the amount of similar taxes this Court has heretofore sustained. Cf. Dixie Ohio Co. v. Comm’n, supra; Aero Transit Co. v. Georgia Comm’n, supra. The state builds the highways and owns them. Motor carriers for hire, and particularly truckers of heavy goods, like appellant, make especially arduous use of roadways, entailing wear and tear much beyond that resulting from general indiscriminate public use. Morf v. Bingaman, supra at 411. Although the state may not discriminate against or exclude such interstate traffic generally in the use of its highways, this does not mean that the state is required to furnish those facilities to it free of charge or indeed on equal terms with other traffic not inflicting similar destructive effects. Cf. Clark v. Poor, supra; Morf v. Bingaman, supra at 411. Interstate traffic equally with intrastate may be required to pay a fair share of the cost and maintenance reasonably related to the use made of the highways.
This does not mean, as appellant seems to assume, that the proceeds of all taxes levied for the privilege of using the highways must be allocated directly and exclusively to maintaining them. Clark v. Poor, supra at 557; Morf v. Bingaman, supra at 412. That is true, although this Court has held invalid, as forbidden by the commerce clause, certain state taxes on interstate motor carriers because laid “not as compensation for the use of the highways but for the privilege of doing the interstate bus business.” Interstate Transit, Inc. v. Lindsey, 283 U. S. 183, 186; cf. McCarroll v. Dixie Lines, 309 U. S. 176, 179. Those cases did not hold that all state exactions for the privilege of using the state’s highways are valid only if their proceeds are required to go directly and exclusively for highway maintenance, policing and administration. Both before and after the Interstate Transit decision this Court has sustained state taxes expressly laid on the privilege of using the highways, as applied to interstate motor carriers, declaring in each instance that it is immaterial whether the proceeds are allocated to highway uses or others. Clark v. Poor, supra at 557; Morf v. Bingaman, supra at 412.
Appellant therefore confuses a tax “assessed for a proper purpose and . . . not objectionable in amount,” Clark v. Poor, supra at 557, that is, a tax affirmatively laid for the privilege of using the state’s highways, with a tax not imposed on that' privilege but upon some other such as the privilege of doing the interstate business. Though necessarily related, in view of the nature of interstate motor traffic, the two privileges are not identical, and it is useless to confuse them or to confound a tax for the privilege of using the highways with one the proceeds of which are necessarily devoted to maintaining them. Whether the proceeds of a tax are used or required to be used for highway maintenance “may be of significance,” as the Court has said, “when the point is otherwise in doubt, to show that the fee is in fact laid for that purpose and is thus a charge for the privilege of using the highways. Interstate Transit, Inc. v. Lindsey, supra. But where the manner of the levy, like that prescribed by the present statute, definitely identifies it as a fee charged for the grant of the privilege, it is immaterial whether the state places the fees collected in the pocket out of which it pays highway maintenance charges or in some other.” Morf v. Bingaman, supra at 412.
The exactions in the present case fall clearly within the rule of Morf v. Bingaman and its predecessors in authority, and therefore, like that case, outside the decisions in the Interstate Transit and like cases. Both taxes are levied “in consideration of the use of the highways of this state,” that is, as compensation for their use, and bear only on the privilege of using them, not on the privilege of doing the interstate business. Moreover, the flat $10 fee laid by § 3847.16 (a) is further identified as one on the privilege of use by the fact that “unlike the general tax in Interstate Transit, Inc. v. Lindsey, 283 U. S. 183, the levy of which was unrelated to the use of the highways, grant of the privilege of their use is by the present statute made conditional upon payment of the fee.” Morf v. Bingaman, supra at 410.
The minimum so-called “gross revenue” fee, on the other hand, is technically conditioned on the receipt of such revenue from the operations within Montana. But the flat minimum of $15 annually, which is all we have before us in the shape the case has taken for the purposes of decision here, has none of the alleged vices characteristic of gross income taxes heretofore held to vitiate such taxes laid by the states on interstate commerce. And appellant has advanced no tenable basis in rebuttal of the legislative declaration that this tax too is exacted in consideration of the use of the state’s highways, i. e., for the privilege of using them, not for that of doing the interstate business. Here, as in Morf v. Bingaman, “there is ample support for a legislative determination that the peculiar character of this traffic involves a special type of use of the highways,” with enhanced wear, tear and hazards laying heavier burdens on the state for maintenance and policing than other types of traffic create. 298 U. S. 407, 411. It is to compensate for these burdens that the taxes are imposed, and appellant has not sustained its burden, Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., supra at 599, and authorities cited, of showing that the levies have no reasonable relation to that end.
It is of no consequence that the state has seen fit to lay two exactions, substantially identical, rather than combine them into one, or that appellant pays other taxes which in fact are devoted to highway maintenance. For the state does not exceed its constitutional powers by imposing more than one form of tax. Interstate Busses Corp. v. Blodgett, supra; Dixie Ohio Co. v. Comm’n, supra. And, as we have said, the aggregate amount of both taxes combined is less than that of taxes heretofore sustained. In view of these facts there is not even semblance of substance to appellant’s contention that the taxes are excessive.
Neither is there merit in its other arguments, which we have considered, including those urging due process and equal protection grounds for invalidating the levies.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Montana is
Affirmed.
The section was enacted originally as Mont. Laws, 1931, c. 184, §16. Textually it is as follows: "(a) In addition to all of the licenses, fees or taxes imposed upon motor vehicles in this state, and in consideration of the use of the public highways of this state, every motor carrier, as defined in this act, shall, at the time of the issuance of a certificate and annually thereafter, on or between the first day of July and the fifteenth day of July, of each calendar year, pay to the board of railroad commissioners of the state of Montana the sum of ten dollars ($10.00), for every motor vehicle operated by the carrier over or upon the public highways of this state. . . .”
In further relation to issuance of the permit, see note 5.
This section originally was Mont. Laws, 1935, c. 100, § 2. It reads as follows: “In addition to all other licenses, fees and taxes imposed upon motor vehicles in this state and in consideration of the use of the highways of this state, every motor carrier holding a certificate of public convenience and necessity issued by the public service commission, shall between the first and fifteenth days of January, April, July and October of each year, file with the public service commission a statement showing the gross operating revenue of such carrier for the preceding three months of operation, or portion thereof, and shall pay to the board a fee of one-half of one per cent of the amount of such gross operating revenue; provided, however, that the minimum annual fee which shall be paid by each class A and class B carrier for each vehicle registered and/or operated under the provisions of the motor carrier act shall be thirty dollars ($30.00) and the minimum annual fee which shall be paid by each class C carrier for each vehicle registered and/or operated under the motor carrier act shall be fifteen dollars ($15.00).”
Section 3847.2, Rev. Codes Mont. (1935), contains the definitions of the three classes of carriers.
The moneys in the motor carrier fund were subject to appropriation for use in supervision and regulation of many activities other than those connected with the public highways. See Rev. Codes Mont. (1935), §§ 3847.17, 3847.28; and cf. note 13.
Appellant’s answer and cross-complaint set forth statistics concerning its use of Montana highways during the years 1937, 1938 and 1939. The figures show appellant’s equipment operating on Montana highways during 227 days in 1937; 385 trucking days in 1938; and 405 trucking days in 1939. See also note 6.
The statute was Mont. Laws, 1931, c. 184, § 23, now Rev. Codes Mont. (1935), §3847.23. The section applied the act of which it was a part to interstate and foreign commerce “insofar as such-application may be permitted under the provisions of” the Federal Constitution, treaties and acts of Congress, but expressly exempted interstate carriers from making “any showing of public convenience and necessity” in order to secure the certificate or permit.
These taxes were imposed separately from the two involved in this case. Appellant’s brief states the registration and license plate fees increased from $660.50 in 1937 to $1,212.50 in 1938 and to $1,630.50 in 1939. The gasoline tax increased from $745.30 in 1937 to $1,257.90 in 1938 and $1,649.98 in 1939. The gallonage tax, though ultimately borne by the consumer, was laid on the sale and collected from the dealer.
It should be noted that “the board of railroad commissioners,” as used in § 3847.16 (a), and “the public service commission,” as used in § 3847.27, designate a single body, invested with regulatory power over various public utilities in addition to motor carriers, e. g., railroads, common carriers of oil, etc. By Rev. Codes Mont. (1935), § 3880, “The board of railroad commissioners . . . shall be ex-officio the public service commission hereby created . . . .” The two terms were said by the Montana Supreme Court in this case to be “used interchangeably.” 119 Mont. 118, 136, 172 P. 2d 452, 461.
This judicial construction was embodied in an amendment to the section made by Mont. Laws, 1947, c. 73, § 2.
Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U. S. 459; Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U. S. 232; Minnesota v. Probate Court, 309 U. S. 270; Morehead v. N. Y. ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U. S. 587; cf. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64.
Acting not only in the view that statutes are presumptively constitutional and, if necessary, are to be so construed as to make them so, the court noted that § 3847.16 (b) expressly provides that, when service “is rendered partly in this state and partly in an adjoining state or foreign country,” carriers “shall comply with the provisions of this act” concerning “payment of compensation” and making reports by showing “the total business performed within the limits of this state.” (Emphasis added.) Accordingly it held that §§ 3847.27 and 3847.16 should be read together and the limitation of § 3847.16 (b) “within the limits of this state” thus became a part of § 3847.27 as well as § 3847.16 (a). 119 Mont. 118, 134, 172 P. 2d 452, 460.
Appellant’s vice president and general manager, Wheating, testified that for purposes of applying § 3847.27 he had calculated, for each of the years 1939 through 1942, “the [gross] income for that operation of the load miles operated in Montana by using an average income per mile figure based upon the probable load factor we would have had in Montana.” (Emphasis added.) On this basis the amount of the tax as calculated at one-half of one per cent quarterly was substantially below the statutory minimum for each of the four years. See note 19. These figures apparently were reported to and accepted by the board as the basis for its demands upon the taxpayer for the flat $15 minimum annual tax.
119 Mont. 118, 134, 172 P. 2d 452, 460. Appellant had argued, as it does here, that even if the “gross revenue” tax is limited to revenue derived from operations in Montana, it is nevertheless invalid for want of any prescribed method on the face of the statute for ascertaining or calculating the tax. The state court held that the statute by necessary implication authorized the board to “adopt any fair and reasonable mode of enforcement designed to effectuate the purposes of the Act.” 119 Mont. 118, 135, 172 P. 2d 452, 461. In view of our limitation of the question before us, as stated in the text, we need not express opinion concerning this ruling or any tax above the minimum calculated in accordance with it. Cf. note 11.
In another connection the state supreme court adverted to the separability clause contained in § 3847.24 of the statute, though not referring to it expressly in relation to the statement quoted in the text.
See note 6 and text. It is admitted by the pleadings that the proceeds of the vehicle registration and license tax and the gallonage tax are allocated to the construction, repair and maintenance of state highways.
The board concedes in the brief filed here that the state supreme court was in error in the statement that the revenue from the two taxes presently in issue “is devoted to the building, repairing and policing of such highways . . . .” 119 Mont. 118, 138, 172 P. 2d 452, 462.
See note 3 and text.
It is immaterial that the state receives federal aid for state road construction, a fact on which appellant places some emphasis.
See note 18 infra and text.
In Clark v. Poor, the Court stated: “Since the tax is assessed for a proper purpose and is not objectionable in amount, the use to which the proceeds are put is not a matter which concerns the plaintiffs.” 274 U.S. 554,557.
Appellant claims that the $15 minimum fee is unreasonable since it is roughly ten times greater than the tax that would be required if the percentage standard provided in the statute were applied. To accept appellant’s position would mean that a state could never impose a minimum fee, but would have to adjust its taxes to the inevitable variations in the use of the highways made by various carriers. The Federal Constitution does not require the state to elaborate a system of motor vehicle taxation which will reflect with exact precision every gradation in use. In return for the $15 fee appellant can do business grossing $3,000 per vehicle annually for operations on Montana roads. Appellant was not wronged by its failure to make the full use of the highways permitted. Aero Transit Co. v. Georgia Comm’n, 295 U. S. 285; Morf v. Bingaman, 298 U. S. 407; cf. Kane v. New Jersey, 242 U. S. 160.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents two questions: (1) whether a discharged employee of a carrier that is subject to the Railway Labor Act is precluded by that Act from resorting to a state-recognized cause of action for wrongful discharge and, if not, (2) whether, in such action, he must show that he has exhausted his administrative remedies, under his contract of employment. For the reasons hereafter stated, our answer to the first question is no and to the second, yes,, provided the applicable state law so requires. After stating the case, we shall discuss the second question first.
Respondent Koppal is a citizen of Kansas who, in 1949, was employed as a master mechanic in Kansas City, Missouri, by petitioner, Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc., a Delaware corporation. At all times material to this case, petitioner has been a carrier by air, engaged in interstate commerce and subject to Title II of the Railway Labor Act. The terms of respondent’s employment contract were stated in a written agreement between petitioner and the International Association of Machinists. That association was a union which, for collective-bargaining purposes, represented respondent and the other mechanics in the employ of petitioner, although respondent was not a member of the union.
November 8, 1949, respondent reported to his employer by telephone that he was not well and would not be able to work that day. Before noon, a representative from petitioner’s Industrial Relations Department made an unexpected call at respondent’s home. He found respondent there with two of petitioner’s employees, one of whom also had taken sick leave. While the testimony is conflicting, there is substantial evidence to support a conclusion that respondent was not sufficiently ill to justify his staying at home and that, by prearrangement, he met there with two other employees while preparing to take an examination to qualify as a flight engineer. On respondent’s return to work-the next day, he was suspended from employment on a charge of abuse of the sick-leave provisions of his contract and notified that a hearing would be held on that charge November 11, pursuant to the grievance procedure in his contract. He attended the hearing, which was held before a representative of petitioner other than the one bringing the complaint. At its conclusion, the hearing officer stated that there had been a severe abuse of the sick-pay policy and that respondent would be discharged. In view of respondent’s past favorable record, the hearing officer asked him whether he would prefer to resign and advised him that he could appeal even if he resigned.
Respondent resigned, stating that he did so “under protest.” He took no appeal under his employment contract but, June 30, 1950, instituted the present proceeding in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, claiming diversity of citizenship and seeking $7,500 compensatory and $15,000 punitive damages.
During the trial, which was before a jury, petitioner (then defendant) moved for a directed verdict in its favor and made a similar motion at the close of evidence. Both motions were denied and the jury returned a verdict of $7,500 for respondent. The court set aside the verdict and dismissed the complaint on the ground that respondent had failed to appeal the original decision of the hearing officer and had otherwise failed to exhaust the remedies prescribed in his employment contract. The Court of Appeals, with one judge dissenting, reversed that judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. 199 F. 2d 117. Because of differing opinions expressed as to the effect of our decisions in Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630, and Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U. S. 239, and due to the importance of the case in relation to the Railway Labor Act, we granted certiorari. 344 U. S. 933.
The jurisdiction of the District Court rested upon diversity of citizenship and an adequate amount in controversy. The complaint sought judgment for damages resulting from the alleged unlawful discharge of respondent in violation of a contract of employment made in Missouri, to be performed in Missouri and agreed by the parties to be a “Missouri contract.” Accordingly, if the Railway Labor Act were not involved, there would be no question but that the substantive law of Missouri should determine the requirements of the cause of action, the interpretation of the contract and the measure of damages to be applied. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64; Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U. S. 487.
No decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri has been cited on the point but the law of Missouri has been shown, by the following cases, to be that an employee must exhaust the administrative remedies under his contract of employment in order to sustain his cause of action in such a case.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in 1934, affirmed a decision' of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to that effect. Harrison v. Pullman Co., 68 F. 2d 826. That was a diversity case, removed from a Missouri state court, in which a discharged porter sued his employer, the Pullman Company, for damages for his alleged unlawful discharge in November, 1926. The terms of his employment were stated in a printed agreement which contained a complete code for the adjustment of such disputes. The code called for an initial appeal by the employee to a district official of the company, a subsequent appeal to the highest local officer of the company designated to handle such matters, then an appeal to the Zone General Committee and finally to the Bureau of Industrial Relations. The porter made no substantial attempt to follow this procedure beyond the district official and none whatever to reach the Zone General Committee. Instead, about five years later, he brought suit and, in that litigation, the United States Court of Appeals, in affirming a directed verdict for the employer, said:
“Appellant in terms sues because of an alleged breach of this contract, and, to prevail, he must show that he has brought himself within its terms and has been unable to secure a satisfactory adjustment by the means therein expressly provided. This he has failed to do, and for this reason he is unable to present his case in court as a justiciable controversy.” Id., at 827.
Similarly, in 1936, the St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri, in Reed v. St. Louis S. W. R. Co., 95 S. W. 2d 887 (not published in State Reports), took a like position. There a discharged conductor sued his employer, the St. Louis Southwestern Railroad Company, for damages for his alleged unlawful discharge in 1928. The terms of his employment were stated in a written contract between the Order of Railway Conductors and the railroad. This prescribed a complete code for the hearing and review of discharges. The conductor was charged with intoxication and attended a prescribed hearing, which was held on that charge, before an assistant superintendent of the company. This resulted in the conductor’s discharge but he resorted to none of the administrative appeals prescribed in the code. Instead, he sued his employer in a state court and won a verdict and judgment for damages due to his discharge. The St. Louis Court of Appeals reversed that judgment because the trial court had failed to sustain the employer’s demurrer which was based on the ground that the conductor had failed to exhaust the remedies prescribed in his contract.
Respondent’s contract, in the instant case, consisted simply of his employment by petitioner pursuant to the terms of a written agreement between petitioner and the mechanics and related employees in its service, as represented by the International Association of Machinists. That agreement was entered into “in accordance with the provisions of Title II of the Railway Labor Act, as amended . . . It contained detailed provisions as to grievance procedure and sick leave. It included provisions that no employee in respondent’s status shall be discharged—
“without a fair hearing before a designated representative of the Company other than the one bringing complaint against the employee. ... At a reasonable time prior to the hearing, such employee and his duly authorized representative will be apprised, in writing, of the precise charge and given a reasonable opportunity to secure the presence of necessary witnesses. ... A written decision will be issued within five (5) work days after the close of such hearing. If the decision is not satisfactory, then appeal may be made in accordance with the procedure prescribed in Step 3.”
Step 3 provided for an appeal to the chief operating officer of the company. Notice of intent to appeal must be in writing and made within ten work days after the above-mentioned decision which is part of Step 2. If the decision in Step 3 is not satisfactory to the union, the matter then may be referred by the system general chairman, acting for the union, to the system board of adjustment or, by mutual agreement, to arbitration. This procedure is comparable to that described in the Railway Labor Act, which provides that disputes between an employee and a carrier “shall be handled in the usual manner up to and including the chief operating officer of the carrier designated to handle such disputes,” then by appropriate adjustment boards and finally by the National Air Transport Adjustment Board. 49 Stat. 1189-1190, 45 U. S. C. §§ 184, 185.
Under the law of Missouri, as shown above, respondent was required to show exhaustion of administrative remedies under his employment contract in order to sustain his cause of action. As he did not do so, the District Court’s dismissal of his complaint was justified, unless the fact that petitioner was a carrier subject to the Railway Labor Act or the fact that the employment contract was drafted pursuant to that Act should make a difference.
The important point is that while the employment contract conforms to the policy of the Railway Labor Act and the Act provides a procedure for handling grievances so as to avoid litigation and interruptions of service, the Act does not deprive an employee of his right to sue his employer for an unlawful discharge if the employee chooses to do so.
“[W]e find nothing in that [Railway Labor] Act which purports to take away from the courts the jurisdiction to determine a controversy over a wrongful discharge or to make an administrative finding a prerequisite to filing a suit in court. . . . The District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals properly decided that petitioner was not required by the Railway Labor Act to seek adjustment of his controversy with the railroad as a prerequisite to suit for wrongful discharge.” Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630, 634, 636.
We amplified the foregoing statement in Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U. S. 239, 244, as follows:
“Moore [in 312 U. S. 630] was discharged by the railroad. He could have challenged the validity of his discharge before the Board, seeking reinstatement and back pay. Instead he chose to accept the railroad’s action in discharging him as final, thereby ceasing to be an employee, and brought suit claiming damages for breach of contract. As we there held, the Railway Labor Act does not bar courts from adjudicating such cases. A common-law or statutory action for wrongful discharge differs from any remedy which the Board has power to provide, and does not involve questions of future relations between the railroad and its other employees. If a court in handling such a case must consider some provision of a collective-bargaining agreement, its interpretation would of course have no binding effect on future interpretations by the Board.”
The result is that, whereas, under the Railway Labor Act, the Adjustment Board has exclusive jurisdiction to adjust grievances and jurisdictional disputes of the type involved in the Slocum case, that Board does not have like exclusive jurisdiction over the claim of an employee that he has been unlawfully discharged. Such employee may proceed either in accordance with the administrative procedures prescribed in his employment contract or he may resort to his action at law for alleged unlawful discharge if the state courts recognize such a claim. Where the applicable law permits his recovery of damages without showing his prior exhaustion of his administrative remedies, he may so recover, as he did in the Moore litigation, supra, under Mississippi law.
On the other hand, if the applicable local law, as in Missouri, requires an employee to exhaust his administrative remedies under his employment contract in order to sustain his cause of action, he must show that he has done so. Here respondent was employed by a carrier, subject to Title II of the Railway Labor Act, and his employment contract contained many administrative steps for his relief, all of which were consistent with that Act. Accordingly, while he was free to resort to the courts for relief, he was there required by the law of Missouri to show that he had exhausted the very administrative procedure contemplated by the Railway Labor Act. In the instant case, he was not able to do so and his complaint was properly dismissed.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, therefore, is reversed. The judgment of the District Court is affirmed and the cause is remanded to it.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
Mr. Justice Reed took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
49 Stat. 1189 et seq., 45 U. S. C. §§ 181-188.
The grant was limited to questions 1 and 2 presented by the petition for the writ, viz.:
“1. Whether in a diversity action for wrongful discharge by an employee against a carrier subject to the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, the Act precludes the application by the District Court of state law, otherwise controlling, governing the right to bring the action.
“2. Whether the decisions of this Court in Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630, and Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U. S. 239, bar the application of state law requiring an employee to attempt to adjust his dispute with his employer before he may seek redress in state courts for alleged breach of a collective bargaining agreement made pursuant to the Railway Labor Act.”
“. . . This assignment of error is based upon the rule that where a contract of employment provides, as in the instant case, that a discharged employee may seek redress by appealing to certain designated officers, boards, or tribunals, such an employee is required to pursue and exhaust his contract remedy and cannot properly complain to a court for redress until he has exhausted the remedies accorded him by his contract. The point is well taken.” Id., at 888-889.
“. . . It is well settled that, where contracting parties either agree or are required by law to resort to a designated tribunal for the adjustment of controversies, they must exhaust such remedy before resorting to the courts for redress.” Glass v. Hoblitzelle, 83 S. W. 2d 796, 802 (Tex. Civ. App.). See also, Bell v. Western R. Co., 228 Ala. 328, 153 So. 434. This quotation and citation are relied on in the Reed case, at 889.
Moore received a judgment for 14,183.20, as damages for his wrongful discharge, without establishing his exhaustion of his administrative remedies under his employment contract. For related proceedings, see Moore v. Yazoo & M. V. R. Co., 176 Miss. 65, 166 So. 395; Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 180 Miss. 276, 176 So. 593; 24 F. Supp. 731; 112 F. 2d 959; 136 F. 2d 412. See also, Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. McCombs, 143 Tex. 257, 183 S. W. 2d 716.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 244(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (Act), 66 Stat. 214, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1254(a)(1), allows the Attorney General to suspend the deportation of an alien. To warrant such action, the alien must have been physically present in the United States for a continuous period of at least seven years, be of good moral character, and demonstrate that deportation would result in extreme hardship to the alien, or the alien’s “spouse, parent, or child, who is a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully-admitted for permanent residence.” Ibid. Even if these prerequisites are satisfied, it remains in the discretion of the Attorney General to suspend, or refuse to suspend, deportation. INS v. Jong Ha Wang, 450 U. S. 139, 144, n. 5 (1981); Jay v. Boyd, 351 U. S. 345, 353 (1956). Although Congress did not provide a statutory mechanism for reopening suspension proceedings once suspension has been denied, the Attorney General has promulgated regulations under the Act allowing for such a procedure. 8 CFR § 3.2 (1985). Under the regulations, a motion to reopen will be denied unless reopening is sought on the basis of circumstances which have arisen subsequent to the original hearing. Ibid. The Attorney General, authorized by Congress to do so, 8 U. S. C. § 1103, has delegated his authority and discretion to suspend deportation to special inquiry officers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), whose decisions are subject to review by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). 8 CFR §§242.8, 242.21 (1985).
Respondents, a married couple, are natives and citizens of Mexico. Respondent husband illegally entered the United States in 1972. Apprehended, he returned to Mexico in early 1974 under threat of deportation. Two months later, he and respondent wife paid a professional smuggler $450 to transport them into this country, entering the United States without inspection through the smuggler’s efforts. Respondent husband was again apprehended by INS agents in 1978. At his request, he was granted permission to return voluntarily to Mexico in lieu of deportation. He was also granted two subsequent extensions of time to depart, but he ultimately declined to leave as promised. INS then instituted deportation proceedings against both respondents. By that time, respondent wife had given birth to a child, who, born in the United States, was a citizen of this country. A deportation hearing was held in December 1978. Respondents conceded illegal entry, conceded deportability, but requested suspension of deportation. The Immigration Judge, ruling that respondents were ineligible for suspension because they had not satisfied the requirement of seven years’ continuous physical presence, ordered their deportation. Respondents appealed the order to the BIA, asserting a variety of arguments to establish that the deportation violated their rights or the rights of their child. The BIA rejected these arguments and dismissed the appeal.
In July 1980, respondents filed a petition for review in the Court of Appeals, which automatically stayed their deportation pursuant to 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(a)(3). Asking that the court order their deportation suspended, respondents asserted substantially the same claims rejected by the BIA: that the Immigration Judge should have given them Miranda warnings, that their deportation was an unlawful de facto deportation of their citizen child, and that respondent husband should have been considered present in the United States for seven years. In March 1982, 15 months after the briefs were filed, the Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the BIA and remanded the case for further proceedings. Rios-Pineda v. United States Department of Justice, 673 F. 2d 225 (CA8). The Court of Appeals was of the view that during the pendency of the appeals, respondents had accrued the requisite seven years’ continuous physical presence in the United States. Id., at 227. Because of this development, the court directed the BIA to allow respondents 60 days to file a motion to reopen their deportation proceeding and cautioned the BIA “to give careful and thorough consideration to the . . . motion to reopen if, indeed, one is filed.” Id., at 228, n. 5. During the pendency of the appeals, respondent wife gave birth to a second citizen child.
Respondents then moved the BIA to reopen and requested suspension of deportation. They alleged that deportation would result in extreme hardship in that their two citizen children would be deprived of their right to an education in United States schools and to social assistance. Respondents also alleged general harm to themselves from their “low skills and educations” and the lower standard of living in Mexico.
The BIA denied the motion to reopen. First, the motion was not timely filed, as respondents had not served it on the proper official within the specified 60 days. Second, discretionary relief was unwarranted, since the additional facts — seven years’ continuous physical presence and an additional child — were available only because respondents had delayed departure by frivolous appeals. Third, respondent husband’s conduct in returning to the country only two months after his 1974 departure, respondents’ payment to a professional smuggler to enter this country illegally, and respondent husband’s refusal to depart voluntarily after promising to do so, all evinced a blatant disregard for the immigration laws, disentitling respondents to the favorable exercise of discretion.
The Court of Appeals reversed and directed the BIA to reopen the proceeding. Rios-Pineda v. United States Department of Justice, 720 F. 2d 529 (CA8 1983). The motion to reopen, the panel concluded, was timely filed, respondents had made out a prima facie case of hardship, and the factors relied on by the BIA did not justify its refusal to reopen. Although the court did not find merit in any of the legal arguments respondents had pressed during their prior appeals, their appeals were not frivolous. Neither could the BIA deny a motion to reopen because of respondents’ disregard of the immigration laws, since such disregard is present in some measure in all deportation cases. Id., at 534.
We granted certiorari, 469 U. S. 1071 (1984), because this case involves important issues bearing on the scope of the Attorney General’s discretion in acting on motions to reopen civil requests for suspension of deportation.
We have recently indicated that granting a motion to reopen is a discretionary matter with BIA. INS v. Phinpathya, 464 U. S. 183, 188, n. 6 (1984). Thus, even assuming that respondents’ motion to reopen made out a prima facie case of eligibility for suspension of deportation, the Attorney General had discretion to deny the motion to reopen. INS v. Jong Ha Wang, 450 U. S. 139, 144, n. 5 (1981). We have also held that if the Attorney General decides that relief should be denied as a matter of discretion, he need not consider whether the threshold statutory eligibility requirements are met. INS v. Bagamasbad, 429 U. S. 24 (1976); see also Jong Ha Wang, 450 U. S., at 143-144, n. 5.
Given the Attorney General’s broad discretion in this context, we cannot agree with the Court of Appeals’ holding that denial of the motion to reopen was an impermissible exercise of that discretion. If, as was required by the regulations, respondents’ motion to reopen was based on intervening circumstances demonstrating 7-year residence and extreme hardship, the Attorney General, acting through the BIA, nevertheless had the authority to deny the motion for two separate and quite adequate reasons.
First, although by the time the BIA denied the motion, respondents had been in this country for seven years, that was not the case when suspension of deportation was first denied; the seven years accrued during the pendency of respondents’ appeals. The BIA noted that respondents’ issues on appeals were without merit and held that the 7-year requirement satisfied in this manner should not be recognized. In our view, it did not exceed its discretion in doing so.
The Court of Appeals thought the appeal had not been frivolous because it had resulted in further proceedings. But this was true only because seven years of residence had accrued during the pendency of the appeal. No substance was found in any of the points raised on appeal, in and of themselves, and we agree with the BIA that they were without merit. The purpose of an appeal is to correct legal errors which occurred at the initial determination of deportability; it is not to permit an indefinite stalling of physical departure in the hope of eventually satisfying legal prerequisites. One illegally present in the United States who wishes to remain already has a substantial incentive to prolong litigation in order to delay physical deportation for as long as possible. See, e. g., Sung Ja Oum v. INS, 613 F. 2d 51, 52-54 (CA4 1980); Hibbert v. INS, 554 F. 2d 17, 19-21 (CA2 1977). The Attorney General can, in exercising his discretion, legitimately avoid creating a further incentive for stalling by refusing to reopen suspension proceedings for those who became eligible for such suspension only because of the passage of time while their meritless appeals dragged on. See Leblanc v. INS, 715 F. 2d 685, 693 (CA1 1983); Agustin v. INS, 700 F. 2d 564, 566 (CA9 1983); Balani v. INS, 669 F. 2d 1157, 1160-1162 (CA6 1982); Der-Rong Chour v. INS, 578 F. 2d 464, 467-468 (CA2 1978), cert. denied, 440 U. S. 980 (1979); Schieber v. INS, 171 U. S. App. D. C. 312, 320-321, 520 F. 2d 44, 52-53 (1975).
The impact of any other rule is pointed out by this case. Respondents were apprehended in 1978, and they conceded deportability. Nonetheless, over six years later they remain in the United States by virtue of their baseless appeals. In administering this country’s immigration laws, the Attorney General and the INS confront an onerous task even without the addition of judicially augmented incentives to take merit-less appeals, engage in repeated violations, and undertake other conduct solely to drag out the deportation process. Administering the 7-year requirement in this manner is within the authority of the Attorney General. The Act commits the definition of the standards in the Act to the Attorney General and his delegate in the first instance, “and their construction and application of th[ese] standard[s] should not be overturned by a reviewing court simply because it may prefer another interpretation of the statute.” INS v. Jong Ha Wang, supra, at 144.
Second, we are sure that the Attorney General did not abuse his discretion in denying reopening based on respondents’ flagrant violation of the federal law in entering the United States, as well as respondent husband’s willful failure to depart voluntarily after his request to do so was honored by the INS. The Court of Appeals’ rejection of these considerations as “irrelevant” is unpersuasive. While all aliens illegally present in the United States have, in some way, violated the immigration laws, it is untenable to suggest that the Attorney General has no discretion to consider their individual conduct and distinguish among them on the basis of the flagrancy and nature of their violations. There is a difference in degree between one who enters the country legally, staying beyond the terms of a visa, and one who enters the country without inspection. Nor does everyone who illegally enters the country do so repeatedly and with the assistance of a professional smuggler. Furthermore, the Attorney General can certainly distinguish between those who, once apprehended, comply with the laws, and those who refuse to honor previous agreements to report for voluntary departure. Accordingly, we are convinced that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying reopening because of respondents’ prior conduct.
This case, therefore, does not involve the unreasoned or arbitrary exercise of discretion. Here the BIA’s explanation of its decision was grounded in legitimate concerns about the administration of the immigration laws and was determined on the basis of the particular conduct of respondents. In this government of separated powers, it is not for the judiciary to usurp Congress’ grant of authority to the Attorney General by applying what approximates de novo appellate review. See Jong Ha Wang, 450 U. S., at 144-145; Phinpathya, 464 U. S., at 195-196. Because we conclude that here the refusal to reopen the suspension proceeding was within the discretion of the Attorney General, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
So ordered.
Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The issue of whether the motion to reopen was timely filed is not before this Court, and we assume, without deciding, that timely filing was established by service of the motion on the wrong official within the period required by the Court of Appeals’ first decision. See 720 F. 2d, at 532.
Even prior to our decision in INS v. Phinpathya, 464 U. S. 183 (1984), while the administrative practice treated some minor absences as not breaking the continuous presence period, neither the courts nor the Attorney General had ever considered a departure under threat of deportation, coupled with a subsequent illegal entry after two months’ absence, anything less than a meaningful interruption of the period. Not only had the Immigration Judge explained, both at the deportation hearing and in his written decision, App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a, that such an absence was an interruption of the period of continuous presence, the law itself was clear. See Heitland v. INS, 551 F. 2d 495, 503-504 (CA2), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 819 (1977); Segura-Viachi v. INS, 538 F. 2d 91, 92 (CA5 1976); Barragan-Sanchez v. Rosenberg, 471 F. 2d 758, 760 (CA9 1972); see generally Phinpathya, supra, at 193-194.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue presented by this case is whether the federal courts have jurisdiction over a civil action for monetary damages brought by a former military exchange employee who contests the validity of his discharge. The employee claims that federal jurisdiction exists under the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1346(a)(2) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
I
A
In 1962, respondent, Arthur Edward Sheehan, was selected for a data processing position with petitioner Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES or Service). Five years later, respondent was designated by the AAFES commander for participation in the Service’s Executive Management Program (EMP); this program is “intended to fulfill the continuing requirement of AAFES for highly qualified and dedicated executive employees who will be readily available to meet the worldwide executive personnel requirements of AAFES.” Army Regulation (AR) 60-21/Air Force Regulation (AFR) 147-15, ch. 5, § II, ¶ 5-6 (1 Aug. 1979). Employees in the program enjoy special retention, insurance, and retirement benefits. On the other hand, those employees are subject to certain obligations, a principal one being that EMP personnel must accept transfer to any AAFES facility in this country or abroad. ¶ 5—9(a)(2). EMP status may be withdrawn for, among other things, “conduct off the job reflecting discredit upon AAFES.” ¶ 5-9(c). Pursuant to the regulations governing the EMP, respondent was required to “acknowledge] in writing that he understood] and accepted] the conditions of the EMP as prescribed by the Commander, AAFES.” ¶ 5-7(b).
In 1975, while respondent was serving as a shopping center manager at Fort Jackson, S. C., he was arrested off the base for possession of controlled substances. Pursuant to a plea bargain, respondent pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of violating state drug laws. He was sentenced to 18 months’ probation and a $1,000 fine was imposed.
On March 16, 1976, respondent received advance written notice of separation from the Service for cause. Referring specifically to respondent’s conviction, the notice stated that the reason for the separation was “conduct off the job which reflects discredit on the AAFES and which is of such a nature that your retention in any capacity is incompatible with the best interests of AAFES.” App. 11. James J. Stapleton, the AAFES General Manager for the Piedmont Area Exchange, signed the notice, but, because of respondent’s participation in the EMP, prior approval had been obtained from Major General C. W. Hospelhorn, Commander, AAFES. Following an investigation, Stapleton issued a final notice of separation for cause, effective April 19, 1976. Id., at 17. This notice advised respondent that he was to be dismissed “in view of the entire weight of evidence which resulted in your plea of guilty.” Ibid.
Respondent, in accord with authorized AAFES procedures, filed an administrative appeal. The hearing examiner determined that the Service had acted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, but concluded that respondent’s conduct off the job did not reflect discredit on the AAFES and that his retention in some capacity was not incompatible with the interests of the Service. The examiner therefore recommended that respondent’s appeal be granted and that he be reinstated with backpay to his former grade but transferred to an assignment in another region. General Hospelhorn, however, acting as the appellate authority, disagreed, and denied respondent’s appeal.
In 1978, respondent, by a letter from counsel addressed to the new AAFES Commander, Major General Bobby W. Presley, requested reconsideration. Id., at 40. Respondent asserted that his separation was contrary to AAFES rules and regulations and that he had been denied due process of law. General Presley reopened the case and referred it to Lieutenant General Charles E. Buckingham, Chairman of the Board of Directors of AAFES. At General Buckingham’s request, the administrative record was reviewed by the Judge Advocate General of the Air Force. He concluded that the record evidence supported the charge that respondent’s conduct reflected discredit upon the AAFES and that his retention was inconsistent with the Service’s best interests. The Judge Advocate General, however, agreed with respondent that General Hospelhorn was disqualified from acting as the appellate authority; he felt that it was appropriate for General Buckingham to act in that capacity, and he recommended that respondent’s appeal be denied. General Buckingham followed that advice and denied respondent’s appeal.
B
While the matter was pending before the Judge Advocate General, respondent filed suit against the AAFES in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The first count of respondent’s complaint alleged that his rights to due process and to a free and impartial appeal pursuant to AAFES regulations were infringed when General Hospelhorn acted as both the separation authority and the appellate authority. In the second count, respondent claimed that the denial of his appeal was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, unsupported by substantial evidence and unwarranted by the facts, and in violation of statutory and constitutional provisions. Respondent sought reinstatement and damages, including backpay.
The District Court, without opinion, dismissed the complaint for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. It concluded that the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1346(a)(2), which gives the federal courts jurisdiction over certain suits against the United States founded upon express or implied contracts, provided a basis for jurisdiction over respondent’s claims for monetary relief. 619 F. 2d 1132 (1980). Whether respondent’s employment was initiated by appointment or by contract, the court held, the AAFES regulations providing for separation for cause only under certain conditions and guaranteeing an administrative appeal “manifest[ed] the understanding of the parties concerning discharge procedures while Sheehan continued in AAFES employment.” Id., at 1138 (emphasis in original). Accordingly, the court considered those regulations to be “part of a collateral implied-in-fact contract between Sheehan and the AAFES that the AAFES would adhere to the regulations in its dealings with him.” Ibid. In the court’s view, the understanding of the parties was reinforced by the well-established legal principle that a federal agency must comply with its own regulations. The court concluded that respondent’s allegation that his dismissal violated applicable regulations was “equivalent to an allegation of breach of an implied-in-fact contract,” ibid., and that the District Court therefore had erred in ruling that it had no jurisdiction to award respondent monetary relief.
Because this ruling appeared to be in conflict with our precedents, we granted certiorari. 454 U. S. 813 (1981).
I — I l-H
The AAFES, like other military exchanges, is an “ ‘ar[m] of the government deemed by it essential for the performance of governmental functions . . . and partake[s] of whatever immunities it may have under the constitution and federal statutes/” United States v. Mississippi Tax Comm’n, 421 U. S. 599, 606 (1975), quoting, with approval, language of the District Court in the same case, 378 F. Supp. 558, 562-563 (SD Miss. 1974). As a result, the federal courts may entertain actions against the Service only if Congress has consented to suit; “a waiver of the traditional sovereign immunity ‘cannot be implied but must be unequivocally expressed.’” United States v. Testan, 424 U. S. 392, 399 (1976), quoting United States v. King, 395 U. S. 1, 4 (1969).
The Tucker Act effects one such explicit waiver when it provides in pertinent part:
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, concurrent with the Court of Claims, of:
“. . . Any other civil action or claim against the United States, not exceeding $10,000 in amount, founded either upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress, or any regulation of an executive department, or upon any express or implied contract with the United States, or for liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in tort. . . . For the purpose of this paragraph, an express or implied contract with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service . . . shall be considered an express or implied contract with the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 1346(a)(2) (1976 ed., Supp. IV) (emphasis added).
Respondent does not assert Tucker Act jurisdiction on the basis of the Constitution or a specific statute or regulation. He claims only that the Tucker Act affords him a remedy because of an “express or implied contract with the United States” agreed to by the parties. Specifically, respondent urges that he became an AAFES employee, or at least entered the EMP, by virtue of an employment contract, not by appointment, and that the AAFES regulations governing dismissal of employees created an implied contract. We must reject both contentions.
A
In determining whether respondent’s employment was the result of appointment or contract, we look to United States v. Hopkins, 427 U. S. 123 (1976), a wrongful-discharge action brought by an AAFES employee who alleged that his separation from the Service constituted a breach of an employment contract. The Court in its per curiam opinion in Hopkins noted that Tucker Act jurisdiction may be premised on an employment contract, as well as on one for goods or other services, id., at 126, and that the AAFES regulations authorize the Service to enter into service contracts. Id., at 127-128. But the Court also observed that many AAFES employees are appointed to their positions, and it remanded the case for consideration of the question whether the plaintiff had been employed by contract or by appointment, a determination dependent upon “an analysis of the statutes and regulations previously described in light of whatever evidence is adduced on remand as to plaintiff’s particular status in this case.” Id., at 130.
Although respondent alleges that he was employed, both initially and upon entering the EMP, by express employment contracts, he points to nothing in the record or in the relevant AAFES regulations that substantiates that claim. In fact, his complaint supports the contrary view. The complaint observes that respondent was first “employed” by the AAFES in 1962, App. 3; the regulations pertaining to “employees” refer to Service personnel as “Federal employees of an instrumentality of the United States” who are appointed to their positions. AR 60-21/AFR 147-15, ch. 1, § I, ¶ 1—6(a); ch. 2, § I, ¶¶ 2-2, 2-3 (1 Aug. 1979). Moreover, if, as respondent alleges, he was “employed” in a data processing position, AAFES regulations prohibit the Service from negotiating a contract with him. See AR 60-20/AFR 147-14, ch. 3, § III, ¶ 3-26(d) (15 Nov. 1978).
Respondent’s selection to the EMP plainly was pursuant to appointment. The regulations governing the EMP appear in the provision entitled “Exchange Service Personnel Policies,” AR 60-21/AFR 147-15, ch. 5, § II, rather than in the regulation providing for service contracts, AR 60-20/AFR 147-14, ch. 3, §§ II, III. And, in language that connotes appointment rather than contract, the EMP regulations refer to one’s “nomination, selection, and designation to EMP status,” AR 60-21/AFR 147-15, ch. 5, § II, ¶ 5-8. Furthermore, respondent complains that he was separated from the EMP in violation of discharge procedures described in the regulation applicable to appointed employees, not to those who have contracted with the AAFES to provide services. App. 4-5, 7; see AR 60-21/AFR 147-15, ch. 3.
Despite these clear indications that respondent was appointed to his position, he maintains, citing United States v. Hopkins, supra, that he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing aimed at ascertaining the nature of his employment status. In Hopkins, however, the plaintiff’s complaint alleged that he had been employed pursuant to contract. The Court of Claims did not examine this allegation because it erroneously assumed that AAFES employees could never be appointed. This Court held that the plaintiff’s allegation was sufficient to withstand the Government’s motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction and remanded the case because “the question of whether plaintiff was employed by virtue of a contract or by appointment is not susceptible of determination at this time.” 427 U. S., at 130. Resolution of the question, the Court noted, depended upon an analysis of the applicable statutes and regulations “in light of whatever evidence is adduced on remand as to plaintiff’s particular status in this case.” Ibid.
Respondent’s complaint, in contrast, does not claim that he was employed pursuant to a contract. In fact, it supports the Government’s view that he was appointed. Even after the AAFES moved in the District Court to dismiss for want of jurisdiction on the ground that respondent had been “an appointed (non-contract) employee,” Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss or in the Alternative for Summary Judgment 8, respondent did not seek to amend his complaint and did not allege any facts indicating the existence of an employment contract. See Memorandum of Authorities in Opposition to Defendants’ (sic) Motion to Dismiss or in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment 5-6; see also id., at 1-3 (referring to respondent’s status as an “employee” and to violations of regulations governing AAFES employees). Moreover, as discussed above, all the evidence in the record is to the effect that respondent was appointed to his positions with the AAFES. Under these circumstances, we conclude that a remand on this question would serve no purpose and that respondent will not now be able to adduce evidence, which he has heretofore declined to present, that he was employed — either initially or upon entering the EMP — pursuant to an express employment contract.
B
The Court of Appeals’ decision rests on a different theory — that, whether or not respondent was initially employed by virtue of a contract or by appointment, the AAFES regulations governing separation procedures created an implied-in-fact contract that the Service would adhere to those regulations while respondent continued in AAFES employment. This approach, however, is foreclosed by our prior decisions.
In United States v. Testan, 424 U. S. 392 (1976), the Court concluded, without dissent, that the Tucker Act did not confer jurisdiction over a complaint filed by civil service employees who claimed that they were entitled to reclassification at a higher grade. The Act, the Court observed, “is itself only a jurisdictional statute; it does not create any substantive right enforceable against the United States for money damages.” Id., at 398. Rather, a plaintiff’s “asserted entitlement to money damages depends upon whether any federal statute ‘can fairly be interpreted as mandating compensation by the Federal Government for the damage sustained.’” Id., at 400, quoting Eastport S.S. Corp. v. United States, 178 Ct. Cl. 599, 607, 372 F. 2d 1002, 1009 (1967). The Court explicitly rejected the argument that “the violation of any statute or regulation relating to federal employment automatically creates a cause of action against the United States for money damages.” 424 U. S., at 401; see also United States v. Hopkins, 427 U. S., at 130.
As Testan makes clear, jurisdiction over respondent’s complaint cannot be premised on the asserted violation of regulations that do not specifically authorize awards of money damages. Respondent cannot escape the force of Testan by relying on the Court’s observation that the plaintiffs in that case did not “rest their claims upon a contract,” 424 U. S., at 400, and distinguishing this case on the ground that the regulations effected an implied contract. To accept this reasoning would be to undermine the Court’s ruling in Testan that the Tucker Act provides a remedy only where damages claims against the United States have been authorized explicitly. Admittedly, the Testan plaintiffs did not assert the existence of an employment contract, but neither did respondent until very late in the litigation. And if employment statutes and regulations create an implied-in-fact contract, surely the Court would have so noted in Testan instead of directing that the complaint be dismissed. See id., at 408. Moreover, the plaintiff in Hopkins did claim that he had been employed pursuant to a contract; the Court’s remand for consideration of the plaintiff’s status as an appointed or contract employee, despite a claim that his discharge contravened applicable regulations, clearly suggests that employment regulations do not automatically give rise to an implied-in-fact contract.
In addition to mandating different results in Testan and Hopkins, the Court of Appeals’ approach would “rende[r] superfluous” “many of the federal statutes — such as the Back Pay Act — that expressly provide money damages as a remedy against the United States in carefully limited circumstances.” United States v. Testan, 424 U. S., at 404. The Back Pay Act, which permits an employee to recover lost wages due to “an unjustified or unwarranted personnel action which has resulted in the withdrawal or reduction of all or part” of the compensation to which he was otherwise entitled, 5 U. S. C. § 5596(b)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), expressly denies that cause of action to AAFES personnel. See 5 U. S. C. § 2105(c)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). Congress’ intent to prohibit a backpay claim by a Service employee would obviously be subverted if the employee could sue under the Tucker Act whenever he asserted a violation of the Service’s regulations governing termination. And the impact of the Court of Appeals’ decision would not be limited to such circumstances: as counsel for respondent appeared to concede at oral argument, the Court of Appeals’ reasoning would extend Tucker Act jurisdiction to reach any complaint filed by a federal employee alleging the violation of a personnel statute or regulation. Tr. of Oral Arg. 20-21.
We therefore conclude that Testan is controlling, and we hold that the Court of Appeals erred in implying a contract based solely on the existence of AAFES personnel regulations and in premising Tucker Act jurisdiction on those regulations, which do not explicitly authorize damages awards. Because the court’s judgment may not be sustained on the ground that respondent was hired pursuant to an express employment contract, we find that the Tucker Act did not confer jurisdiction over respondent’s claims for monetary relief.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice concurs in the judgment.
AAFES is a nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the United States, that is, one that does not receive funds by congressional appropriation. See 10 U. S. C. §§ 4779(c) and 9779(c). AAFES is under the control of the Secretaries of the Army and Air Force and, like other military post exchanges, is intended “to provide convenient and reliable sources where soldiers can obtain their ordinary needs at the lowest possible prices.” Standard Oil Co. v. Johnson, 316 U. S. 481, 484-485 (1942).
The regulations cited are those currently in effect. They differ in no material respect from the regulations that were outstanding and applicable while respondent was employed by the AAFES.
Reasoning that § 1346(a)(2) does not confer federal jurisdiction to award nonmonetary relief, the Court of Appeals looked to the general federal-question jurisdictional provision, 28 U. S. C. § 1331(a), to support its finding of jurisdiction over respondent’s request for reinstatement. Although the court concluded that § 1331(a) does not constitute a waiver of sovereign immunity, it interpreted the 1976 amendment to § 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 702, as effecting a waiver for actions against federal agencies, where the agency conduct is otherwise subject to judicial review. 619 F. 2d, at 1138-1140. Given its determination that the District Court could provide respondent both monetary and nonmonetary relief under alternative statutes, the Court of Appeals held, finally, that the District Court did not have jurisdiction over respondent’s complaint pursuant to the mandamus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1361. 619 F. 2d, at 1140-1141. Neither side seeks review of those rulings here.
The last sentence of § 1346(a)(2) was added in 1970 by Pub. L. 91-350, 84 Stat. 449, following this Court’s decision some years before in Standard Oil Co. v. Johnson, 316 U. S. 481 (1942). Relying on the Court’s observation in that case that the “Government assumes none of the financial obligations” of military post exchanges, id., at 485, the Court of Claims, in a series of decisions, had held that it could not entertain contract claims against nonappropriated fund instrumentalities. See United States v. Hopkins, 427 U. S. 123, 125 (1976). In 1970, Congress sought to close this “loophole” by expressly affording contractors a Tucker Act remedy against such instrumentalities. See id., at 126; S. Rep. No. 91-268, p. 2 (1969); H. R. Rep. No. 91-933, p. 2 (1970).
Section 1346(a)(2) gives the district courts concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of Claims over all civil actions or claims seeking damages of $10,000 or less. The Court of Claims has sole jurisdiction under the Tucker Act, however, for claims greater than $10,000. See 28 U. S. C. § 1491 (1976 ed., Supp. IV). Both jurisdictional provisions are otherwise identical. See Richardson v. Morris, 409 U. S. 464, 466 (1973); United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 590-591 (1941).
The AAFES regulations define “service contract” as follows:
“A contract whereby a contractor performs a service for AAFES off a military installation, such as laundry, drycleaning, photo processing, and repair service. This type contract may also include procurement of direct services such as janitorial and window cleaning service.” AR 60-20/AFR 147-14, App. A, ¶ A-8(e) (15 Nov. 1978).
Respondent points to the portion of the EMP regulations providing that an EMP employee must have “acknowledged in writing that he understands and accepts the conditions of the EMP as prescribed by the Commander, AAFES.” AR 60-21/AFR 147-15, ch. 5, § II, ¶ 5-7(b). An employee’s acknowledgment and acceptance of the conditions of his employment, however, hardly demonstrate that he is employed pursuant to a contract; surely, an employer could require a nominee to acknowledge and accept the conditions of his appointment.
We are advised that Hopkins’ suit was settled on the remand, and that no further inquiry was made into his employment status. See Brief for Petitioner 16, n. 9; Brief for Respondent 14; Tr. of Oral Arg. 28.
Respondent did seek to amend his complaint, however, following the Court of Appeals’ decision that the AAFES discharge regulations created an implied-in-fact contract between the parties. The amended complaint alleges that a contract was executed when respondent signed an acknowledgment of the conditions of the EMP, includes a breach-of-contract count, and refers repeatedly to the “employment agreement.” First Amended Complaint 2, 6-7.
Claims grounded on implied-in-fact contracts may be brought under the Tucker Act, but the Act does not confer jurisdiction with respect to contracts implied in law. See Hatzlachh Supply Co. v. United States, 444 U. S. 460, 465, n. 5 (1980).
Like Testan, this case does not involve a suit “for money improperly exacted or retained” or a claim based on a regulation that promises money. 424 U. S., at 401, 402. This case is therefore distinguishable from those cited by respondent where contracts were inferred from regulations promising payment. See Griffin v. United States, 215 Ct. Cl. 710, 714-715 (1978); New York Airways, Inc. v. United States, 177 Ct. Cl. 800, 816-817, 369 F. 2d 743, 751-752 (1966); Radium Mines, Inc. v. United States, 139 Ct. Cl. 144, 147-148, 153 F. Supp. 403, 405-406 (1957); Aycock-Lindsey Corp. v. United States, 171 F. 2d 518, 521 (CA5 1948); Augusta Aviation, Inc. v. United States, 500 F. Supp. 785, 786-787 (SD Ga. 1980), rev’d, 671 F. 2d 445 (CA11 1982). Because respondent has not demonstrated that the parties entered into an express contract, this case is also different from those where regulations were considered an implied part of an express contract. See Bodek v. Department of Treasury, Bureau of Public Debt, 532 F. 2d 277, 279, n. 7 (CA2), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 849 (1976); Wolak v. United States, 366 F. Supp. 1106, 1110 (Conn. 1973); Spicer v. United States, 217 F. Supp. 44, 50 (Kan. 1963), aff’d, 332 F. 2d 750 (CA10 1964).
The Court’s observation in Testan that the case was “not one concerning a wrongful discharge or a wrongful suspension,” 424 U. S., at 402, does not indicate, as respondent urges, that any termination or suspension suit may be brought under the Tucker Act. In Hopkins, the Court relied on Testan in disposing, summarily and adversely, of the contention that “plaintiff’s discharge in violation of executive regulations constituted a claim enforceable under the Tucker Act.” 427 U. S., at 130.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents Bank of New England Corporation (BNE), Hartford National Corporation (HNC), and Bank of Boston Corporation (BBC) are bank holding companies which applied to the Federal Reserve Board to obtain approval for the acquisition of banks or bank holding companies in New England States other than the ones in which they are principally located. Petitioners Northeast Bancorp, Inc., Union Trust Company, and Citicorp opposed these proposed acquisitions in proceedings before the Board. The Board approved the acquisitions, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the orders of the Board. Petitioners sought certio-rari, contending that the acquisitions were not authorized by the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, 70 Stat. 133, as amended, 12 U. S. C. §1841 et seq., and that, if they were authorized by that Act, the state statutes which permitted the acquisitions in each case violated the Commerce Clause and the Compact Clause of the United States Constitution. We granted certiorari because of the importance of these issues, 469 U. S. 810, and we now affirm.
The Bank Holding Company Act (BHCA) regulates the acquisition of state and national banks by bank holding companies. The Act generally defines a bank as any institution organized under state or federal law which “(1) accepts deposits that the depositor has a legal right to withdraw on demand, and (2) engages in the business of making commercial loans.” 12 U. S. C. § 1841(c). The Act defines a bank holding company as any corporation, partnership, business trust, association, or similar organization that owns or has control over a bank or another bank holding company. §§ 1841(a)(1), (b); see § 1841(a)(5). Before a company may become a bank holding company, or a bank holding company may acquire a bank or substantially all of the assets of a bank, the Act requires it to obtain the approval of the Federal Reserve Board. § 1842.
The Board will evaluate the proposed transaction for anti-competitive effects, financial and managerial resources, community needs, and the like. § 1842(c). In addition, § 3(d) of the Act, 12 U. S. C. § 1842(d), known as “the Douglas Amendment,” prohibits the Board from approving an application of a bank holding company or bank located in one State to acquire a bank located in another State, or substantially all of its assets, unless the acquisition “is specifically authorized by the statute laws of the State in which such bank is located, by language to that effect and not merely by implication.” Pursuant to the Douglas Amendment, a number of States recently have enacted statutes which selectively authorize interstate bank acquisitions on a regional basis. This case requires us to consider the validity of these statutes.
From 1956 to 1972, the Douglas Amendment had the effect of completely barring interstate bank acquisitions because no State had enacted the requisite authorizing statute. Beginning in 1972, several States passed statutes permitting such acquisitions in limited circumstances or for specialized purposes. For example, Iowa passed a grandfathéring statute which-had the effect of permitting the only out-of-state bank holding company owning an Iowa bank to maintain and expand its in-state banking activities, Iowa Code § 524.1805 (1983); see Iowa Independent Bankers v. Board of Gover nors, 167 U. S. App. D. C. 286, 511 F. 2d 1288, cert. denied, 423 U. S. 875 (1975); Washington authorized out-of-state purchasers to acquire failing local banks, Wash. Rev. Code §30.04.230(4)(a) (Supp. 1985); and Delaware allowed out-of-state bank holding companies to set up special purpose banks, such as credit card operations, in Delaware so long as they do not compete in other respects with locally controlled full-service banks, Del. Code Ann., Tit. 5, §801 et seq. (Supp. 1984).
Beginning with Massachusetts in December 1982, several States have enacted statutes lifting the Douglas Amendment ban on interstate acquisitions on a reciprocal basis within their geographic regions. The Massachusetts Act specifically provides that an out-of-state bank holding company with its principal place of business in one of the other New England States (Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont), which is not directly or indirectly controlled by another corporation with its principal place of business located outside of New England, may establish or acquire a Massachusetts-based bank or bank holding company, provided that the other New England State accords equivalent reciprocal privileges to Massachusetts banking organizations. Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 167A, §2 (West 1984). In June 1983, Connecticut followed suit by adopting a substantially similar statute. 1983 Conn. Pub. Acts 83-411.
The other New England States have taken different courses or have not acted. Rhode Island, in May 1983, authorized acquisition of local banks by out-of-state bank holding companies on a reciprocal basis similarly limited to the New England region, but this geographic limitation will expire on June 30, 1986, after which the authorization will extend nationwide subject only to the reciprocity requirement. R. I. Gen. Laws § 19-30-1 et seq. (Supp. 1984). Since February 1984, Maine has permitted banking organizations from all other States to acquire local banks without any reciprocity requirement. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 9-B, §1013 (Supp. 1984-1985). At the other extreme, New Hampshire and Vermont have not enacted any statute releasing the Douglas Amendment’s ban on interstate bank acquisitions.
One predictable effect of the regionally restrictive statutes will apparently be to allow the growth of regional multistate bank holding companies which can compete with the established banking giants in New York, California, Illinois, and Texas. See 740 F. 2d 203, 209, and n. 16 (1984). The Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes have prompted at least 15 other States to consider legislation which, according to the Federal Reserve Board, would establish interstate banking regions in all parts of the country. 70 Fed. Res. Bull. 374, 375-376 (1984). At least seven of these States have already enacted the necessary statutes.
Two months after Connecticut passed its statute, BNE applied to the Board for approval of its merger with respondent CBT Corporation (CBT), a Connecticut bank holding company, and thereby to acquire indirectly the Connecticut Bank and Trust Company, N. A., of Hartford, Connecticut. Soon thereafter HNC applied to the Board for approval of the acquisition of Arltru Bank Corporation (Arltru), a Massachusetts bank holding company which owns the Arlington Trust Company, a bank located in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Finally BBC applied to the Board for approval of the acquisition of the successor by merger to Colonial Bancorp, Inc., a Connecticut bank holding company, by which it would acquire Colonial Bank of Waterbury, Connecticut.
Citicorp offers financial services to consumers and businesses nationally through its bank and nonbank subsidiaries. In response to the Board’s invitation for comments from interested persons on these three proposed acquisitions, Citicorp submitted comments opposing all three of them. Northeast owns petitioner Union Trust Company, a Connecticut bank that competes directly with banks owned by CBT, HNC, and Colonial. In addition, Bank of New York Corporation has agreed to acquire Northeast if Connecticut or the United States enacts the necessary enabling legislation. Northeast and Union Trust submitted comments opposing BNE’s application to acquire CBT.
The petitioners challenged the applications in part on the ground that the Douglas Amendment did not authorize them, and in part on the grounds that the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes, by discriminating against non-New England bank holding companies, violated the Commerce, Compact, and Equal Protection Clauses of the Federal Constitution. They claimed, therefore, that the proposed interstate acquisitions were not authorized by valid state statutes as required by the Douglas Amendment. The Board rejected these arguments. It first determined that the BNE-CBT and BBC-Colonial acquisitions were specifically authorized by the Connecticut statute and the HNC-Arltru acquisition was specifically authorized by the Massachusetts statute, and therefore that the Douglas Amendment would not prevent the Board from approving any of the three proposed transactions.
The Board then rejected the constitutional challenge to the two state statutes. In doing so, it noted that it would hold a state statute unconstitutional only if there was “clear and unequivocal evidence” of its unconstitutionality. 70 Fed. Res. Bull. 353, 354 (1984); id., at 376; 70 Fed. Res. Bull. 524, 525-526 (1984). While stating that “the issue is not free from doubt,” it concluded that this standard had not been met. 70 Fed. Res. Bull, at 376-377. Interpreting the statutory language and the legislative history of the Douglas Amendment, it determined that “the Douglas Amendment should be read as a renunciation of federal interest in regulating the interstate acquisition of banks by bank holding companies.” Id., at 380. This renunciation of federal interest eliminated any objection to the statutes under the Compact Clause or dormant Commerce Clause.
The Board also found nothing in the history of the Amendment to suggest that “the states were to be permitted only to choose between not allowing out-of-state bank holding companies to enter, and allowing completely free entry.” Id., at 386. The Board disposed of the equal protection challenge by reasoning that the regional restriction in the two statutes was “rationally related to an attempt to maintain a banking system responsive to local needs in New England.” Id., at 381. The Board then analyzed the proposed transactions in light of the relevant statutory considerations set out in 12 U. S. C. §§ 1842(c) and 1843(c)(8) and approved the applications.
Pursuant to 12 U. S. C. § 1848, which provides that “[a]ny party aggrieved by an order of the Board” may seek review in a federal court of appeals, and § 1850, which permits prospective competitors to be aggrieved parties under §1848, Citibank, Northeast, and Union Trust petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to review the Board’s order approving the BNE-CBT acquisition. Citibank also petitioned for review of the HNC-Arltru acquisition, and Northeast and Union Trust were permitted to intervene. These petitions were consolidated and the acquisitions stayed pending expedited review. Meanwhile, the Board stayed its order approving the BBC-Colonial acquisition, and the Court of Appeals consolidated a petition filed by Citicorp for review of that transaction with the two other pending review petitions. The court also permitted BBC, BNE, CBT, HNC, the State of Connecticut, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to intervene. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Board’s orders approving the three applications in all respects. 740 F. 2d 203 (1984). It agreed with the Board’s determination that the Connecticut and Massachusetts statutes satisfied the terms of the Douglas Amendment, and it then rejected challenges to the Board’s orders under the Commerce Clause, the Compact Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause. The Court of Appeals stayed its mandate and ordered that the status quo be maintained pending disposition by this Court.
The Douglas Amendment
The Douglas Amendment to the BHCA prohibits the Board from approving the application of a bank holding company or a bank located in one State to acquire a bank located in another State, or substantially all of its assets, unless the acquisition “is specifically authorized by the statute laws of the State in which such bank is located, by language to that effect and not merely by implication.” § 1842(d). Clearly the proposed acquisitions with which we deal in this case must be consistent with the Douglas Amendment, or they are invalid as a matter of federal statutory law. If the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes allowing regional acquisitions are not the type of state statutes contemplated by the Douglas Amendment, they would not lift the ban imposed by the general prohibition of the Douglas Amendment. While petitioners blend together arguments about the meaning of the Douglas Amendment with arguments about the effect of the Commerce Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, we think the contentions are best treated separately.
The Board resolved the statutory issue in favor of the state statutes, concluding that they were the sort of laws contemplated by the Douglas Amendment. While the Board apparently does not consider itself expert on any constitutional issues raised, it is nonetheless an authoritative voice on the meaning of a federal banking statute. Securities Industry Assn. v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, 468 U. S. 207 (1984). The Board may have applied a higher standard than was necessary when it analyzed the Douglas Amendment to see whether there was a “clear authorization” for selective lifting of the ban, such as the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes undertake to do. Whether or not so stringent a standard was applicable, we think the Board was correct in concluding that it was in fact met in this case.
The language of the Douglas Amendment plainly permits States to lift the federal ban entirely, as has been done by Maine. It does not specifically indicate that a State may partially lift the ban, for example in limited circumstances, for special types of acquisitions, or for purchasers from a certain geographic region. On the other hand, it also does not specifically indicate that a State is allowed only two alternatives: leave the federal ban in place or lift it completely. The Board concluded that the language “does not appear on its face to authorize discrimination” by region or “to meet the stringent test of explicitness laid down by” this Court in the dormant Commerce Clause cases. 70 Fed. Res. Bull., at 384. We need not resolve this issue because we agree with the Board that the legislative history of the Amendment supplies a sufficient indication of Congress’ intent.
At the time of the BHCA, interstate branch banking was already prohibited by the McFadden Act. 12 U. S. C. § 36(c). The bank holding company device, however, had been created to get around this restriction. A holding company would purchase banks in different localities both within and without a State, and thereby provide the equivalent of branch banking. One of the major purposes of the BHCA was to eliminate this loophole. H. R. Rep. No. 609, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-6 (1955); 101 Cong. Rec. 4407 (1955) (remarks of Rep. Wier); id., at 8028-8029 (remarks of Rep. Patman); 102 Cong. Rec. 6858-6859 (1956) (remarks of Sen. Douglas). As enacted by the House in 1955, the BHCA contained a flat ban on interstate bank acquisitions. The legislative history from the House makes it clear that the policies of community control and local responsiveness of banks inspired this flat ban. See 101 Cong. Rec. A2454 (1955) (remarks of Rep. Wier); id., at 8030-8031 (remarks of Rep. Rains); H. R. Rep. No. 609, supra, at 2-6.
The Douglas Amendment was added on the floor of the Senate. Its entire legislative history is confined to the Senate debate. In such circumstances, the comments of individual legislators carry substantial weight, especially when they reflect a consensus as to the meaning and objectives of the proposed legislation though not necessarily the wisdom of that legislation. The instant case is not a situation where the comments of an individual legislator, even a sponsor, is at odds with the language of the statute or other traditionally mo're authoritative indicators of legislative intent such as the conference or committee reports.
The bill reported out by the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency permitted interstate bank acquisitions conditioned only on approval by the Federal Reserve Board. This approach apparently was favored by many of the large bank holding companies which sought further expansion, see, e. g., Control of Bank Holding Companies, 1955: Hearings on S. 880 et al. before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 132, 136 (1955) (testimony of Ellwood Jenkins, First Bank Stock Corp.), 298-299 (Baldwin Maull, Marine Midland Corp.), 320 (Cameron Thomson, Northwest Bancorporation), cf. 375, 385 (Frank N. Belgrano, Jr., Transamerica Corp.), and by some who thought the total ban in the House bill offensive to States’ rights, see 102 Cong. Rec. 6752 (1956) (remarks of Sen. Robertson, floor manager of Committee bill, quoting Sen. Maybank).
The Douglas Amendment was a compromise between the two extremes that also accommodated the States’ rights concern:
“Our amendment would prohibit bank holding companies from purchasing banks in other States unless such purchases by out-of-State holding companies were specifically permitted by law in such States.” Id., at 6860 (remarks of Sen. Douglas).
Accord, ibid, (remarks of Sen. Bennett in opposition to the Amendment).
Of central concern to this litigation, the Douglas compromise did not simply leave to each State a choice one way or the other — either to permit or bar interstate acquisitions of local banks — but to allow each State flexibility in its approach. Senator Douglas explained that under his amendment bank holding companies would be permitted to acquire banks in other States “only to the degree that State laws expressly permit them.” Id., at 6858. Petitioners contend that by the phrase “to the degree” Senator Douglas intended merely a quantitative reference to the number of States which might lift the ban, and did not mean that a State could partially lift the ban. Petitioners’ contention, however, is refuted by the close analogy drawn by Senator Douglas between his amendment and the McFadden Act, 12 U. S. C. § 36(c):
“The organization of branch banks proceeded very rapidly in the 1920’s, and to check their growth various States passed laws limiting, and in some cases preventing it, as in the case of Illinois. National banks had previously been implicitly prohibited from opening branches, and there was a strong movement to remove this prohibition and completely open up the field for the national banks. This, however, was not done. Instead, by the McFadden Act and other measures, national banks have been permitted to open branches only to the degree permitted by State laws and State authorities.
“I may say that what our amendment aims to do is to carry over into the field of holding companies the same provisions which already apply for branch banking under the McFadden Act — namely, our amendment will permit out-of-State holding companies to acquire banks in other States only to the degree that State laws expressly permit them; and that is the provision of the McFadden Act.” Ibid.
See id., at 6860.
In enacting the McFadden Act in 1927, Congress relaxed federal restrictions on branch banking by national banks, but at the same time subjected them to the same branching restrictions imposed by the States on state banks. First National Bank v. Walker Bank & Trust Co., 385 U. S. 252, 258 (1966). Congress intended “to leave the question of the desirability of branch banking up to the States,” ibid., and to permit branch banking by national banks “‘in only those States the laws of which permit branch banking, and only to the extent that the State laws permit branch banking.’ ” Id., at 259 (quoting Sen. Glass, 76 Cong. Rec. 2511 (1933)). The McFadden Act did not offer the States an all-or-nothing choice with respect to branch banking. As Senator Douglas observed, some States had limited intrastate branching by state banks, and others like Illinois had prohibited it altogether.
This variative approach to intrastate branching was nicely illustrated at the time by the structure in New York, which Senator Douglas described as follows: “In New York the State is divided into 10 zones. Branch banking is permitted within each of the zones, but a bank cannot have branches in another zone.” 102 Cong. Rec. 6858 (1956). At the same time, Pennsylvania permitted branching in contiguous counties. Upper Darby National Bank v. Myers, 386 Pa. 12, 124 A. 2d 116 (1956). In view of this analogy to the McFadden Act and Senator Douglas’ explanation of that Act, there can be no other conclusion but that Congress contemplated that some States might partially lift the ban on interstate banking without opening themselves up to interstate banking from everywhere in the Nation.
Not only are the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes consistent with the Douglas Amendment’s anticipation of differing approaches to interstate banking, but they are also consistent with the broader purposes underlying the BHCA as a whole and the Douglas Amendment in particular to retain local, community-based control over banking. Faced with growing competition from nonbank financial services that are not confined within state lines, these States sought an alternative that allowed expansion and growth of local banks without opening their borders to unimpeded interstate banking. The Connecticut General Assembly established a Commission in 1979 to study the problem. It concluded:
“Both at the national and state levels the philosophy underlying our structure of bank regulation has been to promote a pluralistic banking system — a system comprised of many units, rather than a highly concentrated system made up of a few large banks. The promotion of local ownership and control of banks has as one of its objectives the preservation of a close relationship between those in our communities who need credit and those who provide credit. To allow the control of credit that is essential for the health of our state economy to pass to hands that are not immediately responsive to the interests of Connecticut citizens and businesses would not, we believe, serve our state well. Similarly, to expose our smaller banks to the rigors of unlimited competition from large out-of-state banking organizations — particularly at a time when deregulation of banking products at the federal level is already putting strains on the resources of smaller banks — would not be wise.” Report to the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut (Jan. 5, 1983), 4 App. in No. 84-4047 (CA2), pp. 1230, 1240-1241.
Rather, the Commission proposed “an experiment in regional banking” as a first step toward full interstate banking which “would afford the legislature an opportunity to make its own calculus of the benefits and detriments that might result from a broader program of interstate banking.” Id., at 1241-1242. The Connecticut General Assembly adopted the Commission’s recommendations, and we believe that Connecticut’s approach is precisely what was contemplated by Congress when it adopted the Douglas Amendment.
We hold that the Connecticut and Massachusetts statutes are of the kind contemplated by the Douglas Amendment to lift its bar against interstate acquisitions.
Commerce Clause
Petitioners contend that the regional limitation in the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes burdens commerce from without the region while permitting a free flow of commerce among the States within the region. They provide numerous citations to prove that one of the principal purposes of the Framers of the Constitution was to break up and forestall precisely this type of economic “Balkanization” into confederations of States to the detriment of the welfare of the Únion as a whole. See, e. g., H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 533 (1949); Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U. S. 322, 325-326 (1979); The Federalist Nos. 7 and 22, pp. 62-63, 143-145 (Rossiter ed. 1961). There can be little dispute that the dormant Commerce Clause would prohibit a group of States from establishing a system of regional banking by excluding bank holding companies from outside the region if Congress had remained completely silent on the subject. Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., 447 U. S. 27, 39-44 (1980). Nor can there be serious question that an individual State acting entirely on its own authority would run afoul of the dormant Commerce Clause if it sought to comprehensively regulate acquisitions of local banks by out-of-state holding companies. Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, 458 U. S. 941 (1982).
But that is not our case. Here the commerce power of Congress is not dormant, but has been exercised by that body when it enacted the Bank Holding Company Act and the Douglas amendment to the Act. Congress has authorized by the latter amendment the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes which petitioners challenge as violative of the Commerce Clause. When Congress so chooses, state actions which it plainly authorizes are invulnerable to constitutional attack under the Commerce Clause. Western & Southern Life Insurance Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 451 U. S. 648, 653-654 (1981); White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., 460 U. S. 204 (1983); cf. South-Central Timber Development, Inc. v. Wunnicke, 467 U. S. 82 (1984). Petitioners’ Commerce Clause attack on the challenged acquisitions therefore fails.
Compact Clause
Petitioners maintain that the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes constitute a compact to exclude non-New England banking organizations which violates the Compact Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §10, cl. 3, because Congress has not specifically approved it. We have some doubt as to whether there is an agreement amounting to a compact. The two statutes are similar in that they both require reciprocity and impose a regional limitation, both legislatures favor the establishment of regional banking in New England, and there is evidence of cooperation among legislators, officials, bankers, and others in the two States in studying the idea and lobbying for the statutes. But several of the classic indicia of a compact are missing. No joint organization or body has been established to regulate regional banking or for any other purpose. Neither statute is conditioned on action by the other State, and each State is free to modify or repeal its law unilaterally. Most importantly, neither statute requires a reciprocation of the regional limitation. Bank holding companies based in Maine, which has no regional limitation, and Rhode Island, which will drop the regional limitation in 1986, are permitted by the two statutes to acquire Massachusetts and Connecticut banks. These two States are included in the ostensible compact under petitioners’ theory, yet one does not impose the exclusion to which petitioners so strenuously object and the other plans to drop it after two years.
But even if we were to assume that these state actions constitute an agreement or compact, not every such agreement violates the Compact Clause. Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U. S. 503 (1893).
“The application of the Compact Clause is limited to agreements that are ‘directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States.’ ” New Hampshire v. Maine, 426 U. S. 363, 369 (1976), quoting Virginia v. Tennessee, supra, at 519.
See United States Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Comm’n, 434 U. S. 452, 471 (1978).
In view of the Douglas Amendment to the BHCA, the challenged state statutes which comply with that Act cannot possibly infringe federal supremacy. To the extent that the state statutes might conflict in a particular situation with other federal statutes, such as the provision under which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will arrange for the acquisition of failing banks by out-of-state bank holding companies, 12 U. S. C. § 1823(f), they would be pre-empted by those statutes, and therefore any Compact Clause argument would be academic. Petitioners also assert that the alleged regional compact impermissibly offends the sovereignty of sister States outside of New England. We do not see how the statutes in question either enhance the political power of the New England States at the expense of other States or have an “impact on our federal structure.” United States Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Comm’n, supra, at 471, 473.
Equal Protection Clause
Petitioners argued before the Board and the Court of Appeals that the Massachusetts and Connecticut statutes violated the Equal Protection Clause, U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, §2, by excluding bank holding companies from some States while admitting those from others. This claim was abandoned in their petition for certiorari and their briefs on the merits, but after our decision in Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Ward, 470 U. S. 869 (1985), petitioners filed a supplemental brief urging us to consider the equal protection issue. Because the issue was fully reviewed by the Board and the Court of Appeals and because it would undoubtedly cloud other pending applications for acquisitions by bank holding companies, we elect to decide it.
In Metropolitan Life we held that encouraging the formation of new domestic insurance companies within a State and encouraging capital investment in the State’s assets and governmental securities were not, standing alone, legitimate state purposes which could permissibly be furthered by discriminating against out-of-state corporations in favor of local corporations. There we said:
“This case does not involve or question, as the dissent suggests, post, at 900-901, the broad authority of a State to promote and regulate its own economy. We hold only that such regulation may not be accomplished by imposing discriminatorily higher taxes on nonresident corporations solely because they are nonresidents.” Id., at 882, n. 10.
Here the States in question — Massachusetts and Connecticut — are not favoring local corporations at the expense of out-of-state corporations. They are favoring out-of-state corporations domiciled within the New England region over out-of-state corporations from other parts of the country, and to this extent their laws may be said to “discriminate” against the latter. But with respect to the business of banking, we do not write on a clean slate; recently in Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., 447 U. S., at 38, we said that “banking and related financial activities are of profound local concern.” This statement is a recognition of the historical fact that our country traditionally has favored widely dispersed control of banking. While many other western nations are dominated by a handful of centralized banks, we have some 15,000 commercial banks attached to a greater or lesser degree to the communities in which they are located. The Connecticut legislative Commission that recommended adoption of the Connecticut statute in question considered interstate banking on a regional basis to combine the beneficial effect of increasing the number of banking competitors with the need to preserve a close relationship between those in the community who need credit and those who provide credit. 4 App. in No. 84-4047 (CA2), pp. 1289-1241. The debates in the Connecticut Legislature preceding the enactment of the Connecticut law evince concern that immediate acquisition of Connecticut banks by holding companies headquartered outside the New England region would threaten the independence of local banking institutions. See, e. g., App. to Pet. for Cert. A157-A160. No doubt similar concerns motivated the Massachusetts Legislature.
We think that the concerns which spurred Massachusetts and Connecticut to enact the statutes here challenged, different as they are from those which motivated the enactment of the Alabama statute in Metropolitan, meet the traditional rational basis for judging equal protection claims under the Fourteenth Amendment. Barry v. Barchi, 443 U. S. 55, 67 (1979); Vance v. Bradley, 440 U. S. 93, 97 (1979).
We hold that the state statutes here in question comply with the Douglas Amendment and that they do not violate the Commerce Clause, the Compact Clause, or the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
Justice Powell took no part in the decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents issues concerning the construction of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. §§ 2510-2520. Specifically, we must decide whether 18 U. S. C. §2518 (l)(b)(iv), which requires the Government to include in its wiretap applications “the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted,” is satisfied when the Government identifies only the “principal targets” of the intercept. Second, we must decide whether the Government has a statutory responsibility to inform the issuing judge of the identities of persons whose conversations were overheard in the course of the interception, thus enabling him to decide whether they should be served with notice of the interception pursuant to 18 U. S. C. §2518(8)(d). And finally, we must determine whether failure to comply fully with these statutory provisions requires suppression of evidence under 18 U. S. C. §2518 (10)(a).
I
On November 28, 1972, a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation applied to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio for an order authorizing a wiretap interception in accordance with Title III. The application requested authorization to intercept gambling-related communications over two telephones at one address in North Olmstead, Ohio, and two other telephones at a home in Canton, Ohio. The accompanying affidavit recited that the telephones were being used by Albert Kotoch, Joseph Spaganlo, and George Florea' to conduct an illegal gambling business, and that in conducting that business they would place calls to and receive calls from various persons, three of whom were also named in the wiretap application. The affiant also stated that the Government’s informants would refuse to testify against the persons named ha the application, that telephone records alone would be insufficient to support a gambling conviction, and that normal investigative techniques were unlikely to be fruitful. Pursuant to the Government’s request, the District Court authorized for a period of 15 days the interception of gambling-related wire communications of Kotoch, Spaganlo, Florea, three named individuals other than the respondents, and “others, as yet unknown,” to and from the four listed telephones.
During the course of the wiretap, the Government learned that respondents Donovan, Robbins, and Buzzacco were discussing illegal gambling activities with the named subjects. On December 26, 1972, the Government applied for an extension of the initial intercept order. This time it sought authorization to intercept gambling-related conversations of Kotoch, Spaganlo, Florea, two other named individuals, and “others as yet unknown,” but it did not identify respondents Donovan, Buzzacco, and Robbins in this second application. The District Court again authorized interception of gambling-related conversations for a maximum of 15 days.
On February 21, 1973, the Government submitted to the District Court a proposed order giving notice of the interceptions to 37 persons, a group which the Government apparently thought included all individuals who could be identified as having discussed gambling over the monitored telephones. The District Court signed the proposed order, and an inventory notice was served on the listed persons, including respondents Donovan, Buzzacco, and Robbins. On September 11, 1973, after the Government submitted the names of two additional persons whose identities allegedly had been omitted inadvertently from the initial list, the District Court entered an amended order giving notice to those individuals. As a result of what the Government labels “administrative oversight,” respondents Merlo and Lauer were not included in either list of names and were never served with inventory notice.
On November 1, 1973, an indictment was returned in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio charging Kotoch, Spaganlo, the five respondents, and 10 other individuals with conspiracy to conduct and conducting a gambling business in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§ 371 and 1955. The five respondents filed motions to suppress evidence derived from the wire interception. After an evidentiary hearing on the motions, the District Court suppressed as to respondents Donovan, Robbins, and Buzzacco all evidence derived from the December 26 intercept order on the ground that failure to identify them by name in the application and order of that date violated 18 U. S. C. §§ 2518 (l)(b)(iv) and 2518 (4)(a). With respect to Merlo and Lauer, who were not known to the Government until after the December 26 application, the District Court suppressed all evidence derived from both intercept orders on the ground that they had not been served with inventory notice.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. 513 F. 2d 337 (1975). On the identification issue, the court held that the wiretap application must identify every person whose conversations relating to the subject criminal activity the Government has probable cause to believe it will intercept. Agreeing with the District Court that at the time of the December 26 application the Government had probable cause to believe that it would overhear Donovan, Robbins, and Buzzacco “committing the offense,” the Court of Appeals affirmed the suppression of evidence derived from the December 26 order. On the notice question, it held that the Government has an implied statutory duty to inform the issuing judge of the identities of the parties whose conversations were overheard so that he can determine whether discretionary inventory notice should be required. Because the Government had failed to perform this duty with respect to Merlo and Lauer, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s order suppressing evidence derived from both intercept orders. The court found it unnecessary to determine whether the failure to identify respondents Donovan, Robbins, and Buzzacco in the December 26 application and to name respondents Merlo and Lauer in the proposed inventory notice orders was inadvertent or purposeful, since the mere fact of omission was sufficient to require suppression under 18 U. S. C. §2518 (10)(a).
We granted certiorari to resolve these issues, which concern the construction of a major federal statute, 424 U. S. 907, and now reverse.
II
The United States contends that § 2518 (1) (b) (iv) requires that a wiretap application identify only the principal target of the interception, and that § 2518 (8) (d) does not require the Government to provide the issuing judge with a list of all identifiable persons who were overheard in the course of an authorized interception. We think neither contention is sound.
A
We turn first to the identification requirements of § 2518 (l)(b)(iv). That provision requires a wiretap application to specify “the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted.” In construing that language, this Court already has ruled that the Government is not required to identify an individual in the application unless it has probable cause to believe (i) that the individual is engaged in the criminal activity under investigation and (ii) that the individual’s conversations will be intercepted over the target telephone. United States v. Kahn, 415 U. S. 143 (1974). The question at issue here is whether the Government is required to name all such individuals.
The United States argues that the most reasonable interpretation of the plain language of the statute is that the application must identify only the principal target of the investigation, who “will almost always be the individual whose phone is to be monitored.” Brief for United States 18. Under this interpretation, if the Government has reason to believe that an individual will use the target telephone to place or receive calls, and the Government has probable cause to believe that the individual is engaged in the criminal activity under investigation, the individual qualifies as a principal target and must be named in the wiretap application. On the other hand, an individual who uses a different telephone to place calls to or receive calls from the target telephone is not a principal target even if the Government has probable cause to believe that the individual is engaged in the criminal activity under investigation. In other words, whether one is a principal target of the investigation depends on whether one operates the target telephone to place or receive calls.
Whatever the merits of such a statutory scheme, we find little support for it in the language and structure of Title III or in the legislative history. The statutory language itself refers only to “the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted.” That description is as applicable to a suspect placing calls to the target telephone as it is to a suspect placing calls from that telephone. It is true, as the United States suggests, that when read in the context of the other subdivisions of §2518 (1) (b), an argument can be made that Congress focused in subdivision (iv) on the primary user of the target telephone. But it is also clear from other sections of the statute that Congress expected that wiretap applications would name more than one individual. For example, Title III requires that inventory notice be served upon “the persons named in the order or the application.” 18 U. S. C. §2518 (8)(d) (emphasis added). And §2518 (1) (e) requires that an intercept application disclose all previous intercept applications “involving any of the same persons... specified in the application” (emphasis added). It may well be that Congress anticipated that a given application would cover more than one telephone or that several suspects would use one telephone, and that an application for those reasons alone would require identification of more than one individual. But nothing on the face of the statute suggests that Congress intended to remove from the identification requirement those suspects whose intercepted communications originated on a telephone other than that listed in the wiretap application.
Nor can we find support in the legislative history for the “principal target” interpretation. Title III originated as a combination of S. 675, the Federal Wire Interception Act, which was introduced by Senator McClellan several months prior to this Court’s decision in Berger v. New York, 388 U. S. 41 (1967), and S. 2050, the Electronic Surveillance Control Act of 1967, introduced by Senator Hruska a few days after the Berger decision. S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 66 (1968). Both bills required that wiretap applications include a full and complete statement of the facts and circumstances relied upon by the applicant and specification of the nature and location of the communication facilities involved. Although neither bill contained an express identification requirement such as that at issue-here, both bills required the application to include a “full and complete statement of the facts concerning all previous applications... involving any person named in the application as committing, having committed, or being about to commit an offense.” Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Controlling'Crime Through More Effective Law Enforcement, 90th Cong.'; 1st Sess., 77, §8 (a)(3), and 1006, §2518 (4)(a) (1967) (emphasis added). Thus, even at this early stage, it was recognized that an application could identify several individuals, and there is no indication that the identification would be limited to principal targets.
S. 917 combined the major provisions of S. 675 and S. 2050 and eventually was enacted. While it was pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee, this Court decided Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967). S. 917 was then redrafted to conform to Katz as well as Berger, and the identification provision was added at that time. The Senate Report states that the requirements set forth in the various subdivisions of § 2518 (l)(b), including the identification requirement at issue here, were intended to “reflect... the constitutional command of particularization.” S. Rep. No. 1097, supra, at 101, citing Berger v. New York, supra, at 58-60, and Katz v. United States, supra, at 354-356. The United States now contends that although it may be that Congress read Berger and Katz to require, as a constitutional matter, that the subject of the surveillance be named if known, Congress would hardly have read those cases as requiring the naming of all ^parties likely to be overheard. Brief for United States 25-26. But to the extent that Congress thought it was meeting the constitutional commands of particularization established in Berger and Katz, Congress may have read those cases as mandating a broad identification requirement. The statute that we confronted in Berger required identification of “the person or persons” whose communications were to be overheard. 388 U. S., at 59. And we expressly noted that that provision “[did] no more than identify the person whose constitutionally protected area is to be invaded....” Ibid. Given the statute at issue in Berger and our comment upon it, Congress may have concluded that the Constitution required the naming, in a wiretap application, of all suspects rather than just the primary user.
In any event, for our present purposes it is unnecessary to speculate as to exactly how Congress interpreted Berger and Katz with respect to the identification issue. It is sufficient to note that in response to those decisions Congress included an identification requirement which on its face draws no distinction based on the telephone one uses, and the United States points to no evidence in the legislative history that supports such a distinction. Indeed, the legislative materials apparently contain no use of the term “principal target” or any discussion of a different treatment based on the telephone from which a suspect speaks. We therefore conclude that a wiretap application must name an individual if the Government has probable cause to believe that the individual is engaged in the criminal activity under investigation and expects to intercept the individual’s conversations over the target telephone.
B
The other statutory provision at issue in this case is 18 U. S. C. § 2518 (8) (d), which provides that the judge shall cause to be served on the persons named in the order or application an inventory, which must give notice of the entry of the order or application, state the disposition of the application, and indicate whether communications were intercepted. Although the statute mandates inventory notice only for persons named in the application or the order, the statute also provides that the judge may order similar notice to other parties to intercepted communications if he concludes that such action is in the interest of justice. Observing that this notice provision does not expressly require law enforcement authorities routinely to supply the judge with specific information upon which to exercise his discretion, the.United States contends that it would be inappropriate to read such a requirement into the statute since the judge has the option of asking the law enforcement authorities for whatever information he requires.
Our reading of the legislative history of the discretionary notice provision in light of the purposes of Title III leads us to reject the Government’s interpretation.. As reported from the Judiciary Committee, § 2518 (8) (d) contained only a provision mandating notice to the persons named in the application or the order; the discretionary notice provision was added by amendment on the floor of the Senate. In introducing that amendment, Senator Hart explained its purpose:
“The amendment would give the judge who issued the order discretion to require notice to be served on other parties to intercepted communications, even though such parties are not specifically named in the court order. The Berger and Katz decisions established that notice of surveillance is a constitutional requirement of any surveillance statute. It may be that the required notice must be served on all parties to intercepted communications. Since legitimate interests of privacy may make such notice to all parties undesirable, the amendment leaves the final determination to the judge.” 114 Cong. Rec. 14485-14486 (1968).
In deciding whether legitimate privacy interests justify withholding inventory notice from parties to intercepted conversations, a judge is likely to require information and assistance beyond that contained in the application papers and the recordings of intercepted conversations made available by law enforcement authorities. No purpose is served by holding that those authorities have no routine duty to supply the judge with relevant information. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently confronted this problem of dual responsibility, and we adopt the balanced construction that court placed on § 2518 (8) (d):
“To discharge this obligation the judicial officer must have, at a minimum, knowledge of the particular categories into which fall all the individuals whose conversations have been intercepted. Thus, while precise identification of each party to an intercepted communication is not required, a description of the general class, or classes, which they comprise is essential to enable the judge to determine whether additional information is necessary for a proper evaluation of the interests of the various parties. Furthermore, although the judicial officer has the duty to cause the filing of the inventory [notice], it is abundantly clear that the prosecution has greater access to and familiarity with the intercepted communications. Therefore we feel justified in imposing upon the latter the duty to classify all those whose conversations have been intercepted, and to transmit this information to the judge. Should the judge desire more information regarding these classes in order to exercise his [statutory] § 2518 (8) (d) discretion,... the government is [also] required to furnish such information as is available to it.” United States v. Chun, 503 F. 2d 533, 540 (1974). (Footnote omitted.)
We agree with the Ninth Circuit that this allocation of responsibility best serves the purposes of Title III.
Currently, the policy of the Justice Department is to provide the issuing judge with the name of every person who has been overheard as to whom there is any reasonable possibility of indictment. Brief for United States 39. Because it fails to assure that the necessary range of inforrelation will be before the issuing judge, this policy does not meet the test set out in Chun. Moreover, where, as here, the Government chooses to supply the issuing judge with a list of all identifiable persons rather than a description of the classes into which those persons fall, the list must be complete. Applying these principles, we find that the Government did not comply adequately with §2518 (8)(d), since the names of respondents Merlo and Lauer were not included on the purportedly complete list of identifiable persons submitted to the issuing judge.
Ill
We turn now to the question whether the District Court properly suppressed evidence derived from the wiretaps at issue solely because of the failure of the law enforcement authorities to comply fully with the provisions of §§2518 (1) (b)(iv) and 2518 (8) (d). Section 2515 expressly prohibits the use at trial, and at certain other proceedings, of the contents of any intercepted wire communication or any evidence derived therefrom “if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of this chapter.” The circumstances that trigger suppression under § 2515 are in turn enumerated in § 2518 (10) (a) :
“(i) the communication was unlawfully intercepted;
“(ii) the order of authorization or approval under which it was intercepted is insufficient on its face; or
“(iii) the interception was not made in conformity with the order of authorization or approval.”
There is no basis on the facts of this case to suggest that the authorization orders are facially insufficient, or that the interception was not conducted in conformity with the orders. Thus, only § 2518 (10) (a) (i) is relevant: Were the communications “unlawfully intercepted” given the violations of §§ 2518 (1) (b) (iv) and 2518 (8) (d)?
Resolution of that question must begin with United States v. Giordano, 416 U. S. 505 (1974), and United States v. Chavez, 416 U. S. 562 (1974). Those cases hold that “[not] every failure to comply fully with any requirement provided in Title III would render the interception of wire or oral communications 'unlawful.5 55 Id., at 574-575. To the contrary, suppression is required only for a “failure to satisfy any of those statutory requirements that directly and substantially implement the congressional intention to limit the use of intercept procedures to those, situations clearly calling for the employment of this extraordinary investigative device.” United States v. Giordano, supra, at 527.
Giordano concerned the provision in Title III requiring that an application for an intercept order be approved by the Attorney General or an Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the Attorney General. Concluding that Congress intended to condition the use of wiretap procedures on the judgment of senior officials in the Department of Justice, the Court required suppression for failure to comply with the approval provision. Chavez concerned the statutory requirement that the application for an intercept order specify the identity of the official authorizing the application. The problem in Chavez was one of misidentification; although the application had in fact been authorized by the Attorney General, the application erroneously identified an Assistant Attorney General as the official authorizing the application. The Court concluded that mere misidentification of the official authorizing the application did not make the application unlawful within the meaning of § 2518 (10) (a) (i) since that identification requirement did not play a “substantive role” in the regulatory system. 416 U. S., at 578.
In the instant case, the Court of Appeals concluded that both the identification requirement of § 2518 (l)(b)(iv) and the notice requirement of § 2518 (8) (d) played a “central role” in the statutory framework, and for that reason affirmed the District Court's order suppressing relevant evidence. Although both statutory requirements are undoubtedly important, we do not think that the failure to comply fully with those provisions renders unlawful an intercept order that in all other respects satisfies the statutory requirements.
A
.As to § 2518 (l)(b)(iv), the issue is whether the identification in an intercept application of all those likely to be overheard in incriminating conversations plays a “substantive role” with respect to judicial authorization of intercept orders and consequently imposes a limitation on the use of intercept procedures. The statute provides that the issuing judge may approve an intercept application if he determines that normal investigative techniques have failed or are unlikely to succeed and there is probable cause to believe that: (i) an individual is engaged in criminal activity; (ii) particular communications concerning the offense will be.obtained through interception; and (iii) the target facilities are being used in connection with the specified criminal activity. §§ 2518 (3)(a-d). That determination is based on the “full and complete statement” of relevant facts supplied by law enforcement authorities. If, after evaluating the statutorily enumerated factors in light of the information contained in the application, the judge concludes that the wiretap order should issue, the failure to identify additional persons who are likely to be overheard engaging in incriminating conversations could hardly invalidate an otherwise lawful judicial authorization. The intercept order may issue only if the issuing judge determines that the statutory factors are present, and the failure to name additional targets in no way detracts from the sufficiency of those factors.
This case is unlike Giordano, where failure to satisfy the statutory requirement of prior approval by specified Justice Department officials bypassed a congressionally imposed limitation on the use of the intercept procedure. The Court there noted that it was reasonable to believe that requiring prior approval from senior officials in the Justice Department “would inevitably foreclose resort to wiretapping in various situations where investigative personnel would otherwise seek intercept authority from the court and the court would very likely authorize its use.” 416 U. S., at 528. Here, however, the statutorily imposed preconditions to judicial authorization were satisfied, and the issuing judge was simply unaware that additional persons might be overheard engaging in incriminating conversations. In no meaningful sense can it be said that the presence of that information as to additional targets would have precluded judicial authorization of the intercept Rather, this case resembles Chavez, where we held that a wiretap was not unlawful simply because the issuing judge was incorrectly informed as to which designated official had authorized the application. The Chavez intercept was lawful because the Justice Department had performed its task of prior approval, and the instant intercept is lawful because the application provided sufficient information to enable the issuing judge to determine that the statutory preconditions were satisfied.
Finally, we note that nothing in the legislative history suggests that Congress intended this broad identification requirement to play “a central, or even functional, role in guarding against unwarranted use of wiretapping or electronic surveillance.” United States v. Chavez, 416 U. S., at 578. Neither S. 675 nor S. 2050, the predecessor bills of S. 917, contained an identification provision. See supra, at 426. The only explanation given in the Senate Report for the inclusion of the broad identification provision was that it was intended to reflect what Congress perceived to be the constitutional command of particularization. This explanation was offered with respect to all the information required by § 2518 (l)(b) to be set out in an intercept application. No additional guidance can be. gleaned from the floor debates, since they contain no substantive discussion of the identification provision.
B
We reach the same conclusion with respect to the Government's duty to inform the judge of all identifiable persons whose conversations were intercepted. As noted earlier, the version of Title III that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee provided only for mandatory notice to the “persons named in the order or the application.'' The Senate Report detailed the purpose of that provision:
“[T]he intent of the provision is that the principle of postuse notice will be retained. This provision alone should insure the community that the techniques are reasonably employed. Through its operation all authorized interceptions must eventually become known at least to the subject. He can then seek appropriate civil redress, for example, under section 2520... if he feels that his privacy has been unlawfully invaded.” S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 105 (1968).
The floor discussion concerning the amendment adding the provision for discretionary notice merely indicates an intent to provide notice to such additional persons as may be constitutionally required.
Nothing in the structure of the Act or this legislative history suggests that incriminating conversations are “unlawfully intercepted” whenever parties to those conversations do not receive discretionary inventory notice as a result of the Government’s failure to inform the District Court of their identities. At the time inventory notice was served on the other identifiable persons, the intercept had been completed and the conversations had been “seized” under a valid intercept order. The fact that discretionary notice reached 39 rather than 41 identifiable persons does not in itself mean that the conversations were unlawfully intercepted.
The legislative history indicates that postintercept notice was designed instead to assure the community that the wiretap technique is reasonably employed. But even recognizing that Congress placed considerable emphasis on that aspect of the overall statutory scheme, we do not think that postintercept notice was intended to serve as an independent restraint on resort to the wiretap procedure.
IV
Although the Government was required to identify respondents Donovan, Robbins, and Buzzacco in the December 26 application for an extension of the initial intercept, failure to do so in the circumstances here presented did not warrant suppression under § 2518 (10) (a) (i). Nor was suppression justified with respect to respondents Merlo and Lauer simply because the Government inadvertently omitted their names from the comprehensive list of all identifiable persons whose conversations had been overheard. We hold that this is the correct result under the provisions of Title III, but we reemphasize the suggestion we made in United States v. Chavez, that “strict adherence by the Government to the provisions of Title III would nonetheless be more in keeping with the responsibilities Congress has imposed upon it when authority to engage in wiretapping or electronic surveillance is sought.” 416 U. S., at 580.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The wiretap application procedure is set forth at 18 U. S. C. § 2518 (1), which provides:
“(1) Each application for an order authorizing or approving the interception of a wire or oral communication shall be made in writing upon oath or affirmation to a judge of competent jurisdiction and shall state the applicant’s authority to make such application. Each application shall include the following information:
“(a) the identity of the investigative or law enforcement officer making the application, and the officer authorizing the application;
“ (b) a full and complete statement of the facts and circumstances relied upon by the applicant, to justify his belief that an order should be issued, including (i) details as to the particular offense that has been, is being, or is about to be committed, (ii) a particular description of the nature and location of the facilities from which or the place where the communication is to be intercepted, (iii) a particular description of the type of communications sought to be intercepted, (iv) the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted;
“(c) a full and complete statement as to whether or not other investigative procedures have been tried and failed or why they reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be-too dangerous;
“(d) a statement of the period of time for which the interception is required to be maintained. If the nature of the investigation is such that the authorization for interception should not automatically terminate when the described type of communication has been first obtained, a particular description of facts establishing probable cause to believe that additional communications of the same type will occur thereafter;
“(e) a full and complete statement of the facts concerning all previous applications known to the individual authorizing and making the application, made to any judge for authorization to intercept, or for approval of interceptions of, wire or oral communications involving any of the same persons, facilities or places specified in the application, and the action taken by the judge on each such application; and
“(f) where the application is for the extension of an order, a statement setting forth the results thus far obtained from the interception, or a reasonable explanation of the failure to obtain such results.”
The issuing judge is free to require the applicant to furnish additional information. 18 U. S. C. § 2518 (2).
The affidavit set forth extensive information indicating that the named individuals were conducting a gambling operation. This information was derived from physical surveillance by agents of the FBI, an examination of telephone company toll records, and the personal observations of six informants, whose past reliability also was detailed in the affidavit.
The District Court’s order was issued pursuant to 18 U. S. C. §§ 2518 (3), (4), which provide in pertinent part:
“(3) Upon such application the judge may enter an ex parte order, as requested or as modified, authorizing or approving interception of wire or oral communications within the territorial jurisdiction of the court in which the judge is sitting, if the judge determines on the basis of the facts submitted by the applicant that—
“(a) there is probable cause for belief that an individual is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a particular offense enumerated in section 2516 of this chapter;
"(b) there is probable cause for belief that particular communications concerning that offense will be obtained through such interception;
"(c) normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous;
“(d) there is probable cause for belief that the facilities from which, or the place where, the wire or oral communications are to be intercepted are being used, or are about to be used, in connection with the commission of such offense, or are leased to, listed in the name of, or commonly used by such person.
“(4) Each order authorizing or approving the interception of any wire or oral communication shall specify—
“(a) the identity of the person, if known, whose communications are to be intercepted;
“(b) the nature and location of the communications facilities as to which, or the place where, authority to intercept is granted;
“(c) a particular description of the type of communication sought to be intercepted, and a statement of the particular offense to which it relates;
“(d) the identity of the agency authorized to intercept the communications, and of the person authorizing the application; and
“(e) the period of time during which such interception is authorized, including a statement as to whether or not the interception shall automatically terminate when the described communication has been first obtained.”
In addition to the December 26 application requesting an extension of the initial intercept order, the Government also filed on that date a separate application seeking authorization to monitor a third telephone discovered at the same North Olmstead address. Both applications were accompanied by another affidavit setting forth the results of the initial monitoring, the manner in which the third telephone was discovered, the facts, indicating that the newly discovered telephone was being used, to conduct a gambling business, and reasons why continued interception was necessary. A copy of the affidavit filed on November 28 was also attached to the December 26 applications. For the sake of clarity, the two applications filed on December 26 will be treated as a single application.
The United States conceded in the Court of Appeals that respondents Donovan and Robbins were “known” within the meaning of the statute at the time of the December 26 application, but challenged as clearly erroneous the District Court’s finding that respondent Buzzacco was “known” at that time. The Court of Appeals upheld the District Court’s finding, and the United States has not sought review of that disposition. Thus, for our purposes, all three respondents were “known” on December 26.
An inventory notice must be served within a designated period of time upon “the persons named in the order or the application.” 18 U. S. C. § 2518 (8) (d). The inventory must give notice of the entry of the intercept order or application, state the disposition of the application, and indicate whether communications were or were not intercepted. Ibid. Upon the filing of a motion, the judge has discretion to make available the intercepted communications, the applications, and the orders. Ibid.
Title III also authorizes the District Court to cause an inventory notice to be served on “other parties to intercepted communications” if the judge determines that such notice is in the interest of justice. Ibid. Those other parties may also be given access to the intercepted communications, the applications, and the orders. Ibid.
Although respondents Merlo and Lauer were not served with inventory notice pursuant to §2518 (8) (d), the intercept orders, applications, and related papers were made available to all the defendants, including Merlo and Lauer, on November 26, 1973. Thus, the introduction into evidence at trial of the contents of the intercepted conversations and evidence derived therefrom would not be prohibited by 18 U. S. C. §2518 (9).
The Government filed its appeal from the District Court’s order suppressing evidence under 18 U. S. C. § 3731, and there has been no trial on the charges with respect to the respondents.
See n. 6, supra.
Title 18 U. S. C. § 2518 (10) (a) provides in pertinent part:
“(10) (a) Any aggrieved person in any trial, hearing, or proceeding in or before any court, department, officer, agency, regulatory body, or other authority of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof, may move to suppress the. contents of any intercepted wire or oral communication, or evidence derived therefrom, on the grounds that—
“(i) the communication was unlawfully intercepted;
“(ii) the order of authorization or approval under which it was intercepted is insufficient on its face; or
“(iii) the interception was not made in conformity with the order of authorization or approval.”
Every Court of Appeals that has considered the issue has concluded that an individual whose conversations probably will be intercepted by a wiretap must be identified in the wiretap application if the law enforcement authorities have probable cause to believe the individual is committing the offense for which the wiretap is sought. United States v. Chiarizio, 525 F. 2d 289, 292 (CA2 1975); United States v. Bernstein, 509 F. 2d 996 (CA4 1975), cert. pending, No. 74-1486; United States v. Doolittle, 507 F. 2d 1368 (CA5), aff’d en banc,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Goldberg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant, the Reverend Mr. B. Elton Cox, the leader of a civil rights demonstration, was arrested and charged with four offenses under Louisiana law — criminal conspiracy, disturbing the peace, obstructing public passages, and picketing before a courthouse. In a consolidated trial before a judge without a jury, and on the same set of facts, he. was acquitted of criminal conspiracy but convicted of the other three offenses. He was sentenced to serve four months in jail and pay a $200 fine for disturbing the peace, to serve five months in jail and pay a $500 fine for obstructing public passages, and to serve one year in jail and pay a $5,000 fine for picketing before a courthouse. The sentences were cumulative.
In accordance with Louisiana procedure, the Louisiana Supreme Court reviewed the “disturbing the peace” and “obstructing public passages” convictions on certiorari, and the “courthouse picketing” conviction on appeal. The Louisiana court, in two judgments, affirmed all three convictions. 244 La. 1087, 156 So. 2d 448; 245 La. 303, 158 So. 2d 172. Appellant filed two separate appeals to this Court from these judgments contending that the three statutes under which he was convicted were unconstitutional on their face and as applied. We noted probable jurisdiction of both appeals, 377 U. S. 921. This case, No. 24, involves the convictions for disturbing the peace and obstructing public passages, and No. 49 concerns the conviction for picketing before a courthouse.
I.
The Facts.
On December 14, 1961, 23 students from Southern University, a Negro college, were arrested in downtown Baton Rouge, ■ Louisiana, for picketing stores that maintained segregated lunch counters. This picketing, urging a boycott of those stores, was part of a general protest movement against racial segregation, directed by the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, a civil rights organization. The appellant, an ordained Congregational minister, the Reverend Mr. B. Elton Cox, a Field Secretary of CORE, was an advisor to this movement. On the evening of December 14, appellant and Ronnie Moore, student president of the local CORE. chapter, spoke at a mass meeting at the college. The students resolved to demonstrate the next day in front of the courthouse-in protest of segregation and the arrest and imprisonment of the picketers who were being held in the parish jail located on the upper floor of the courthouse building.
The next morning about 2,000 students left the campus, which was located approximately five miles from downtown Baton Rouge. Most of them had to walk into the city since the drivers of their busses were arrested. Moore was also arrested at the entrance to the campus while parked in a car equipped with a loudspeaker, and charged with violation of an antinoise statute. Because Moore was immediately taken off to jail and the vice president of the CORE chapter was already in jail for picketing, Cox felt it his duty to take over the demonstration and see that it was carried out as planned. He quickly drove to the city "to pick up this leadership and keep things orderly.”
When Cox arrived, 1,500 of the 2,000 students were assembling at the site of the old State Capitol building,. two and one-half blocks from the courthouse. Cox walked up and down cautioning the students to keep to one. side of the sidewalk while getting ready for their. march to the courthouse. The students circled the block in a file two or three abreast occupying about half of the • sidewalk. The police had learned of the proposed demonstration the night before from news media and other sources. Captain Font of the City Police Department and Chief Kling of the Sheriff’s office, two high-ranking subordinate officials, approached the group and spoke to Cox at the northeast corner of the capitol grounds. Cox identified himself as the group’s leader, and, according to Font and Kling, he explained that the students were demonstrating to protest “the illegal arrest of some of their people who were being held in jail.” The version of Cox and his witnesses throughout was that they came not “to protest just the arrest but... [also] to protest the evil of discrimination.” Kling asked Cox to disband the group and “take them back from whence they came.” Cox did not acquiesce in this request but told the officers that they would march by the courthouse, say prayers, sing hymns, and conduct a peaceful program of protest. The officer repeated his request to disband, and Cox again refused. Kling and Font then returned to their car in order to report by radio to the Sheriff and Chief of Police who were in the immediate vicinity; while this was going on, the students, led by Cox, began their walk toward the courthouse.
They walked in an orderly and peaceful file, two or three abreast, one block east, stopping on the way for a red traffic light. In the center of this block they were joined by another group of students. The augmented group now totaling about 2,000 turned the corner and proceeded south, coming to a halt in the next block opposite the courthouse.
As Cox, still at the head of the group, approached the vicinity of the courthouse, he was stopped by Captain Font and Inspector Trigg and brought to Police Chief Wingate White, who was standing in the middle of St. Louis Street. The Chief then inquired as to the pur-' pose of the demonstration. Cox, reading from a prepared paper, outlined his program to White, stating that it would include a singing of the Star Spangled Banner and a “freedom song,” recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, and a short speech. White testified that he told Cox that “he.must confine” the demonstration “to the west side of the street.” White added, “This, of course, was not — I didn’t mean it in the import that I was giving him any permission to do it, but I was presented with a situation that was accomplished, and I had to make a decision.” Cox testified that the officials agreed to permit the meeting. James Erwin, news director of radio station WIBR, a witness for the State, was present and overheard the conversation. He testified that “My understanding was that they would be allowed to demonstrate if they stayed-on the west side of the street and stayed within the recognized time,” and that this was “agreed to” by White.
The students were then directed by Cox to the west sidewalk, across the street from the courthouse, 101 feet from its steps. They were lined up on this sidewalk about five deep and spread almost the entire length of the block. The group did not obstruct the street. It was close to noon and, being lunch time, a small crowd of 100 to 300 curious white people, mostly courthouse personnel, gathered on the east sidewalk and courthouse steps, about 100 feet from the demonstrators. Seventy-five to eighty policemen, including city and state patrolmen and members of the Sheriff’s staff, as well as members of the fire department and a fire truck were stationed in the street between the two groups. Rain fell throughout the demonstration.
Several of the students took from beneath their coats picket signs similar to those which had been used the day before. These signs bore legends such as “Don’t buy discrimination for Christmas,” “Sacrifice for Christ, don’t buy,” and named stores which were proclaimed “unfair.” They then sang “God Bless America,” pledged allegiance to the flag, prayed briefly, and sang one or two hymns, including “We Shall 'Overcome.” The 23 students, who were locked in jail cells in the courthouse building out of the sight of the demonstrators, responded by themselves singing; this in turn was greeted with cheers and applause by the demonstrators. Appellant gave a speech, described by a State’s witness as follows:
“He said that in effect that it was a protest against, the illegal arrest of some of their members and that other people were allowed to picket... and he said that they were not going to commit any violence, that if anyone spit on them, they would not spit back on the person that didit.”
Cox then said:
“All right. It’s lunch time. Let’s go eat. There are twelve stores we are protesting. A number of these stores have twenty counters; they accept your money from nineteen. They won’t accept it from the twentieth counter. This is an act of racial discrimination". These stores are open to the public. You are members of the public. We pay taxes to the Federal Government.and you who live here pay taxes to the State.”
In apparent reaction to these last remarks, there was what state witnesses described as “muttering” and “grumbling” by the white onlookers.
The Sheriff, deeming, as he testified, Cox’s appeal to the students to sit in at the lunch counters to be “inflam-matoryj” then took a power microphone and said, “Now, you have been allowed to. demonstrate. Up until now your demonstration has been more or less peaceful, but what you are doing now is a direct violation of the law, a disturbance of the peace, and it has got to be broken up immediately.” The testimony as to what then happened is disputed. Some of the State’s witnesses testified that Cox said, “don’t move”; others stated that he made, a “gesture of defiance.” It is clear from the record, however, that Cox and the demonstrators did not then and there break up the demonstration. Two of the Sheriff’s deputies immediately started across the street and told the group, “You have heard what the Sheriff said, now, do what he said.” A state witness testified that they put their hands on the shoulders of some of the students “as though to shove them away.”
Almost immediately thereafter — within a time estimated variously at two to five minutes — one of the policemen exploded a tear gas shell at the crowd. This was followed by several other shells. The demonstrators quickly dispersed, running back towards the State Capitol and the downtown area; Cox tried to calm them as they ran and was himself one of the last to leave.
No Negroes participating in the demonstration were arrested on that day. The only person then arrested was a young white map, not a part of the demonstration, who was arrested “because he was causing a disturbance.” The next day appellant was arrested and charged with the four offenses above described.
II.
The Breach of the Peace Conviction.
Appellant was convicted of violating a Louisiana “disturbing the peace” statute, which provides:
“Whoever with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or under circumstances such that a breach of thé peace may be occasioned thereby... crowds or congregates with others... in or upon... a public street or public highway, or upon a public sidewalk, or any other public place or building... and who fails or refuses to disperse and move on.... when ordered so to do by any law enforcement officer of any municipality, or parish, in which, such act or acts are committed, or by any law enforcement officer of the state of Louisiana, or any other authorized person... shall be guilty of disturbing the peace.” La. Rev. Stat. § 14:103.i (Cum. Supp. 1962).
It is clear to us that on the facts of this case, which are strikingly similar to those present in Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, and Fields v. South Carolina, 375 U. S. 44, Louisiana infringed appellant’s rights of free speech and free assembly by convicting him under this'statute. As in Edwards, we do not find it necessary to pass upon appellant’s contention that there was a complete absence of evidence so that his conviction deprived him of liberty without due process of law. Cf. Thompson v. Louisville, 362 U. S. 199. We hold that Louisiana, may not constitutionally punish appellant under this statute for engaging in the type of conduct which this record reveals, and also that the statute as authoritatively interpreted by the Louisiana Supreme Court is unconstitutionally broad in scope.
The Louisiana courts have held that appellant’s' conduct constituted a breach of the peace under state law, and, as in Edwards, “we may accept their decision as binding upon us to that extent,” Edwards v. South Carolina, supra, at 235; but our independent examination of the record, which we are required to make, shows no conduct which the State had a right to prohibit as a breach of the peace.
Appellant led a group of young college students who wished “to protest segregation” and discrimination against Negroes and the arrest of 23 fellow students, They assembled peaceably at the State Capitol building. and marched to the courthouse where they sang, prayed and listened to a speech. A reading of the record reveals agreement on the part of the State’s witnesses that Cox had the demonstration “very well controlled,” and until the end of Cox’s speech, the group was perfectly “orderly.” Sheriff Clemmons testified that the crowd’s activities were not “objectionable” before that time. They became objectionable, according to the Sheriff himself,.when Cox, concluding his speech, urged the students to go uptown and sit in at lunch counters. The Sheriff testified that the sole aspect of the program to which he objected was “[t]he inflammatory manner in which he [Cox] addressed that crowd and told them to go on up town, go to four places on the protest list, sit down and if they don’t feed you, sit there for one hour.” Yet this part of Cox’s speech obviously did not deprive the demonstration of its protected character under the Constitution as free speech and assembly. See Edwards v. South Carolina, supra; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88; Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157, 185 (concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan).
The State argues, however, that while the demonstrators started oút to be orderly, the loud cheering arid clapping by the students in response to the,singing from the jail converted the peaceful assembly into a riotous one. The record, however, does not support this assertion. It is true that the students, in response to the singing of their fellows who were in custody, cheered and applauded. However, the meeting was an outdoor meeting and a key state witness testified that while the singing was loud, it was not disorderly. There is, moreover, no indication that the mood of the students was ever hostile, aggressive, or unfriendly. Our conclusion that the entire meeting from the beginning until its dispérsal by tear gas was orderly and not riotous is confirmed by a film of the events taken by a television news photographer, which was offered in evidence as a state exhibit. We have viewed the film, and it reveals that the students, though they undoubtedly cheered and clapped, were well-behaved throughout. My Brother Black, concurring in this opinion and dissenting in No. 49, post, agrees “that the record does, not show boisterous or violent conduct or indecent language on the part of the... students. Post, at 583. The singing and cheering do not seem to us to differ significantly from the constitutionally protected activity of the demonstrators in Edwards, who loudly sang “while stamping their feet and clapping their hands.” Edwards v. South Carolina, supra, at 233.
Our conclusion that the record does not support the' contention that the students’ cheering, clapping ¿nd singing constituted a breach of the peace is confirmed by the faQt that these were not relied on as a basis for conviction by the trial judge, who, rather, stated as his reason for convicting Cox of disturbing the peace that “[i]t must be recognized to be inherently dangerous and a breach of the peace to bring 1,500 people, colored people, down in the predominantly white business district in the City of Baton Rouge and congregate across the street from the courthouse and sing songs as described to me by tlie defendant as the CORE national anthem carrying lines such as ‘black and white together' and to urge those 1,500 people to descend upon our lunch counters and sit there until they are served. That has to be an inherent breach of the peace, and our statute 14:103.1 has made it so.”
Finally, the State contends that the conviction should be sustained because of fear expressed by some of the state witnesses that “violence was about to erupt” because of the demonstration. It is virtually undisputed, however, that the students themselves were not violent and threatened no violence. The fear of violence seems to have been based upon the reaction of the group of white citizens looking on from across the street. One state witness testified that “he felt the situation was getting out of hand” as on the courthouse side of St. Louis Street “were small knots or groups of white citizens who were muttering words, who seemed a little bit agitated.” A police officer stated that the reaction of the white crowd was not violent, but “was rumblings.” Others felt the atmosphere became “tense” because of “mutterings,” “grumbling,” and “jeering” from the white group. There is no indication, however, that any member of the white group threatened violence. And this small crowd estimated at between 100 and 300 was separated from the students by “seventy-five to eighty” armed policemen, including “every available shift of the City Police,” the “Sheriff's Office in full complement,” and “additional help from the. State Police,” along with a “fire truck and the Fire Department.” As Inspector Trigg testified, they could have handled the crowd.
This situation, like that in Edwards, is “a far cry from the situation in Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315.” See Edwards v. South Carolina, supra, at 236. Nor is there any evidence here of “fighting words.” See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568. Here again, as in Edwards, this evidence “showed no more than that the opinions which... [the students] were peaceably expressing were sufficiently opposed to the views of the majority of the community to attract a crowd and necessitate police protection.” Edwards v. South Carolina, supra, at 237. Conceding this was so, the “compelling answer... is that constitutional rights may not be denied simply because of hostility to their assertion or exercise.” Watson v. Memphis, 373 U. S. 526, 535.
There is an additional reason why this conviction cannot be sustained. The statute at issue in this case, as authoritatively interpreted by the Louisiana Supreme Court, is unconstitutionally vague in its overly broad scope. The statutory crime consists of two elements: (1) congregating with others “with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or under circumstances such that a breach of the peace may be occasioned,” and (2) a refusal to move on after having been ordered to do so by a law enforcement officer. While the second part of this offense is narrow and specific, the first element is not. The Louisiana Supreme Court in this case defined the term “breach of the peace” as “to agitate, to arouse from a state of repose, to molest, to interrupt, to hinder, to disquiet.” 244 La., at 1105, 156 So. 2d, at 455. In Edwards, defendants had been convicted of a common-law crime similarly defined by the South Carolina Supreme Court. Both definitions would allow persons to be punished merely for peacefully expressing unpopular views. Yet, a “function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech... is.... protected against censorship or punishment.... There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardization of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups.”. Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4-5. In Terminiello convictions were not allowed to stand because the trial judge charged that speech of the defendants could be punished as a breach of the peace “ ‘if' it stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or creates a disturbance, or if it molests the inhabitants in the enjoyment of peace and quiet by arousing alarm.’ ” Id., at 3. The Louisiana statute, as interpreted by the Louisiana court, is at least as likely to allow conviction for innocent speech as was the charge of the trial judge in Terminiello. Therefore, as in Terminiello and Edwards the conviction under this statute must be reversed as the statute is unconstitutional in that it sweeps within its broad scope activities that are constitutionally protected free speech and assembly. Maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion is a basic tenet of our constitutional democracy. As Chief Justice Hughes stated in Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 369: “A statute which upon its face, and as authoritatively construed, is so vague and indefinite as to permit the punishment of the fair use of this opportunity is repugnant to the guaranty of liberty contained in the Fourteenth Amendment.”
For all these reasons we hold that appellant’s freedoms of speech and assembly, secured to him by the First Amendment, as applied to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, were denied by his conviction for disturbing the peace. The conviction on this charge cannot stand.
III.
The Obstructing Public Passages Conviction.
We now turn to the issue of the validity of appellant’s conviction for violating the Louisiana statute, La. Rev. Stat. § 14:100.1 (Cum. Supp. 1962), which provides:
“Obstructing Public Passages
“No person shall wilfully obstruct the free, convenient and normal use of any public sidewalk, street, highway, bridge, alley, road, or other passageway, or the entrance, corridor or passage of any public building, structure, watercraft or ferry, by impeding, hindering, stifling, retarding or restraining traffic or passage thereon or therein.
“Providing however nothing herein contained shall apply to a bona fide legitimate labor organization or to any of its legal activities such as picketing, lawful assembly or concerted activity in the interest of its members for the purpose of accomplishing or securing more favorable wage standards, hours of employment and working conditions.”
Appellant was convicted under this statute, not for leading the march to the vicinity of the courthouse, which the Louisiana Supreme Court stated to have been “orderly,” 244 La., at 1096, 156 So. 2d, at 451, but for leading the meeting. on the sidewalk across the street from the courthouse, Id., at 1094, 1106-1107, 156 So. 2d, at 451, 455. In.upholding appellant’s conviction under this statute, the Louisiana Supreme Court thus construed the statute so as to apply to public assemblies which do not have as their specific purpose the obstruction of traffic. There is no doubt from the record in this case that this far sidewalk was- obstructed, and thus, as so construed, 'appellant violated the statute.
Appellant,- however-, contends that, as so construed and applied in this case, the statute is an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech and assembly. This contention on the facts here presented raises an issue with which this Court has dealt in many decisions, that is, the right of a State or municipality to regulate the use of city streets and other facilities to assure the safety and convenience of the people in their use and the concomitant right of the people of free speech and assembly. See Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569; Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418; Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558; Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77; Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268; Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290; Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U. S. 395.
From these decisions certain ‘dear principles emerge. The rights of free speech and assembly, while fundamental in our democratic society, still do not mean that everyone with opinions or beliefs to express may address a group at any public place and at any time. The constitutional guarantee of liberty implies the existence of an organized society maintaining public order, without which liberty itself would be lost in the excesses of anarchy. The control of travel on the streets is a clear example of governmental responsibility to insure this necessary order. A restriction in that relation, designed to promote the public convenience in the interest of all, and not susceptible to abuses of discriminatory application, cannot be disregarded by the attempted exercise of some civil right which, in other circumstances, would be entitled to protection. One would not be justified in ignoring the familiar red light because this was thought to be a means of social protest. Nor could one, contrary to traffic regulations, insist upon a street meeting in the middle of Times Square at the rush hour as a form of freedom of speech or assembly. Governmental, authorities have the duty and responsibility to keep their streets open and available for movement. A group of demonstrators could not insist upon the right to cordon off a street, or entrance to a public or private building, and allow no one to pass who did not agree to listen to their exhortations. See Lovell v. Griffin, supra, at 451; Cox v. New Hampshire, supra, at 574; Schneider v. State, supra, at 160-161; Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 306-307; Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490; Poulos v. New Hampshire, supra, at 405-408; see also, Edwards v. South Carolina, supra, at 236.
We emphatically reject the notion urged by appellant that the First and Fourteenth Amendments afford the same kind of freedom to those who would communicate ideas by conduct.such as patrolling, marching, and picketing on streets and highways, as these amendments afford to those who communicate ideas by pure speech. See the discussion and cases cited in No. 49, post, at 563. We reaffirm the statement of the Court in Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., supra, at 502, that “it has never been deemed an abridgment of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed.”
We have no occasion in this case to consider the constitutionality of the uniform, consistent, and nondiscriminatory application of a statute forbidding all access to streets and other' public facilities for parades and meetings. Although the statute here involved on its face precludes all street assemblies and parades, it has not been so applied and enforced by the Baton Rouge authorities. City officials who testified for the State clearly indicated that certain meetings and parades are permitted in Baton Rouge, even though they have the effect of obstructing traffic, provided prior approval is obtained. This was confirmed in oral argument before this Court by counsel for the State. He stated that parades and meetings are permitted, based on “arrangements... made with officials.” The statute itself provides no standards for the determination of local officials as to which assemblies to permit or which to prohibit. Nor are there any administrative regulations on this subject which have been called to our attention. From all the evidence before us it appears that the authorities in Baton Rouge permit or prohibit parades or street meetings in their completely uncontrolled discretion.
The situation is thus the same as if the statute itself expressly provided that there could only be peaceful parades or demonstrations in the unbridled discretion of the local officials. The pervasive restraint on freedom of discussion by the practice of the authorities under the statute is not any less effective than a statute expressly permitting such selective enforcement. A long line of cases in this Court makes it clear that a State or municipality cannot “require all who wish to disseminate ideas to present them first to police authorities for their consideration and approval, with a discretion in the police to say some ideas may, while others may not, be... disseminate [d]....” Schneider v. State, supra, at 164. See Lovell v. Griffin, supra; Hague v. CIO, supra; Largent v. Texas, supra; Saia v. New York, supra; Niemotko v. Maryland, supra; Kunz v. New York, supra.
This Court has recognized that the lodging of such broad discretion in a public official allows him to determine which expressions of view will be permitted and which will not. This thus sanctions a device for the suppression of the communication of ideas and permits the official to act as a censor. See Saia v. New York, supra, at 562. Also inherent in such a system allowing^ parades or meetings only with the prior permission of an official is the obvious danger to the right of a person or group not to be denied equal protection of the laws. See Niemotko v. Maryland, supra, at 272, 284; cf. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356. It is clearly unconstitutional to enable a public official to determine which expressions of view will be permitted and which will not or to engage in invidious discrimination among persons or groups either by use of a statute providing a system of broad discretionary licensing power or, g,s in this case, the equivalent of such a system by selective enforcement of an extremely broad prohibitory statute.
It is, of course, undisputed that appropriate, limited discretion, under properly drawn statutes or ordinances, concerning the time, place, duration, or manner of use of the streets for public assemblies may be vested in administrative officials, provided that such limited discretion is “exercised with 'uniformity of method of treatment upon the facts of each application, free from improper or inappropriate considerations and from unfair discrimination’... [and with] a'systematic, consistent and just order of treatment, with reference to the convenience of public use of the highways....’” Cox v. New Hampshire, supra, at 576. See Poulos v. New Hampshire, supra.
But here it is clear that the practice in Baton Rouge allowing unfettered discretion in local officials in the regulation of the use of the streets for peaceful parades and meetings is an unwarranted abridgment of appellant’s freedom of speech and assembly secured to him by the First Amendment, as applied to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. It follows, therefore, that appellant’s conviction for violating the statute as so applied and enforced must be reversed.
For the reasons discussed above the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana is reversed.
Reversed.
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Black, see post, p. 575.]
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Clark, see post, p. 585.]
[For opinion of Mr. Justice White, concurring in part and dissenting in part, see post, p. 591.]
Estimates of the crowd’s size varied' from 1,500 to 3,800. Two thousand seems to have been the consensus and was the figure accepted by the Louisiana Supreme Court, 244 La., at 1095, 156 So. 2d, at 451.
There were varying versions in the record as to the time the demonstration would take. The State’s version was that Cox asked for seven minutes. Cox’s version was that he said his speech would take seven minutes but that the whole program would take between 17 and 25 minutes.
The “permission” granted the students to demonstrate is discussed at greater length in No. 49, where its legal effect is considered.
A few days before,- Cox had participated with some of the demonstrators in a “direct non-violent clinic” sponsored by CORE and held at St. Mark’s Church.
Sheriff Clemmons had no objection to this part of the speech. He testified on cross-examination as follows:
“Q. Did you have any objection to that part of his talk?
“A. None whatever. If he would have done what he said, there would have been no trouble at all. The whole thing would- have been over and done with.
“Q. Did you have any objection to them being assembled on that side of the street while he was making that speech, sir?
“A. I had no objection to it.”
Sheriff Clemmons objected strongly to these words. He testified on cross-examination as follows:
“Q. Now, what part of his speech became objectionable to him being -assembled there?
“A. The inflammatory manner in which he addressed that, crowd and told them to go on up town, go to four places on the protest list, sit down and if they don’t feed you,, sit there for one hour.”
The exact sequence of these events is unclear from the record, being described differently not only by the State and the defense, but also by the state witnesses themselves. It seems reasonably certain, however, that the response to the singing from the jail, the end of Cox’s speech, and the “muttering” and “grumbling” of the white onlookers all took place at approximately the same time.
Because a claim of constitutionally protected right is involved, it “remains our duty in a case' such as this to make an independent examination of the whole record.” Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, 235; Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 205, n. 5; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 335; Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380, 385-386. In the area of First Amendment freedoms as well as areas involving other constitutionally protected rights, “we cannot avoid our responsibilities.by permitting ourselves to be ‘completely bound by state court determination of any issue essential to decision of a claim of federal right, else fedéral law could be frustrated by distorted fact finding.’ ” Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 515-516; Stein v. New York, 346 U. S. 156, 181.
The cheering and shouting were described differently by different witnesses, but the most extravagant descriptions were the following: “a jumbled roar like people cheering at, a football game,” “loud cheering and spontaneous clapping and screaming and a great hulla-' baloo,” “a great outburst,” a cheer of “conquest... much wilder than a football game,” “a loud reaction, not disorderly, loud,” “a shout, a roar,” and an' emotional response “in jubilaflop/and exhortation.” Appelláht agreed that some of the group “became emotional” and “tears flowed from young ladies’ eyes.”
There is much testimony that the demonstrators were well controlled and basically orderly throughout. G. Dupre Litton, an attorney and witness fot the State, testified, “I would say that it was ah orderly demonstration. It was too large a group, in my opinion, to congregate at that place at that particular time, which is nothing but my opinion... but generally... it was orderly.” Robert Durham, a news photographer for WBRZ, a state witness,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Two state prisoners brought an action under 42 U. S. C. §1983 claiming that Ohio’s state parole procedures violate the Federal Constitution. The prisoners seek declaratory and injunctive relief. The question before us is whether they may bring such an action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, the Civil Rights Act of 1871, or whether they must instead seek relief exclusively under the federal habeas corpus statutes. We conclude that these actions may be brought under § 1983.
I
The two respondents, William Dotson and Rogerico Johnson, are currently serving lengthy terms in Ohio prisons. Dotson began to serve a life sentence in 1981. The parole board rejected his first parole request in 1995; and a parole officer, after reviewing Dotson’s records in the year 2000, determined that he should not receive further consideration for parole for at least five more years. In reaching this conclusion about Dotson’s parole eligibility, the officer used parole guidelines first adopted in 1998, after Dotson began to serve his term. Dotson claims that the retroactive application of these new, harsher guidelines to his preguide-lines case violates the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto and Due Process Clauses. He seeks a federal-court declaration to that effect as well as a permanent injunction ordering prison officials to grant him an “immediate parole hearing in accordance with the statutory laws and administrative rules in place when [he] committed his crimes.” App. 20 (Dotson Complaint, Prospective Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, ¶3).
Johnson began to serve a 10- to 30-year prison term in 1992. The parole board considered and rejected his first parole request in 1999, finding him unsuitable for release. In making this determination, the board applied the new 1998 guidelines. Johnson too claims that the application of these new, harsher guidelines to his preguidelines case violated the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause. He also alleges that the parole board’s proceedings (by having too few members present and by denying him an adequate opportunity to speak) violated the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. Johnson’s complaint seeks a new parole hearing conducted under constitutionally proper procedures and an injunction ordering the State to comply with constitutional due process and ex post facto requirements in the future.
Both prisoners brought § 1983 actions in federal court. In each case, the Federal District Court concluded that a § 1983 action does not lie and that the prisoner would have to seek relief through a habeas corpus suit. Dotson v. Wilkinson, No. 3:00 CV 7303 (ND Ohio, Aug. 7, 2000); Johnson v. Ghee, No. 4:00 CV 1075 (ND Ohio, July 16, 2000). Each prisoner appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ultimately consolidated the two appeals and heard both cases en banc. The court found that the actions could proceed under § 1983, and it reversed the lower courts. 329 F. 3d 463, 472 (2003). Ohio parole officials then petitioned for certiorari, and we granted review.
II
This Court has held that a prisoner in state custody cannot use a § 1983 action to challenge “the fact or duration of his confinement.” Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 489 (1973); see also Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 554 (1974); Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477, 481 (1994); Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641, 648 (1997). He must seek federal habeas corpus relief (or appropriate state relief) instead.
Ohio points out that the inmates in these cases attack their parole-eligibility proceedings (Dotson) and parole-suitability proceedings (Johnson) only because they believe that victory on their claims will lead to speedier release from prison. Consequently, Ohio argues, the prisoners’ lawsuits, in effect, collaterally attack the duration of their confinement; hence, such a claim may only be brought through a habeas corpus action, not through § 1983.
The problem with Ohio’s argument lies in its jump from a true premise (that in all likelihood the prisoners hope these actions will help bring about earlier release) to a faulty conclusion (that habeas is their sole avenue for relief). A consideration of this Court’s case law makes clear that the connection between the constitutionality of the prisoners’ parole proceedings and release from confinement is too tenuous here to achieve Ohio’s legal door-closing objective.
The Court initially addressed the relationship between § 1983 and the federal habeas statutes in Preiser v. Rodriguez, supra. In that case, state prisoners brought civil rights actions attacking the constitutionality of prison disciplinary proceedings that had led to the deprivation of their good-time credits. Id., at 476. The Court conceded that the language of §1983 literally covers their claims. See § 1983 (authorizing claims alleging the deprivation of constitutional rights against every “person” acting “under color of” state law). But, the Court noted, the language of the federal habeas statutes applies as well. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a) (permitting claims by a person being held “in custody in violation of the Constitution”). Moreover, the Court observed, the language of the habeas statute is more specific, and the writ’s history makes clear that it traditionally “has been accepted as the specific instrument to obtain release from [unlawful] confinement.” Preiser, 411 U. S., at 486. Finally, habeas corpus actions require a petitioner fully to exhaust state remedies, which § 1983 does not. Id., at 490-491; see also Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 507 (1982). These considerations of linguistic specificity, history, and comity led the Court to find an implicit exception from §1983’s otherwise broad scope for actions that lie “within the core of habeas corpus.” Preiser, 411 U. S., at 487.
Defining the scope of that exception, the Court concluded that a § 1983 action will not lie when a state prisoner challenges “the fact or duration of his confinement,” id., at 489, and seeks either “immediate release from prison,” or the “shortening” of his term of confinement, id., at 482. Because an action for restoration of good-time credits in effect demands immediate release or a shorter period of detention, it attacks “the very duration of . . . physical confinement,” id., at 487-488, and thus lies at “the core of habeas corpus,” id., at 487. Therefore, the Court held, the Preiser prisoners could not pursue their claims under § 1983.
In Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, the Court elaborated the contours of this habeas corpus “core.” As in Preiser, state prisoners brought a § 1983 action challenging prison officials’ revocation of good-time credits by means of constitutionally deficient disciplinary proceedings. 418 U. S., at 553. The Court held that the prisoners could not use § 1983 to obtain restoration of the credits because Preiser had held that “an injunction restoring good time improperly taken is foreclosed.” 418 U. S., at 555. But the inmates could use § 1983 to obtain a declaration (“as a predicate to” their requested damages award) that the disciplinary procedures were invalid. Ibid. They could also seek “by way of ancillary relief[,] an otherwise proper injunction enjoining the prospective enforcement of invalid prison regulations.” Ibid. (emphasis added). In neither case would victory for the prisoners necessarily have meant immediate release or ■ a shorter period of incarceration; the prisoners attacked only the “wrong procedures, not . . . the wrong result (i. e., [the denial of] good-time credits).” Heck, supra, at 483 (discussing Wolff).
In Heck, the Court considered a different, but related, circumstance. A state prisoner brought a §1988 action for damages, challenging the conduct of state officials who, the prisoner claimed, had unconstitutionally caused his conviction by improperly investigating his crime and destroying evidence. 512 U. S., at 479. The Court pointed to “the hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” Id., at 486. And it held that where “establishing the basis for the damages claim necessarily demonstrates the invalidity of the conviction,” id., at 481-482, a § 1983 action will not lie “unless . . . the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated,” id., at 487. The Court then added that, where the § 1983 action, “even if successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment . . . , the action should be allowed to proceed.” Ibid, (footnote omitted).
Finally, in Edwards v. Balisok, supra, the Court returned to the prison disciplinary procedure context of the kind it had addressed previously in Preiser and Wolff. Balisok sought “a declaration that the procedures employed by state officials [to deprive him of good-time credits] violated due process, . . . damages for use of the unconstitutional procedures, [and] an injunction to prevent future violations.” 520 U. S., at 643. Applying Heck, the Court found that habeas was the sole vehicle for the inmate’s constitutional challenge insofar as the prisoner sought declaratory relief and money damages, because the “principal procedural defect complained of,” namely, deceit and bias on the part of the deci-sionmaker, “would, if established, necessarily imply the invalidity of the deprivation of [Balisok’s] good-time credits.” 520 U. S., at 646. Hence, success on the prisoner’s claim for money damages (and the accompanying claim for declaratory relief) would “necessarily imply the invalidity of the punishment imposed.” Id., at 648. Nonetheless, the prisoner’s claim for an injunction barring future unconstitutional procedures did not fall within habeas’ exclusive domain. That is because “[o]rdinarily, a prayer for such prospective relief will not ‘necessarily imply’ the invalidity of a previous loss of good-time credits.” Ibid.
Throughout the legal journey from Preiser to Balisok, the Court has focused on the need to ensure that state prisoners use only habeas corpus (or similar state) remedies when they seek to invalidate the duration of their confinement — either directly through an injunction compelling speedier release or indirectly through a judicial determination that necessarily implies the unlawfulness of the State’s custody. Thus, Preiser found an implied exception to §1983’S coverage where the claim seeks — not where it simply “relates to”— “core” habeas corpus relief, i. e., where a state prisoner requests present or future release. Cf. post, at 92 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (arguing that Preiser covers challenges that “relate . . . to” the duration of confinement). Wolff makes clear that § 1983 remains available for procedural challenges where success in the action would not necessarily spell immediate or speedier release for the prisoner. Heck, specifies that a prisoner cannot use §1983 to obtain damages where success would necessarily imply the unlawfulness of a (not previously invalidated) conviction or sentence. And Balisok, like Wolff, demonstrates that habeas remedies do not displace § 1983 actions where success in the civil rights suit would not necessarily vitiate the legality of (not previously invalidated) state confinement. These cases, taken together, indicate that a state prisoner’s §1983 action is barred (absent prior invalidation) — no matter the relief sought (damages or equitable relief), no matter the target of the prisoner’s suit (state conduct leading to conviction or internal prison proceedings) — if success in that action would necessarily demonstrate the invalidity .of confinement or its duration.
Applying these principles to the present case, we conclude that respondents’ claims are cognizable under § 1983, i. e., they do not fall within the implicit habeas exception. Dotson and Johnson seek relief that will render invalid the state procedures used to deny parole eligibility (Dotson) and parole suitability (Johnson). See Wolff, 418 U. S., at 554-555. Neither respondent seeks an injunction ordering his immediate or speedier release into the community. See Preiser, 411 U. S., at 500; Wolff, supra, at 554. And as in Wolff, a favorable judgment will not “necessarily imply the invalidity of [their] conviction[s] or sentence^].” Heck, supra, at 487. Success for Dotson does not mean immediate release from confinement or a shorter stay in prison; it means at most new eligibility review, which at most will speed consideration of a new parole application. Success for Johnson means at most a new parole hearing at which Ohio parole authorities may, in their discretion, decline to shorten his prison term. See Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2967.03 (Lexis 2003) (describing the parole authority’s broad discretionary powers); Inmates of Orient Correctional Inst. v. Ohio State Adult Parole Auth., 929 F. 2d 233, 236 (CA6 1991) (same); see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 18 (petitioners’ counsel conceding that success on respondents’ claims would not inevitably lead to release). Because neither prisoner’s claim would necessarily spell speedier release, neither lies at “the core of habeas corpus.” Preiser, supra, at 489. Finally, the prisoners’ claims for future relief (which, if successful, will not necessarily imply the invalidity of confinement or shorten its duration) are yet more distant from that core. See Balisok, supra, at 648.
The dissent disagrees with our legal analysis and advocates use of a different legal standard in critical part because, in its view, (1) a habeas challenge to a sentence (a “core” challenge) does not necessarily produce the prisoner’s “release” (so our standard “must be ... wrong”), see post, at 88, 91; and (2) Heck’s, standard is irrelevant because Heck concerned only damages, see post, at 91. As to the first, we believe that a case challenging a sentence seeks a prisoner’s “release” in the only pertinent sense: It seeks invalidation (in whole or in part) of the judgment authorizing the prisoner’s confinement; the fact that the State may seek a new judgment (through a new trial or a new sentencing proceeding) is beside the point. As to the second, Balisok applied Heck’s standard and addressed a claim seeking not only damages, but also a separate declaration that the State’s procedures were unlawful. See 520 U. S., at 643, 647-648.
III
Ohio makes two additional arguments. First, Ohio points to language in Heck indicating that a prisoner’s § 1983 damages action cannot lie where a favorable judgment would “necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence.” 512 U. S., at 487 (emphasis added). Ohio then argues that its parole proceedings are part of the prisoners’ “sentence^]” — indeed, an aspect of the “sentence^]” that the § 1983 claims, if successful, will invalidate.
We do not find this argument persuasive. In context, Heck uses the word “sentence” to refer not to prison procedures, but to substantive determinations as to the length of confinement. See Muhammad v. Close, 540 U. S. 749, 751, n. 1 (2004) (per curiam) (“[T]he incarceration that matters under Heck is the incarceration ordered by the original judgment of conviction”). Heck uses the word “sentence” interchangeably with such other terms as “continuing confinement” and “imprisonment.” 512 U. S., at 483, 486; see also Balisok, supra, at 645, 648 (referring to the invalidity of “the judgment” or “punishment imposed”). So understood, Heck is consistent with other cases permitting prisoners to bring §1983 challenges to prison administrative decisions. See, e. g., Wolff, supra, at 554-555; Muhammad, 540 U. S., at 754; see also ibid, (rejecting “the mistaken view . . . that Heck applies categorically to all suits challenging prison disciplinary proceedings”). Indeed, this Court has repeatedly permitted prisoners to bring § 1983 actions challenging the conditions of their confinement — conditions that, were Ohio right, might be considered part of the “sentence.” See, e. g., Cooper v. Pate, 378 U. S. 546 (1964) (per curiam); Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U. S. 249, 251 (1971) (per curiam). And this interpretation of Heck is consistent with Balisok, where the Court held the prisoner’s suit Heck-barred not because it sought nullification of the disciplinary procedures but rather because nullification of the disciplinary procedures would lead necessarily to restoration of good-time credits and hence the shortening of the prisoner’s sentence. 520 U. S., at 646.
Second, Ohio says that a decision in favor of respondents would break faith with principles of federal/state comity by opening the door to federal court without prior exhaustion of state-court remedies. Our earlier cases, however, have already placed the States’ important comity considerations in the balance, weighed them against the competing need to vindicate federal rights without exhaustion, and concluded that prisoners may bring their claims without fully exhausting state-court remedies so long as their suits, if established, would not necessarily invalidate state-imposed confinement. See Part II, supra. Thus, we see no reason for moving the line these cases draw — particularly since Congress has already strengthened the requirement that prisoners exhaust state administrative remedies as a precondition to any § 1983 action. See 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a); Porter v. Nussle, 534 U. S. 516, 524 (2002).
For these reasons, the Sixth Circuit’s judgment is affirmed, 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: | 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
Montana-Dakota (MDU) is an interstate natural gas pipeline company, selling and transporting gas in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The lines involved here run to the east and west from the Tioga processing plant in North Dakota, jointly owned by. Amerada and Signal, producers of natural gas in North Dakota. Also, running north from the Tioga point is a line extending to the gasoline extraction plants of Hunt-Herbert and TXL (now Texaco), both in North Dakota.
On a peak winter day in 1962-1963 MDU was expected to purchase a total of 70,000 Mcf of North Dakota-produced gas from these four producers: 55,000 Mcf from Amerada-Signal, 10,000 Mcf from TXL, and 5,000 Mcf from Hunt-Herbert. Of the 55,000 Mcf from Amerada-Signal, 50,000 Mcf would flow to the east and be consumed in North Dakota. All of the Hunt-Herbert and TXL gas, plus the remaining 5,000 Mcf of the Amerada; Signal gas, would flow to the west — a total of 20,000 Mcf. Of this westward-flowing gas, 10,200 Mcf would be consumed in North Dakota; the remaining 9,800 Mcf would flow across the state boundary into Montana for consumption outside of North Dakota.
On an average summer day MDU would take about 45,000 Mcf from Amerada-Signal, while continuing to take about 15,000 Mcf from Hunt-Herbert and TXL. Of the Amerada-Signal gas, 13,000 Mcf would flow westward, commingled with the 15,000 Mcf from Hunt-Herbert and TXL. Only 1,680 Mcf of this stream would be consumed in North Dakota; the remaining 26,320 Mcf would flow into Montana to be held in storage for ultimate redelivery to all parts of MDU’s interstate system. 32,000 Mcf of gas would flow eastward, all from .Amerada-Signal. In contrast to the situation on a peak winter day, only 7,280 Mcf of this eastward-flowing gas would be consumed in North Dakota, while 24,720 Mcf would cross the state boundary and go into storage.
The contracts for the purchase of gas from Hunt-Herbert .and TXL admittedly constitute sales of gas for resale within the meaning of § 1 (b) of the Natural Gas Act, 15 U. S. C. § 717. These sellers applied for and were granted certificates of public convenience and necessity by the Commission. 27 F. P. C. 1092.
Prior to entering into the Hunt-Herbert-TXL contracts, MDU entered into contracts with Amerada and Signal which are here in issue. First, MDU concluded the so-called “North Dakota Contracts" with both Amerada and Signal. Under these contracts MDU must buy at least two-thirds of its annual North Dakota requirements from Amerada-Signal, and it may buy up to all of its North Dakota requirements from them if it só elects. The contracts recite that “all gas purchased by Buyer under this agreement shall be transported, used and consumed entirely within the State of North Dakota.” Soon thereafter, MDU entered its separate “Interstate Contracts” With Amerada and Signal. These contracts provide that MDU must take or pay for a certain number of Mcf per year (and per day) if available, “less the quantity of gas which Buyer shall pay for with respect- to such calendar year under the Amerada [or Signal] North Dakota Contract.”
Respondents Amerada and Signal contended before the Federal Power Commission that sales to MDU under the “North Dakota Contracts” would be “nonjurisdictional” since they were not sales in interstate commerce for resale. Relying on its decision in Lo-Vaca Gathering Co., 26 F. P. C. 606 (reversed, 323 F. 2d 190, reversed, ante, p. 366), the Commission rejected the contention and asserted its jurisdiction over the sales. 30 F. P. C. 200. The Court of Appeals reversed. 334 F. 2d 404. The Commission has petitioned for writ of certiorari.
All of the gas purchased by MDU from Amerada-Signal under both sets of contracts is delivered into the pipeline at the-Tioga plant. According to the testimony of MDU’s engineer, on a peak winter day the pipeline would elect to purchase all of the Amerada-Signal. gas under the “North Dakota Contracts.” Yet, as previously shown, on such a day some of the Amerada-Signal gas flows westward, in a commingled stream with gas from other sources, and is resold outside of North Dakota. On an average summer day MDU would elect to purchase about 9,000 Mcf of the Amerada-Signal gas under the “North Dakota Contracts,” and the remaining 36,000 Mcf under the “Interstate Contracts.” Yet, as previously shown, 1,680 Mcf of the 9,000 Mcf consumed in North Dakota would have to be metered off from the westward-flowing commingled stream that is destined in major part for resale out-of-state.
Factually, therefore, the present case is on all fours with California v. Lo-Vaca Gathering Co., ante, p. 366.
The Court of Appeals thought that its decision in North Dakota v. Federal Power Comm’n, 247 F. 2d 173, brought collateral estoppel into play in the present case. 334 F. 2d 404, 411-412. But that rule has no place here for no judgment governing past events is in jeopardy, only the scope of future regulation that involves different events and transactions. See Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U. S. 591, 601-602.
Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Cory R. Maples is an Alabama capital prisoner sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of two individuals. At trial, he was represented by two appointed lawyers, minimally paid and with scant experience in capital cases. Maples sought postconviction relief in state court, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel and several other trial infirmities. His petition, filed in August 2001, was written by two New York attorneys serving pro bono, both associated with the same New York-based large law firm. An Alabama attorney, designated as local counsel, moved the admission of the out-of-state counsel pro hac vice. As understood by New York counsel, local counsel would facilitate their appearance, but would undertake no substantive involvement in the case.
In the summer of 2002, while Maples’ postconviction petition remained pending in the Alabama trial court, his New York attorneys left the law firm; their new employment disabled them from continuing to represent Maples. They did not inform Maples of their departure and consequent inability to serve as his counsel. Nor did they seek the Alabama trial court’s leave to withdraw. Neither they nor anyone else moved for the substitution of counsel able to handle Maples’ case.
In May 2003, the Alabama trial court denied Maples’ petition. Notices of the court’s order were posted to the New York attorneys at the address of the law firm with which they had been associated. Those postings were returned, unopened, to the trial court clerk, who attempted no further mailing. With no attorney of record in fact acting on Maples’ behalf, the time to appeal ran out.
Thereafter, Maples petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. The District Court and, in turn, the Eleventh Circuit, rejected his petition, pointing to the procedural default in state court, i. e., Maples’ failure timely to appeal the Alabama trial court’s order denying him postconviction relief. Maples, it is uncontested, was blameless for the default.
The sole question this. Court has taken up for review is whether, on the extraordinary facts of Maples’ case, there is “cause” to excuse the default. Maples maintains that there is, for the lawyers he believed to be vigilantly representing him had abandoned the case without leave of court, without informing Maples they could no longer represent him, and without securing any recorded substitution of counsel. We agree. Abandoned by counsel, Maples was left unrepresented at a critical time for his state posteonviction petition, and he lacked a clue of any need to protect himself pro se. In these circumstances, no just system would lay the default at Maples’ death-cell door. Satisfied that the requisite cause has been shown, we reverse the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment.
I
A
Alabama sets low eligibility requirements for lawyers appointed to represent indigent capital defendants at trial. American Bar Association, Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Report 117-120 (June 2006) (hereinafter ABA Report); Brief for Former Alabama Appellate Court Justices et al. as Amici Curiae 7-8 (hereinafter Former Justices Brief). Appointed counsel need only be a member of the Alabama Bar and have “five years’ prior experience in the active practice of criminal law.” Ala. Code § 13A-5-54 (2006). Experience with capital cases is not required. Former Justices Brief 7-8. Nor does the State provide, or require appointed counsel to gain, any capital-case-specific professional education or training. ABA Report 129-131; Former Justices Brief 14-16.
Appointed counsel in death penalty cases are also under-compensated. ABA Report 124-129; Former Justices Brief 12-14. Until 1999, the State paid appointed capital defense attorneys just “$40.00 per hour for time expended in court and $20.00 per hour for time reasonably expended out of court in the preparation of [the defendant’s] case.” Ala. Code §15-12-21(d) (1995). Although death penalty litigation is plainly time intensive, the State capped at $1,000 fees recoverable by capital defense attorneys for out-of-court work. Ibid. Even today, court-appointed attorneys receive only $70 per hour. § 15-12-21(d) (2011).
Nearly alone among the States, Alabama does not guarantee representation to indigent capital defendants in postconviction proceedings. ABA Report 111-112, 158-160; Former Justices Brief 33. The State has elected, instead, “to rely on the efforts of typically well-funded [out-of-state] volunteers.” Brief in Opposition in Barbour v. Allen, O. T. 2006, No. 06-10605, p. 23. Thus, as of 2006, 86% of the attorneys representing Alabama’s death row inmates in state collateral review proceedings “either worked for the Equal Justice Initiative (headed by NYU Law professor Bryan Stevenson), out-of-state public interest groups like the Innocence Project, or an out-of-state mega-firm.” Brief in Opposition 16, n. 4. On occasion, some prisoners sentenced to death receive no postconviction representation at all. See ABA Report 112 (“[A]s of April 2006, approximately fifteen of Alabama’s death row inmates in the final rounds of state appeals had no lawyer to represent them.”).
B
This system was in place when, in 1997, Alabama charged Maples with two counts of capital murder; the victims, Stacy Alan Terry and Barry Dewayne Robinson II, were Maples’ friends who, on the night of the murders, had been out on the town with him. Maples pleaded not guilty, and his case proceeded to trial, where he was represented by two court-appointed Alabama attorneys. Only one of them had earlier served in a capital case. See Tr. 3081. Neither counsel had previously tried the penalty phase of a capital case. Compensation for each lawyer was capped at $1,000 for time spent out of court preparing Maples’ case, and at $40 per hour for in-court services. See Ala. Code § 15-12-21 (1995).
Finding Maples guilty on both counts, the jury recommended that he be sentenced to death. The vote was 10 to 2, the minimum number Alabama requires for a death recommendation. See Ala. Code § 13A-5-46(f) (1994) (“The decision of the jury to recommend a sentence of death must be based on a vote of at least 10 jurors.”). Accepting the jury’s recommendation, the trial court sentenced Maples to death. On direct appeal, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentence. Ex parte Maples, 758 So. 2d 81 (Ala. 1999); Maples v. State, 758 So. 2d 1 (Ala. Crim. App. 1999). We denied certiorari. Maples v. Alabama, 531 U. S. 830 (2000).
Two out-of-state volunteers represented Maples in post-conviction proceedings: Jaasi Munanka and Clara Ingen-Housz, both associates at the New York offices of the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm. At the time, Alabama required out-of-state attorneys to associate local counsel when seeking admission to practice pro hac vice before an Alabama court, regardless of the nature of the proceeding. Rule Governing Admission to the Ala. State Bar VII (2000) (hereinafter Rule VII). The Alabama Rule further prescribed that the local attorney’s name “appear on all notices, orders, pleadings, and other documents filed in the cause,” and that local counsel “accept joint and several responsibility with the foreign attorney to the client, to opposing parties and counsel, and to the court or administrative agency in all matters [relating to the case].” Rule VII(C).
Munanka and Ingen-Housz associated Huntsville, Alabama, attorney John Butler as local counsel. Notwithstanding his obligations under Alabama law, Butler informed Mu-nanka and Ingen-Housz, “at the outset,” that he would serve as local counsel only for the purpose of allowing the two New York attorneys to appear pro hac vice on behalf of Maples. App. to Pet. for Cert. 255a. Given his lack of “resources, available time [and] experience,” Butler told the Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers, he could not “deal with substantive issues in the case.” Ibid. The Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys accepted Butler’s conditions. Id., at 257a. This arrangement between out-of-state and local attorneys, it appears, was hardly atypical. See Former Justices Brief 36 (“The fact is that local counsel for out-of-state attorneys in postconviction litigation most often do nothing other than provide the mechanism for foreign attorneys to be admitted.”).
With the aid of his pro bono counsel, Maples filed a petition for postconviction relief under Alabama Rule of Criminal Procedure 32. Among other claims, Maples asserted that his court-appointed attorneys provided constitutionally ineffective assistance during both guilt and penalty phases of his capital trial. App. 29-126. He alleged, in this regard, that his inexperienced and underfunded attorneys failed to develop and raise an obvious intoxication defense, did not object to several egregious instances of prosecutorial misconduct, and woefully underprepared for the penalty phase of his trial. The State responded by moving for summary dismissal of Maples’ petition. On December 27, 2001, the trial court denied the State’s motion.
Some seven months later, in the summer of 2002, both Munanka and Ingen-Housz left Sullivan & Cromwell. App. to Pet. for Cert. 268a. Munanka gained a clerkship with a federal judge; Ingen-Housz accepted a position with the European Commission in Belgium. Ibid. Neither attorney told Maples of their departure from Sullivan & Cromwell or of their resulting inability to continue to represent him. In disregard of Alabama law, see Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 6.2, Comment, neither attorney sought the trial court’s leave to withdraw, App. to Pet. for Cert. 223a. Compounding Mu-nanka’s and Ingen-Housz’s inaction, no other Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer entered an appearance on Maples’ behalf, moved to substitute counsel, or otherwise notified the court of any change in Maples’ representation. Ibid.
Another nine months passed. During this time period, no Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys assigned to Maples’ case sought admission to the Alabama Bar, entered appearances on Maples’ behalf, or otherwise advised the Alabama court that Munanka and Ingen-Housz were no longer Maples’ attorneys. Thus, Munanka and Ingen-Housz (along with Butler) remained Maples’ listed, and only, “attorneys of record.” Ibid.
There things stood when, in May 2003, the trial court, without holding a hearing, entered an order denying Maples’ Rule 32 petition. App. 146-225. The clerk of the Alabama trial court mailed copies of the order to Maples’ three attorneys of record. He sent Munanka’s and Ingen-Housz’s copies to Sullivan & Cromwell’s New York address, which the pair had provided upon entering their appearances.
When those copies arrived at Sullivan & Cromwell, Munanka and Ingen-Housz had long since departed. The notices, however, were not forwarded to another Sullivan & Cromwell attorney. Instead, a mailroom employee sent the unopened envelopes back to the court. “Returned to Sender — Attempted, Unknown” was stamped on the envelope addressed to Munanka. App. to Reply to Brief in Opposition 8a. A similar stamp appeared on the envelope addressed to Ingen-Housz, along with the handwritten notation “Return to Sender — Left Firm.” Id., at 7a.
Upon receiving back the unopened envelopes he had mailed to Munanka and Ingen-Housz, the Alabama court clerk took no further action. In particular, the clerk did not contact Munanka or Ingen-Housz at the personal telephone numbers or home addresses they had provided in their pro hac vice applications. See Ingen-Housz Verified Application for Admission To Practice Under Rule VII, p. 1; and Mu-nanka Verified Application for Admission To Practice Under Rule VII, p. 1, in Maples v. State, No. CC-95-842.60 (C. C. Morgan Cty., Ala.). Nor did the clerk alert Sullivan & Cromwell or Butler. Butler received his copy of the order, but did not act on it. App. to Pet. for Cert. 256a. He assumed that Munanka and Ingen-Housz, who had been “CC’d” on the order, would take care of filing an appeal. Ibid.
Meanwhile, the clock ticked on Maples’ appeal. Under Alabama’s Rules of Appellate Procedure, Maples had 42 days to file a notice of appeal from the trial court’s May 22, 2003 order denying Maples’ petition for postconviction relief. Rule 4(a)(1) (2000). No appeal notice was filed, and the time allowed for filing expired on July 7, 2003.
A little over a month later, on August 13, 2003, Alabama Assistant Attorney General Jon Hayden, the attorney representing the State in Maples’ collateral review proceedings, sent a letter directly to Maples. App. to Pet. for Cert. 253a-254a. Hayden’s letter informed Maples of the missed deadline for initiating an appeal within the State’s system, and notified him that four weeks remained during which he could file a federal habeas petition. Ibid. Hayden mailed the letter to Maples only, using his prison address. Ibid. No copy was sent to Maples’ attorneys of record, or to anyone else acting on Maples’ behalf. Ibid.
Upon receiving the State’s letter, Maples immediately contacted his mother. Id., at 258a. She telephoned Sullivan & Cromwell to inquire about her son’s case. Ibid. Prompted by her call, Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys Marc De Leeuw, Felice Duffy, and Kathy Brewer submitted a motion, through Butler, asking the trial court to reissue its order denying Maples’ Rule 32 petition, thereby restarting the 42-day appeal period. Id., at 222a.
The trial court denied the motion, id., at 222a-225a, noting that Munanka and Ingen-Housz had not withdrawn from the case and, consequently, were “still attorneys of record for the petitioner,” id., at 223a. Furthermore, the court added, attorneys De Leeuw, Duffy, and Brewer had not “yet been admitted to practice in Alabama” or “entered appearances as attorneys of record.” Ibid. “How,” the court asked, “can a Circuit Clerk in Decatur, Alabama know what is going on in a law firm in New York, New York?” Id., at 223a-224a. Declining to blame the clerk for the missed notice of appeal deadline, the court said it was “unwilling to enter into subterfuge in order to gloss over mistakes made by counsel for the petitioner.” Ibid.
Maples next petitioned the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals for a writ of mandamus, granting him leave to file an out-of-time appeal. Rejecting Maples’ plea, the Court of Criminal Appeals determined that, although the clerk had “assumed a duty to notify the parties of the resolution of Maples’s Rule 32 petition,” the clerk had satisfied that obligation by sending notices to the attorneys of record at the addresses those attorneys provided. Id., at 234a-235a. Butler’s receipt of the order, the court observed, sufficed to notify all attorneys “in light of their apparent co-counsel status.” Id., at 235a-236a (quoting Thomas v. Kellett, 489 So. 2d 554, 555 (Ala. 1986)). The Alabama Supreme Court summarily affirmed the Court of Criminal Appeals’ judgment, App. to Pet. for Cert. 237a, and this Court denied cer-tiorari, Maples v. Alabama, 543 U. S. 1148 (2005).
Having exhausted his state postconviction remedies, Maples sought federal habeas corpus relief. Addressing the ineffective-assistanee-of-trial-eounsel claims Maples stated in his federal petition, the State urged that Maples had forever forfeited those claims. Maples did, indeed, present the claims in his state postconviction (Rule 32) petition, the State observed, but he did not timely appeal from the trial court’s denial of his petition. That procedural default, the State maintained, precluded federal-court consideration of the claims. Maples replied that the default should be excused, because he missed the appeal deadline “through no fault of his own.” App. 262 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The District Court determined that Maples had defaulted his ineffective-assistance claims, and that he had not shown “cause” sufficient to overcome the default. App. to Pet. for Cert. 49a-55a. The court understood Maples to argue that errors committed by his postconviction counsel, not any lapse on the part of the court clerk in Alabama, provided the requisite “cause” to excuse his failure to meet Alabama’s 42-day s-to-appeal Rule. Id., at 55a. Such an argument was inadmissible, the court ruled, because this Court, in Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722 (1991), had held that the ineffectiveness of postconviction appellate counsel could not qualify as cause. App. to Pet. for Cert. 55a (citing Coleman, 501 U. S., at 751).
A divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. Maples v. Allen, 586 F. 3d 879 (2009) (per curiam). In accord with the District Court, the Court of Appeals’ majority held that Maples defaulted his ineffective-assistance claims in state court by failing to file a timely notice of appeal, id., at 890, and that Coleman rendered Maples’ assertion of “cause” unacceptable, 586 F. 3d, at 891.
Judge Barkett dissented. Id., at 895-898. She concluded that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals had acted “arbitrarily” in refusing to grant Maples’ request for an out-of-time appeal. Id., at 896. In a case involving “indistinguishable facts,” Judge Barkett noted, the Alabama appellate court had allowed the petitioner to file a late appeal. Ibid. (citing Marshall v. State, 884 So. 2d 898, 899 (Ala. Crim. App. 2002)). Inconsistent application of the 42-days-to-appeal rule, Judge Barkett said, “rendered] the rule an inadequate ground on which to bar federal review of Maples’s claims.” 586 F. 3d, at 897. The interests of justice, she added, required review of Maples’ claims in view of the exceptional circumstances and high stakes involved, and the absence of any fault on Maples’ part. Ibid.
We granted certiorari to decide whether the uncommon facts presented here establish cause adequate to excuse Maples’ procedural default. 562 U. S. 1286 (2011).
I — I I — l
A
As a rule, a state prisoner’s habeas claims may not be entertained by a federal court “when (1) ⅛ state court [has] declined to address [those] claims because the prisoner had failed to meet a state procedural requirement/ and (2) ‘the state judgment rests on independent and adequate state procedural grounds.’” Walker v. Martin, 562 U. S. 307, 316 (2011) (quoting Coleman, 501 U. S., at 729-730). The bar to federal review may be lifted, however, if “the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the [procedural] default [in state court] and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law.” Id., at 750; see Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 84-85 (1977).
Given the single issue on which we granted review, we will assume, for purposes of this decision, that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals’ refusal to consider Maples’ ineffective-assistance claims rested on an independent and adequate state procedural ground: namely, Maples’ failure to satisfy Alabama’s Rule requiring a notice of appeal to be filed within 42 days from the trial court’s final order. Accordingly, we confine our consideration to the question whether Maples has shown cause to excuse the missed notice of appeal deadline.
Cause for a procedural default exists where “something external to the petitioner, something that cannot fairly be attributed to him[,]... ‘impeded [his] efforts to comply with the State’s procedural rule.’ ” Coleman, 501 U. S., at 753 (quoting Murray v. Carrier, All U. S. 478, 488 (1986); emphasis in original). Negligence on the part of a prisoner’s post-conviction attorney does not qualify as “cause.” Coleman, 501 U. S., at 753. That is so, we reasoned in Coleman, because the attorney is the prisoner’s agent, and under “well-settled principles of agency law,” the principal bears the risk of negligent conduct on the part of his agent. Id., at 753-754. See also Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 92 (1990) (“Under our system of representative litigation, ‘each party is deémed bound by the acts of his lawyer-agent.’ ” (quoting Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U. S. 626, 634 (1962))). Thus, when a petitioner’s postconviction attorney misses a filing deadline, the petitioner is bound by the oversight and cannot rely on it to establish cause. Coleman, 501 U. S., at 753-754. We do not disturb that general rule.
A markedly different situation is presented, however, when an attorney abandons his client without notice, and thereby occasions the default. Having severed the principal-agent relationship, an attorney no longer acts, or fails to act, as the client’s representative. See 1 Restatement (Third) of Law Governing Lawyers § 31, Comment / (1998) (“Withdrawal, whether proper or improper, terminates the lawyer’s authority to act for the client.”). His acts or omissions therefore “cannot fairly be attributed to [the client].” Coleman, 501 U. S., at 753. See, e. g., Jamison v. Lockhart, 975 F. 2d 1377, 1380 (CA8 1992) (attorney conduct may.provide cause to excuse a state procedural default where, as a result of a conflict of interest, the attorney “ceased to be [petitioner’s] agent”); Porter v. State, 339 Ark. 15, 16-19, 2 S. W. 3d 73, 74-76 (1999) (finding “good cause” for petitioner’s failure to file a timely habeas petition where the petitioner’s attorney terminated his representation without notifying petitioner and without taking “any formal steps to withdraw as the attorney of record”).
Our recent decision in Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010), is instructive. That case involved a missed one-year deadline, prescribed by 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d), for filing a federal habeas petition. Holland presented two issues: first, whether the § 2244(d) time limitation can be tolled for equitable reasons, and, second, whether an attorney’s unprofessional conduct can ever count as an “extraordinary circumstance” justifying equitable tolling. 560 U. S., at 649, 651 (internal quotation marks omitted). We answered yes to both questions.
On the second issue, the Court recognized that an attorney’s negligence, for example, miscalculating a filing deadline, does not provide a basis for tolling a statutory time limit. Id., at 651-652; id., at 656 (Alito, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see Lawrence v. Florida, 549 U. S. 327, 336 (2007). The Holland petitioner, however, urged that attorney negligence was not the gravamen of his complaint. Rather, he asserted that his lawyer had detached himself from any trust relationship with his client: “[My lawyer] has abandoned me,” the petitioner complained to the court. 560 U. S., at 637 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted); see Nara v. Frank, 264 F. 3d 310, 320 (CA3 2001) (ordering a hearing on whether a client’s effective abandonment by his lawyer merited tolling of the one-year deadline for filing a federal habeas petition).
In a concurring opinion in Holland, Justice Alito homed in on the essential difference between a claim of attorney error, however egregious, and a claim that an attorney had essentially abandoned his client. 560 U. S., at 659. Holland’s plea fit the latter category: He alleged abandonment “evidenced by counsel’s near-total failure to communicate with petitioner or to respond to petitioner’s many inquiries and requests over a period of several years.” Ibid.; see id., at 636-637, 652 (majority opinion). If true, Justice Alito explained, “petitioner’s allegations would suffice to establish extraordinary circumstances beyond his eontrol[:] Common sense dictates that a litigant cannot be held constructively responsible for the conduct of an attorney who is not operating as his agent in any meaningful sense of that word.” Id., at 659.
We agree that, under agency principles, a client cannot be charged with the acts or omissions of an attorney who has abandoned him. Nor can a client be faulted for failing to act on his own behalf when he lacks reason to believe his attorneys of record, in fact, are not representing him. We therefore inquire whether Maples has shown that his attorneys of record abandoned him, thereby supplying the “extraordinary circumstances beyond his control,” ibid., necessary to lift the state procedural bar to his federal petition.
B
From the time he filed his initial Rule 32 petition until well after time ran out for appealing the trial court’s denial of that petition, Maples had only three attorneys of record: Munanka, Ingen-Housz, and Butler. Unknown to Maples, not one of these lawyers was in fact serving as his attorney during the 42 days permitted for an appeal from the trial court’s order.
1
The State contends that Sullivan & Cromwell represented Maples throughout his state postconviction proceedings. Accordingly, the State urges, Maples cannot establish abandonment by counsel continuing through the six weeks allowed for noticing an appeal from the trial court’s denial of his Rule 32 petition. We disagree. It is undisputed that Munanka and Ingen-Housz severed their agency relationship with Maples long before the default occurred. See Brief for Respondent 47 (conceding that the two attorneys erred in failing to file motions to withdraw from the case). Both Mu-nanka and Ingen-Housz left Sullivan & Cromwell’s employ in the summer of 2002, at least nine months before the Alabama trial court entered its order denying Rule 32 relief. App. to Pet. for Cert. 258a. Their new employment — Munanka as a law clerk for a federal judge, Ingen-Housz as an employee of the European Commission in Belgium — disabled them from continuing to represent Maples. See Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees, Canon 4(D)(3) (1999) (prohibiting judicial employees from participating in “litigation against federal, state or local government”); European Commission, Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities, Tit. I, Art. 12b (2004) (employees cannot perform outside work without first obtaining authorization from the Commission), available at http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/toclOO_ en.pdf (as visited Jan. 13, 2012, and in Clerk of Court’s case file). Hornbook agency law establishes that the attorneys’ departure from Sullivan & Cromwell and their commencement of employment that prevented them from representing Maples ended their agency relationship with him. See 1 Restatement (Second) of Agency § 112 (1957) (hereinafter Restatement (Second)) (“[T]he authority of an agent terminates if, without knowledge of the principal, he acquires adverse interests or if he is otherwise guilty of a serious breach of loyalty to the principal.”); 2 id., §394, Comment a (“[Tjhe agent commits a breach of duty [of loyalty] to his principal by acting for another in an undertaking which has a substantial tendency to cause him to disregard his duty to serve his principal with only his principal’s purposes in mind.”).
Furthermore, the two attorneys did not observe Alabama’s Rule requiring them to seek the trial court’s permission to withdraw. See Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 6.2, Comment. Cf. 1 Restatement (Second) § 111, Comment b (“[I]t is ordinarily inferred that a principal does not intend an agent to do an illegal act.”). By failing to seek permission to withdraw, Munanka and Ingen-Housz allowed the court’s records to convey that they represented Maples. As listed attorneys of record, they, not Maples, would be the addressees of court orders Alabama law requires the clerk to furnish. See Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 34.5 (“Upon the entry of any order in a criminal proceeding made in response to a motion,... the clerk shall, without undue delay, furnish all parties a copy thereof by mail or by other appropriate means.”) and 34.4 (“[W]here the defendant is represented by counsel, service shall be made upon the attorney of record.”).
Although acknowledging that Munanka and Ingen-Housz severed their agency relationship with Maples upon their departure from Sullivan & Cromwell, the State argues that, nonetheless, Maples was not abandoned. Other attorneys at the firm, the State asserts, continued to serve as Maples’ counsel. Regarding this assertion, we note, first, that the record is cloudy on the role other Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys played. In an affidavit submitted to the Alabama trial court in support of Maples’ request that the court reissue its Rule 32 order, see supra, at 277, partner Marc De Leeuw stated that he had been “involved in [Maples’] case since the summer of 2001.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 257a. After the trial court initially denied the State’s motion to dismiss in December 2001, De Leeuw informed the court, Sullivan & Cromwell “lawyers working on this case for Mr. Maples prepared for [an anticipated] evidentiary hearing.” Id., at 258a. Another Sullivan & Cromwell attorney, Felice Duffy, stated, in an affidavit submitted to the Alabama trial court in September 2003, that she “ha[d] worked on [Maples’] case since October 14, 2002.” App. 231. But neither De Leeuw nor Duffy described what their “involve[ment]” or “wor[k] on [Maples’] case” entailed. And neither attorney named the lawyers, other than Munanka and Ingen-Housz (both of them still with Sullivan & Cromwell in December 2001), engaged in preparation for the expected hearing. Nor did De Leeuw identify the specific work, if any, other lawyers performed on Maples’ case between Munanka’s and Ingen-Housz’s departures and the firm’s receipt of the telephone call from Maples’ mother.
The slim record on activity at Sullivan & Cromwell, however, does not warrant a remand to determine more precisely the work done by firm lawyers other than Munanka and Ingen-Housz. For the facts essential to our decision are not in doubt. At the time of the default, the Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys who later came forward — De Leeuw, Duffy, and Kathy Brewer — had not been admitted to practice law in Alabama, had not entered their appearances on Maples’ behalf, and had done nothing to inform the Alabama court that they wished to substitute for Munanka and Ingen-Housz. Thus, none of these attorneys had the legal authority to act on Maples’ behalf before his time to appeal expired. Cf. 1 Restatement (Second) § 111 (The “failure to acquire a qualification by the agent without which it is illegal to do an authorized act... terminates the agent’s authority to act.”). What they did or did not do in their New York offices is therefore beside the point. At the time critical to preserving Maples’ access to an appeal, they, like Munanka and Ingen-Housz, were not Maples’ authorized agents.
2
Maples’ only other attorney of record, local counsel Butler, also left him abandoned. Indeed, Butler did not even begin to represent Maples. Butler informed Munanka and Ingen-Housz that he would serve as local counsel only for the purpose of enabling the two out-of-state attorneys to appear pro hac vice. Supra, at 274. Lacking the necessary “resources, available time [and] experience,” Butler told the two Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers, he would not “deal with substantive issues in the case.” Ibid. That the minimal participation he undertook was inconsistent with Alabama law, see Rule VII, quoted supra, at 274, underscores the absurdity of holding Maples barred because Butler signed on as local counsel.
In recognizing that Butler had no role in the case other than to allow Munanka and Ingen-Housz to appear pro hac vice, we need not rely solely on Butler’s and De Leeuw’s statements to that effect. App. to Pet. for Cert. 255a-258a. Other factors confirm that Butler did not “operat[e] as [Maples’] agent in any meaningful sense of that word.” Holland, 560 U. S., at 659 (Alito, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The first is Butler’s own conduct. Upon receiving a copy of the trial court’s Rule 32 order, Butler did not contact Sullivan & Cromwell to ensure that firm lawyers were taking appropriate action. Although Butler had reason to believe that Munanka and Ingen-Housz had received a copy of the court’s order, see App. 225 (indicating that Munanka and Ingen-Housz were CC’d on the order), Butler’s failure even to place a phone call to the New York firm substantiates his disclaimer of any genuinely representative role in the case.
Notably, the State did not treat Butler as Maples’ actual representative. Assistant Attorney General Hayden addressed the letter informing Maples of the default directly to Maples in prison. See supra, at 277. Hayden sent no copy to, nor did he otherwise notify, any of the attorneys listed as counsel of record for Maples. Lawyers in Alabama have an ethical obligation to refrain from communicating directly with an opposing party known to be represented by counsel. See Ala. Rule of Professional Conduct 4.2 (2003); Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 34.4 (requiring that the service of all documents “be made upon the attorney of record”)- In writing directly and only to Maples, notwithstanding this ethical obligation, Assistant Attorney General Hayden must have believed that Maples was no longer represented by counsel, out-of-state or local.
In sum, the record admits of only
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question for resolution here is whether the Fourth Amendment was violated when a federal narcotics agent, by misrepresenting his identity and stating his willingness to purchase narcotics, was invited into petitioner’s home where an unlawful narcotics transaction was consummated and the narcotics were thereafter introduced at petitioner’s criminal trial over his objection. We hold that under the facts of this case it was not. Those facts are not disputed and may be briefly stated as follows:
On December 3, 1964, Edward Cass, an undercover federal narcotics agent, telephoned petitioner’s home to inquire about the possibility of purchasing marihuana. Cass, who previously had not met or dealt with petitioner, falsely identified himself as one “Jimmy the Pollack [sic]” and stated that a mutual friend had told him petitioner might be able to supply marihuana. In response, petitioner said, “Yes. I believe, Jimmy, I can take care of you,” and then directed Cass to his home where, it was indicated, a sale of marihuana would occur. Cass drove to petitioner’s home, knocked on the door, identified himself as “Jim,” and was admitted. After discussing the possibility of regular future dealings at a discounted price, petitioner led Cass to a package located on the front porch of his home. Cass gave petitioner $50, took the package, and left the premises. The package contained five bags of marihuana. On December 17, 1964, a similar transaction took place, beginning with a phone conversation in which Cass identified himself as “Jimmy the Pollack” and ending with an invited visit, by Cass to petitioner’s home where a second sale of marihuana occurred. Once again, Cass paid petitioner $50, but this time he received in return a package containing six bags of marihuana.
Petitioner was arrested on April 27, 1965, and charged by a two-count indictment with violations of the narcotics laws relating to transfers of marihuana. 26 U. S. C. § 4742 (a). A pretrial motion to suppress as evidence the marihuana and the conversations between petitioner and the agent was denied, and they were introduced at the trial. The District Court, sitting without a jury, convicted petitioner on both counts and imposed concurrent five-year penitentiary sentences. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed, 352 F. 2d 799, and we granted certiorari, 382 U. S. 1024.
Petitioner does not argue that he was entrapped, as he could not on the facts of this case; nor does he contend that a search of his home was made or that anything other than the purchased narcotics was taken away. His only contentions are that, in the absence of a warrant, any official intrusion upon the privacy of a home constitutes a Fourth Amendment violation and that the fact the suspect invited the intrusion cannot be held a waiver when the invitation was induced by fraud and deception.
Both petitioner and the Government recognize the necessity for some undercover police activity and both concede that the particular circumstances of each case govern the admissibility of evidence obtained by stratagem or deception. Indeed, it has long been acknowledged by the decisions of this Court, see Grimm v. United States, 156 U. S. 604, 610 (1895), and Andrews v. United States, 162 U. S. 420, 423 (1896), that, in the detection of many types of crime, the Government is entitled to use decoys and to conceal the identity of its agents. The various protections of the Bill of Rights, of course, provide checks upon such official deception for the protection of the individual. See, e. g., Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (1964); Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699 (1948).
Petitioner argues that the Government overstepped the constitutional bounds in this case and places principal reliance on Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298 (1921). But a short statement of that case will demonstrate how misplaced his reliance is. There, a business acquaintance of the petitioner, acting under orders of federal officers, obtained entry into the petitioner’s office by falsely representing that he intended only to pay a social visit. In the petitioner’s absence, however, the intruder secretly ransacked the office and seized certain private papers of an incriminating nature. This Court had no difficulty concluding that the Fourth Amendment had been violated by the secret and general ransacking, notwithstanding that the initial intrusion was occasioned by a fraudulently obtained invitation rather than by force or stealth.
In the instant case, on the other hand, the petitioner invited the undercover agent to his home for the specific purpose of executing a felonious sale of narcotics. Petitioner’s only concern was whether the agent was a willing purchaser who could pay the agreed price. Indeed, in order to convince the agent that his patronage at petitioner’s home was desired, petitioner told him that, if he became a regular customer there, he would in the future receive an extra bag of marihuana at no additional cost; and in fact petitioner did hand over an extra bag at a second sale which was consummated at the same place and in precisely the same manner. During neither of his visits to petitioner’s home did the agent see, hear, or take anything that was not contemplated, and in fact intended, by petitioner as a necessary part of his illegal business. Were we to hold the deceptions of the agent in this case constitutionally prohibited, we would come near to a rule that the use of undercover agents in any manner is virtually unconstitutional per se. Such a rule would, for example, severely hamper the Government in ferreting out those organized criminal activities that are characterized by covert dealings with victims who either cannot or do not protest. A prime example is provided by the narcotics traffic.
The fact that the undercover agent entered petitioner’s home does not compel a different conclusion. Without question, the home is accorded the full range of Fourth Amendment protections. See Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313 (1921); Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145, 151, n. 15 (1947). But when, as here, the home is converted into a commercial center to which outsiders are invited for purposes of transacting unlawful business, that business is entitled to no greater sanctity than if it were carried on in a store, a garage, a car, or on the street. A government agent, in the same manner as a private person, may accept an invitation to do business and may enter upon the premises for the very purposes contemplated by the occupant. Of course, this does not mean that, whenever entry is obtained by invitation and the locus is characterized as a place of business, an agent is authorized to conduct a general search for incriminating materials; a citation to the Gouled case, supra, is sufficient to dispose of that contention.
Finally, petitioner also relies on Rios v. United States, 364 U. S. 253 (1960); Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257 (1960); McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451 (1948); and Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10 (1948). But those cases all dealt with the exclusion of evidence that had been forcibly seized against the suspects’ desires and without the authorization conferred by search warrants. A reading of them will readily demonstrate that they are inapposite to the facts of this case; and, in this area, each case must be judged on its own particular facts. Nor is Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505 (1961), in point; for there, the conduct proscribed was that of eavesdroppers, unknown and unwanted intruders who furtively listened to conversations occurring in the privacy of a house. The instant case involves no such problem; it has been well summarized by the Government at the conclusion of its brief as follows:
“In short, this case involves the exercise of no governmental power to intrude upon protected premises; the visitor was invited and willingly admitted by the suspect. It concerns no design on the part of a government agent to observe or hear what was happening in the privacy of a home; the suspect chose the location where the transaction took place. It presents no question of the invasion of the privacy of a dwelling; the only statements repeated were those that were willingly made to the agent and the only things taken were the packets of marihuana voluntarily transferred to him. The pretense resulted in no breach of privacy; it merely encouraged the suspect to say things which he was willing and anxious to say to anyone who would be interested in purchasing marihuana.”
Further elaboration is not necessary. The judgment is
Affirmed.
[For opinion of Douglas, J., dissenting, see post, p. 340.]
In the illegal narcotics trade, an average “bag” of marihuana contains approximately five grams of marihuana. The five bags transferred to the agent by petitioner, however, contained a quantity of marihuana measuring 31.16 grams.
The six bags transferred in this second transaction contained 40.34 grams of marihuana.
Compare Sherman v. United States, 356 U. S. 369 (1958), and Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435 (1932). See generally Mikell, The Doctrine of Entrapment in the Federal Courts, 90 U. Pa. L. Rev. 245 (1942).
In oral argument before this Court, counsel for petitioner conceded that information obtained by the agent in the course of his general undercover investigation, together with the subject matter of the first telephone conversation between the agent and petitioner, provided probable cause for believing that a narcotics offense would be committed in petitioner’s home and, therefore, would have supported the issuance of a search warrant. According to counsel, the agent’s misrepresentations would not have vitiated a magistrate’s determination of probable cause. Counsel further suggested that, if the agent had arrested petitioner at the latter’s home and then had conducted a search incidental to the arrest, no constitutional problems would be presented.
Former Chief Justice Hughes commented as follows upon the use of official deception in combating criminal activity:
“Artifice and stratagem may be employed to catch those engaged in criminal enterprises. . . . The appropriate object of this permitted activity, frequently essential to the enforcement of the law, is to reveal the criminal design; to expose the illicit traffic, the prohibited publication, the fraudulent use of the mails, the illegal conspiracy, or other offenses, and thus to disclose the would-be violators of the law.” Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435, 441-442 (1932).
“Particularly, in the enforcement of vice, liquor or narcotics laws, it is all but impossible to obtain evidence for prosecution save by the use of decoys. There are rarely complaining witnesses. The participants in the crime enjoy themselves. Misrepresentation by a police officer or agent concerning the identity of the purchaser of illegal narcotics is a practical necessity. . . . Therefore, the law must attempt to distinguish between those deceits and persuasions which are permissible and those which are not.” Model Penal Code §2.10, comment, p. 16 (Tent. Draft No. 9, 1959).
See also Donnelly, Judicial Control of Informants, Spies, Stool Pigeons and Agent Provocateurs, 60 Yale L. J. 1091, 1094 (1951); Note, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 1333, 1338-1339 (1960).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
This case is here on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which set aside an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission authorizing respondent Consolidated Truck Service, Inc., to begin contract carrier service in competition with respondent Benmar Transport & Leasing Corp. The order, issued October 5, 1977, was defective because it lacked the statutorily required finding that it was consistent “ 'with the public interest and with the national transportation policy' [§ 210] of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 310 [now 49 U. S. C. § 10930 (a) (1976 ed., Supp. II)].” Benmar Transport & Leasing Corp. v. ICC, 582 F. 2d 246, 248 (1978).
The case was argued in the Court of Appeals on July 17, 1978, and decided August 16, 1978. In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeals refused to consider two subsequent Commission orders that remedied the defect. The first of these orders, issued with the consent of all interested parties almost six months before oral argument in the Court of Appeals, reopened the administrative proceedings and made the finding required by 49 U. S. C. § 310. The second, issued on April 18, 1978, denied respondent Benmar’s petition for administrative review of the former order. This denial became the Commission’s final administrative order and had the effect of reaffirming its earlier decision to grant Consolidated’s application for a contract carrier permit. Although the question briefed by the parties in the Court of Appeals was whether the order of April 18, 1978, was supported by the evidence, the Court of Appeals declined to examine the question on the ground that the only order properly before it was the defective order of October 5, 1977. It thus vacated the order and remanded the case for further proceedings.
We grant the petition of the United States and the Commission and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. In American Farm Lines v. Black Ball Freight Service, 397 U. S. 532 (1970), this Court held that the Commission’s broad powers to “reverse, change, or modify” its decisions “are plainly adequate to add to the findings or firm them up as the Commission deems desirable, absent any collision or interference with the District Court.” Id., at 541. (The applicable statute then provided for review of orders of the Commission by a three-judge District Court, rather than by the Court of Appeals.) Here the Commission’s action did not interfere in any manner with the proceedings in the Court of Appeals, and the Commission acted before that court was ready to hear arguments on the merits and before it received the record. All parties concurred in the Commission’s decision to reopen the proceedings and to hold judicial review in abeyance pending the Commission’s final disposition of Ben-mar’s petition for administrative review. The position of the parties — both those who prevailed and those who lost before the Commission — is convincingly demonstrated by the fact that no party has filed a brief in support of the decision reached by the Court of Appeals.
As the Court said in American Farm Lines, supra, “[t]he concept ‘of an indivisible jurisdiction which must be all in one tribunal or all in the other may fit’ some statutory schemes, . . . but it does not fit this one.” 397 U. S., at 541. After the abolition of the “forms of action” in the early common law, it was said that “[t]he forms of action we have buried, but they still rule us from their graves.” F. Maitland, The Forms of Action at Common Law 2 (1936). Orderly rules of procedure are necessary in order that appellate review may be had of agency findings, but empty formalities devoid of either substantive or procedural benefit have no place in the normal scheme for administrative review unless Congress chooses to place them there. Here Congress has quite clearly not chosen to impose such virtually meaningless requirements as the Court of Appeals insisted upon. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is inconsistent with the spirit which animated American Farm Lines v. Black Ball Freight Service, supra, and is therefore
Reversed.
The dissenting opinion makes the bald statement that “[t]he ICC simply ignored the time limits established by the Court of Appeals and thereby prevented judicial review altogether. The Court of Appeals was not ready to hear argument and had not received the record solely because the ICC did not deign to comply with the scheduling orders of the court.” The opinion of the Court of Appeals, Benmar Transport & Leasing Corp. v. ICC, 582 F. 2d 246 (1978), lends no support to this statement. Respondent Benmar petitioned the court to set aside the Commission’s order but consented along with other interested parties to the reopening of the Commission proceedings before the record had been filed with the Court of Appeals or oral argument heard by that court. After the Commission completed these proceedings, it issued its final order of April 18,11978 — an order which was reviewable by the Court of Appeals pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2341-2349. The Court of Appeals thus was not deprived of its jurisdiction over this dispute. Rather, for no apparent reason other than to insist that the parties comply with an “empty formality,” the Court of Appeals stated in its opinion that “when an agency seeks to reconsider its action, it should move the court to remand or to hold the case in abeyance pending reconsideration by the agency.” 582 F. 2d, at 248. If such action were necessary in order to avoid genuine interference “in any manner with the proceedings in the Court of Appeals,” supra, at 5, we would have a different case. But since we conclude that there was no such interference, the mere fact that application for reopening was not made to the Court of Appeals was not fatal when all interested parties consented to such reopening. See American Farm Lines v. Black Ball Freight Service, 397 U. S. 532 (1970).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment of the Appellate Department of the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, is reversed. Redrup v. New York, 386 U. S. 767.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Clark, and Mr. Justice Brennan would affirm.
Mr. Justice Harlan adheres to the views expressed in his separate opinions in Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 496, and Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U. S. 413, 455, and on the basis of the reasoning set forth therein would affirm.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Respondent Otis Lee Rodgers, challenging his state conviction, sought a writ of habeas corpus from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He claimed the state courts violated his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel by declining to appoint an attorney to assist in filing a motion for a new trial notwithstanding his three prior waivers of the right to counseled representation. The District Court denied respondent's petition, and he appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which granted habeas relief.
678 F.3d 1149, 1163 (2012). Because the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that respondent's claim is supported by "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), its judgment must be reversed.
I
In 2001, the State of California charged respondent with making criminal threats, assault with a firearm, and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Before his arraignment, respondent executed a valid waiver of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, electing to represent himself. See Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 807, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975). By the time of his preliminary hearing, however, respondent changed his mind and retained counsel. Then, two months later, he fired his lawyer and again waived his right to counsel. Two months after that, respondent again changed his mind and asked the court to appoint an attorney. The court did so. Shortly before trial, however, respondent for the third time surrendered his right to counsel. He proceeded to trial pro se . On June 27, 2003, the jury returned a verdict of guilty.
After the verdict was read, respondent asked the state trial court to provide an attorney to help him file a motion for a new trial. The trial judge deferred ruling on the motion to appoint counsel, and respondent later renewed the request in writing. Neither the oral nor the written motion included reasons in support of his request; and when offered a chance to supplement or explain his motion at a later hearing, respondent declined to do so. The trial court denied the request for counsel. Respondent's pro se motion for a new trial was likewise denied.
On direct review the California Court of Appeal affirmed respondent's convictions and sentence. As relevant here, it concluded that his history of vacillating between counseled and self-representation, the lack of support for his motion, his demonstrated competence in defending his case, and his insistence that he " 'c[ould] do the motion [him]self' " but " 'just need[ed] time to perfect it,' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 129-130, justified the trial court's denial of his post-trial request for counsel. The state appellate court also distinguished its decision from that of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Menefield v. Borg, 881 F.2d 696 (1989), reasoning that the habeas petitioner in Menefield had stated reasons justifying his request for counsel, whereas respondent's request was unreasoned and unexplained. The state appellate court concluded that "[b]ecause the [trial] court was not given any reason to grant [respondent's] motion, we cannot find that the court abused its discretion in declining to do so." App. to Pet. for Cert. 130.
Having failed to obtain relief in state court, respondent filed a federal habeas petition, arguing that the California courts had violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel by not providing an attorney to help with his new-trial motion. The District Court denied the petition but granted a certificate of appealability. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that respondent's "Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when the trial court denied his timely request for representation for a new trial motion." 678 F.3d, at 1163.
To reach the conclusion that respondent's right to counsel in these circumstances was clearly established by the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit invoked certain Sixth Amendment precedents from its own earlier cases and from cases in other Circuits. From those precedents, the panel identified two relevant principles that it deemed to have been clearly established by this Court's cases: first, that a defendant's waiver of his right to trial counsel does not bar his later election to receive assistance of counsel at a later critical stage of the prosecution, absent proof by the State that the reappointment request was made in bad faith, see id., at 1159-1162; and, second, that a new-trial motion is a critical stage, see id., at 1156-1159. Combining these two propositions, the court held that respondent had a clearly established right to the reappointment of counsel for purposes of his new-trial motion, and that the California courts-which vest the trial judge with discretion to approve or deny such requests based on the totality of the circumstances, see People v. Lawley, 27 Cal.4th 102, 147-151, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 614, 38 P.3d 461, 493-495 (2002) -violated that right by refusing to order the reappointment of counsel. 678 F.3d, at 1162-1163.
II
The starting point for cases subject to § 2254(d)(1) is to identify the "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" that governs the habeas petitioner's claims. See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000) ; Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 122, 129 S.Ct. 1411, 173 L.Ed.2d 251 (2009). As indicated above, the parties here dispute whether two principles of law are clearly established under this framework. One is whether, after a defendant's valid waiver of his right to trial counsel under Faretta, a post-trial, preappeal motion for a new trial is a critical stage of the prosecution. For purposes of analysis here, it will be assumed, without so holding, that it is.
The other disputed question is whether, after a defendant's valid waiver of counsel, a trial judge has discretion to deny the defendant's later request for reappointment of counsel.
In resolving this question in respondent's favor, the Court of Appeals first concluded (correctly) that "the Supreme Court has never explicitly addressed a criminal defendant's ability to re-assert his right to counsel" once he has validly waived it. 678 F.3d, at 1159 (internal quotation marks omitted). It then (also correctly) recognized that the lack of a Supreme Court decision on nearly identical facts does not by itself mean that there is no clearly established federal law, since "a general standard" from this Court's cases can supply such law. Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004). The Court of Appeals erred, however, in its application of this latter proposition to the controlling issues here.
It is beyond dispute that "[t]he Sixth Amendment safeguards to an accused who faces incarceration the right to counsel at all critical stages of the criminal process." Iowa v. Tovar, 541 U.S. 77, 80-81, 124 S.Ct. 1379, 158 L.Ed.2d 209 (2004) ; see United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 653-654, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984) ; Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). It is just as well settled, however, that a defendant also has the right to "proceed without counsel when he voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so." Faretta, 422 U.S., at 807, 95 S.Ct. 2525.
There can be some tension in these two principles. As the Faretta Court observed, "[t]here can be no blinking the fact that the right of an accused to conduct his own defense seems to cut against the grain of this Court's decisions holding that the Constitution requires that no accused can be convicted and imprisoned unless he has been accorded the right to the assistance of counsel." Id., at 832, 95 S.Ct. 2525. California has resolved this tension by adopting the framework under review. Under that approach, trial judges are afforded discretion when considering postwaiver requests for counsel; their decisions on such requests must be based on the totality of the circumstances, "includ[ing] 'the quality of [the defendant's] representation of [himself], the defendant's prior proclivity to substitute counsel, the reasons for the request, the length and stage of the proceedings, and the disruption or delay [that] might reasonably be expected to follow the granting of such a motion.' " Lawley, supra, at 149, 38 P.3d, at 494 (quoting People v. Windham, 19 Cal.3d 121, 128, 137 Cal.Rptr. 8, 560 P.2d 1187, 1191-1192 (1977) ; final alteration in original). The state appellate court applied those rules to the case at bar, concluding that the totality of the circumstances-and especially the shifting nature of respondent's preferences, the unexplained nature of his motion, and his demonstrated capacity to handle the incidents of trial-supported the trial court's decision. App. to Pet. for Cert. 128-131.
The Court of Appeals, however, has resolved that tension differently in its own direct-review cases. It has adopted a " 'strong presumption that a defendant's post-trial request for the assistance of an attorney should not be refused,' " 678 F.3d, at 1160 (quoting Robinson v. Ignacio, 360 F.3d 1044, 1058 (C.A.9 2004) ; emphasis deleted), as well as a default rule that, " 'in the absence of extraordinary circumstances,' a defendant's post-trial revocation of his waiver should be allowed unless the government can show that the request is made 'for a bad faith purpose,' " id., at 1058 (quoting Menefield, 881 F.2d, at 701; emphasis deleted).
It is unnecessary for present purposes to judge the merits of these two approaches or determine what rule the Sixth Amendment in fact establishes for postwaiver requests of appointment of counsel. All this case requires-and all the Court of Appeals was empowered to do under § 2254(d)(1) -is to observe that, in light of the tension between the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of "the right to counsel at all critical stages of the criminal process," Tovar, supra, at 80-81, 124 S.Ct. 1379, and its concurrent promise of "a constitutional right to proceed without counsel when [a criminal defendant] voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so," Faretta, supra, at 807, 95 S.Ct. 2525, it cannot be said that California's approach is contrary to or an unreasonable application of the "general standard[s]" established by the Court's assistance-of-counsel cases. Alvarado, supra, at 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140.
The Court of Appeals' contrary conclusion rested in part on the mistaken belief that circuit precedent may be used to refine or sharpen a general principle of Supreme Court jurisprudence into a specific legal rule that this Court has not announced. Parker v. Matthews, 567 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 2148, 2155, 183 L.Ed.2d 32 (2012) (per curiam ) ("The highly generalized standard for evaluating claims of prosecutorial misconduct set forth in Darden [v.Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986) ] bears scant resemblance to the elaborate, multistep test employed by the Sixth Circuit here"); see 678 F.3d, at 1155, 1157. The error in this approach is subtle, yet substantial. Although an appellate panel may, in accordance with its usual law-of-the-circuit procedures, look to circuit precedent to ascertain whether it has already held that the particular point in issue is clearly established by Supreme Court precedent, see, e.g., Tolliver v. Sheets, 594 F.3d 900, 916, n. 6 (C.A.6 2010) ("We are bound by prior Sixth Circuit determinations that a rule has been clearly established"); Chambers v. McDaniel, 549 F.3d 1191, 1199 (C.A.9 2008), it may not canvass circuit decisions to determine whether a particular rule of law is so widely accepted among the Federal Circuits that it would, if presented to this Court, be accepted as correct. See Parker, supra, at ----, 132 S.Ct., at 2155-2156; Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 778-779, 130 S.Ct. 1855, 176 L.Ed.2d 678 (2010). The Court of Appeals failed to abide by that limitation here. Its resulting holding was erroneous and must be reversed.
III
The Court expresses no view on the merits of the underlying Sixth Amendment principle the respondent urges. And it does not suggest or imply that the underlying issue, if presented on direct review, would be insubstantial. This opinion is instead confined to the determination that the conclusion of the California courts that there was no Sixth Amendment violation is not contrary to "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." § 2254(d)(1).
The petition for a writ of certiorari and respondent's motion to proceed in forma pauperis are granted. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 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.
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
A Massachusetts statute makes it a crime to knowingly stand on a "public way or sidewalk" within 35 feet of an entrance or driveway to any place, other than a hospital, where abortions are performed. Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, §§ 120E 1/2(a), (b) (West 2012). Petitioners are individuals who approach and talk to women outside such facilities, attempting to dissuade them from having abortions. The statute prevents petitioners from doing so near the facilities' entrances. The question presented is whether the statute violates the First Amendment.
I
A
In 2000, the Massachusetts Legislature enacted the Massachusetts Reproductive Health Care Facilities Act, Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, § 120E 1/2 (West 2000). The law was designed to address clashes between abortion opponents and advocates of abortion rights that were occurring outside clinics where abortions were performed. The Act established a defined area with an 18-foot radius around the entrances and driveways of such facilities. § 120E 1/2 (b). Anyone could enter that area, but once within it, no one (other than certain exempt individuals) could knowingly approach within six feet of another person-unless that person consented-"for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling with such other person." Ibid. A separate provision subjected to criminal punishment anyone who "knowingly obstructs, detains, hinders, impedes or blocks another person's entry to or exit from a reproductive health care facility." § 120E 1/2(e).
The statute was modeled on a similar Colorado law that this Court had upheld in Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 120 S.Ct. 2480, 147 L.Ed.2d 597 (2000). Relying on Hill, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit sustained the Massachusetts statute against a First Amendment challenge. McGuire v. Reilly, 386 F.3d 45 (2004)( McGuire II ), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 974, 125 S.Ct. 1827, 161 L.Ed.2d 724 (2005); McGuire v. Reilly, 260 F.3d 36 (2001)( McGuire I ).
By 2007, some Massachusetts legislators and law enforcement officials had come to regard the 2000 statute as inadequate. At legislative hearings, multiple witnesses recounted apparent violations of the law. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, for example, testified that protestors violated the statute "on a routine basis." App. 78. To illustrate this claim, she played a video depicting protestors approaching patients and clinic staff within the buffer zones, ostensibly without the latter individuals' consent. Clinic employees and volunteers also testified that protestors congregated near the doors and in the driveways of the clinics, with the result that prospective patients occasionally retreated from the clinics rather than try to make their way to the clinic entrances or parking lots.
Captain William B. Evans of the Boston Police Department, however, testified that his officers had made "no more than five or so arrests" at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Boston and that what few prosecutions had been brought were unsuccessful. Id., at 68-69. Witnesses attributed the dearth of enforcement to the difficulty of policing the six-foot no-approach zones. Captain Evans testified that the 18-foot zones were so crowded with protestors that they resembled "a goalie's crease," making it hard to determine whether a protestor had deliberately approached a patient or, if so, whether the patient had consented. Id., at 69-71. For similar reasons, Attorney General Coakley concluded that the six-foot no-approach zones were "unenforceable." Id., at 79. What the police needed, she said, was a fixed buffer zone around clinics that protestors could not enter. Id., at 74, 76. Captain Evans agreed, explaining that such a zone would "make our job so much easier." Id., at 68.
To address these concerns, the Massachusetts Legislature amended the statute in 2007, replacing the six-foot no-approach zones (within the 18-foot area) with a 35-foot fixed buffer zone from which individuals are categorically excluded. The statute now provides:
"No person shall knowingly enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk adjacent to a reproductive health care facility within a radius of 35 feet of any portion of an entrance, exit or driveway of a reproductive health care facility or within the area within a rectangle created by extending the outside boundaries of any entrance, exit or driveway of a reproductive health care facility in straight lines to the point where such lines intersect the sideline of the street in front of such entrance, exit or driveway." Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, § 120E 1/2(b) (West 2012).
A "reproductive health care facility," in turn, is defined as "a place, other than within or upon the grounds of a hospital, where abortions are offered or performed." § 120E 1/2(a).
The 35-foot buffer zone applies only "during a facility's business hours," and the area must be "clearly marked and posted." § 120E 1/2(c). In practice, facilities typically mark the zones with painted arcs and posted signs on adjacent sidewalks and streets. A first violation of the statute is punishable by a fine of up to $500, up to three months in prison, or both, while a subsequent offense is punishable by a fine of between $500 and $5,000, up to two and a half years in prison, or both. § 120E 1/2(d).
The Act exempts four classes of individuals: (1) "persons entering or leaving such facility"; (2) "employees or agents of such facility acting within the scope of their employment"; (3) "law enforcement, ambulance, firefighting, construction, utilities, public works and other municipal agents acting within the scope of their employment"; and (4) "persons using the public sidewalk or street right-of-way adjacent to such facility solely for the purpose of reaching a destination other than such facility." § 120E 1/2 (b)(1)-(4). The legislature also retained the separate provision from the 2000 version that proscribes the knowing obstruction of access to a facility. § 120E 1/2(e).
B
Some of the individuals who stand outside Massachusetts abortion clinics are fairly described as protestors, who express their moral or religious opposition to abortion through signs and chants or, in some cases, more aggressive methods such as face-to-face confrontation. Petitioners take a different tack. They attempt to engage women approaching the clinics in what they call "sidewalk counseling," which involves offering information about alternatives to abortion and help pursuing those options. Petitioner Eleanor McCullen, for instance, will typically initiate a conversation this way: "Good morning, may I give you my literature? Is there anything I can do for you? I'm available if you have any questions." App. 138. If the woman seems receptive, McCullen will provide additional information. McCullen and the other petitioners consider it essential to maintain a caring demeanor, a calm tone of voice, and direct eye contact during these exchanges. Such interactions, petitioners believe, are a much more effective means of dissuading women from having abortions than confrontational methods such as shouting or brandishing signs, which in petitioners' view tend only to antagonize their intended audience. In unrefuted testimony, petitioners say they have collectively persuaded hundreds of women to forgo abortions.
The buffer zones have displaced petitioners from their previous positions outside the clinics. McCullen offers counseling outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Boston, as do petitioners Jean Zarrella and Eric Cadin. Petitioner Gregory Smith prays the rosary there. The clinic occupies its own building on a street corner. Its main door is recessed into an open foyer, approximately 12 feet back from the public sidewalk. Before the Act was amended to create the buffer zones, petitioners stood near the entryway to the foyer. Now a buffer zone-marked by a painted arc and a sign-surrounds the entrance. This zone extends 23 feet down the sidewalk in one direction, 26 feet in the other, and outward just one foot short of the curb. The clinic's entrance adds another seven feet to the width of the zone. Id., at 293-295. The upshot is that petitioners are effectively excluded from a 56-foot-wide expanse of the public sidewalk in front of the clinic.1
Petitioners Mark Bashour and Nancy Clark offer counseling and information outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Worcester. Unlike the Boston clinic, the Worcester clinic sits well back from the public street and sidewalks. Patients enter the clinic in one of two ways. Those arriving on foot turn off the public sidewalk and walk down a nearly 54-foot-long private walkway to the main entrance. More than 85% of patients, however, arrive by car, turning onto the clinic's driveway from the street, parking in a private lot, and walking to the main entrance on a private walkway.
Bashour and Clark would like to stand where the private walkway or driveway intersects the sidewalk and offer leaflets to patients as they walk or drive by. But a painted arc extends from the private walkway 35 feet down the sidewalk in either direction and outward nearly to the curb on the opposite side of the street. Another arc surrounds the driveway's entrance, covering more than 93 feet of the sidewalk (including the width of the driveway) and extending across the street and nearly six feet onto the sidewalk on the opposite side.
Id., at 295-297. Bashour and Clark must now stand either some distance down the sidewalk from the private walkway and driveway or across the street.
Petitioner Cyril Shea stands outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Springfield, which, like the Worcester clinic, is set back from the public streets. Approximately 90% of patients arrive by car and park in the private lots surrounding the clinic. Shea used to position himself at an entrance to one of the five driveways leading to the parking lots. Painted arcs now surround the entrances, each spanning approximately 100 feet of the sidewalk parallel to the street (again, including the width of the driveways) and extending outward well into the street. Id., at 297-299. Like petitioners at the Worcester clinic, Shea now stands far down the sidewalk from the driveway entrances.
Petitioners at all three clinics claim that the buffer zones have considerably hampered their counseling efforts. Although they have managed to conduct some counseling and to distribute some literature outside the buffer zones-particularly at the Boston clinic-they say they have had many fewer conversations and distributed many fewer leaflets since the zones went into effect. Id., at 136-137, 180, 200.
The second statutory exemption allows clinic employees and agents acting within the scope of their employment to enter the buffer zones. Relying on this exemption, the Boston clinic uses "escorts" to greet women as they approach the clinic, accompanying them through the zones to the clinic entrance. Petitioners claim that the escorts sometimes thwart petitioners' attempts to communicate with patients by blocking petitioners from handing literature to patients, telling patients not to "pay any attention" or "listen to" petitioners, and disparaging petitioners as "crazy." Id., at 165, 178.
C
In January 2008, petitioners sued Attorney General Coakley and other Commonwealth officials. They sought to enjoin enforcement of the Act, alleging that it violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, both on its face and as applied to them. The District Court denied petitioners' facial challenge after a bench trial based on a stipulated record. 573 F.Supp.2d 382 (D.Mass.2008).
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. 571 F.3d 167 (2009). Relying extensively on its previous decisions upholding the 2000 version of the Act, see McGuire II, 386 F.3d 45;McGuire I, 260 F.3d 36, the court upheld the 2007 version as a reasonable "time, place, and manner" regulation under the test set forth in Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989). 571 F.3d, at 174-181. It also rejected petitioners' arguments that the Act was substantially overbroad, void for vagueness, and an impermissible prior restraint. Id., at 181-184.
The case then returned to the District Court, which held that the First Circuit's decision foreclosed all but one of petitioners' as-applied challenges. 759 F.Supp.2d 133 (2010). After another bench trial, it denied the remaining as-applied challenge, finding that the Act left petitioners ample alternative channels of communication. 844 F.Supp.2d 206 (2012). The Court of Appeals once again affirmed. 708 F.3d 1 (2013).
We granted certiorari. 570 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 2857, 186 L.Ed.2d 907 (2013).
II
By its very terms, the Massachusetts Act regulates access to "public way[s]" and "sidewalk[s]."
Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, § 120E 1/2 (b) (Supp. 2007). Such areas occupy a "special position in terms of First Amendment protection" because of their historic role as sites for discussion and debate. United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 180, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983). These places-which we have labeled "traditional public fora"-" 'have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.' " Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 469, 129 S.Ct. 1125, 172 L.Ed.2d 853 (2009) (quoting Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 45, 103 S.Ct. 948, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983)).
It is no accident that public streets and sidewalks have developed as venues for the exchange of ideas. Even today, they remain one of the few places where a speaker can be confident that he is not simply preaching to the choir. With respect to other means of communication, an individual confronted with an uncomfortable message can always turn the page, change the channel, or leave the Web site. Not so on public streets and sidewalks. There, a listener often encounters speech he might otherwise tune out. In light of the First Amendment's purpose "to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail," FCC v. League of Women Voters of Cal., 468 U.S. 364, 377, 104 S.Ct. 3106, 82 L.Ed.2d 278 (1984) (internal quotation marks omitted), this aspect of traditional public fora is a virtue, not a vice.
In short, traditional public fora are areas that have historically been open to the public for speech activities. Thus, even though the Act says nothing about speech on its face, there is no doubt-and respondents do not dispute-that it restricts access to traditional public fora and is therefore subject to First Amendment scrutiny. See Brief for Respondents 26 (although "[b]y its terms, the Act regulates only conduct," it "incidentally regulates the place and time of protected speech").
Consistent with the traditionally open character of public streets and sidewalks, we have held that the government's ability to restrict speech in such locations is "very limited." Grace, supra, at 177, 103 S.Ct. 1702. In particular, the guiding First Amendment principle that the "government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content" applies with full force in a traditional public forum. Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972). As a general rule, in such a forum the government may not "selectively... shield the public from some kinds of speech on the ground that they are more offensive than others." Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 209, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975).
We have, however, afforded the government somewhat wider leeway to regulate features of speech unrelated to its content. "[E]ven in a public forum the government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech, provided the restrictions 'are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and that they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.' " Ward, 491 U.S., at 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746 (quoting Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 293, 104 S.Ct. 3065, 82 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984)). 2
While the parties agree that this test supplies the proper framework for assessing the constitutionality of the Massachusetts Act, they disagree about whether the Act satisfies the test's three requirements.
III
Petitioners contend that the Act is not content neutral for two independent reasons: First, they argue that it discriminates against abortion-related speech because it establishes buffer zones only at clinics that perform abortions. Second, petitioners contend that the Act, by exempting clinic employees and agents, favors one viewpoint about abortion over the other. If either of these arguments is correct, then the Act must satisfy strict scrutiny-that is, it must be the least restrictive means of achieving a compelling state interest. See United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000). Respondents do not argue that the Act can survive this exacting standard.
Justice SCALIA objects to our decision to consider whether the statute is content based and thus subject to strict scrutiny, given that we ultimately conclude that it is not narrowly tailored. Post, at 2541 (opinion concurring in judgment). But we think it unexceptional to perform the first part of a multipart constitutional analysis first. The content-neutrality prong of the Ward test is logically antecedent to the narrow-tailoring prong, because it determines the appropriate level of scrutiny. It is not unusual for the Court to proceed sequentially in applying a constitutional test, even when the preliminary steps turn out not to be dispositive. See, e.g.,Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 526-527, 121 S.Ct. 1753, 149 L.Ed.2d 787 (2001); Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 25-28, 130 S.Ct. 2705, 177 L.Ed.2d 355 (2010) (concluding that a law was content based even though it ultimately survived strict scrutiny).
The Court does sometimes assume, without deciding, that a law is subject to a less stringent level of scrutiny, as we did earlier this Term in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, 572 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 1434, 1445-1446, 188 L.Ed.2d 468 (2014) (plurality opinion). But the distinction between that case and this one seems clear: Applying any standard of review other than intermediate scrutiny in McCutcheon-the standard that was assumed to apply-would have required overruling a precedent. There is no similar reason to forgo the ordinary order of operations in this case.
At the same time, there is good reason to address content neutrality. In discussing whether the Act is narrowly tailored, see Part IV, infra, we identify a number of less-restrictive alternative measures that the Massachusetts Legislature might have adopted. Some apply only at abortion clinics, which raises the question whether those provisions are content neutral. See infra, at 2531 - 2532. While we need not (and do not) endorse any of those measures, it would be odd to consider them as possible alternatives if they were presumptively unconstitutional because they were content based and thus subject to strict scrutiny.
A
The Act applies only at a "reproductive health care facility," defined as "a place, other than within or upon the grounds of a hospital, where abortions are offered or performed." Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, § 120E 1/2(a). Given this definition, petitioners argue, "virtually all speech affected by the Act is speech concerning abortion," thus rendering the Act content based. Brief for Petitioners 23.
We disagree. To begin, the Act does not draw content-based distinctions on its face. Contrast Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 315, 108 S.Ct. 1157, 99 L.Ed.2d 333 (1988) (ordinance prohibiting the display within 500 feet of a foreign embassy of any sign that tends to bring the foreign government into " 'public odium' " or " 'public disrepute' "); Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 465, 100 S.Ct. 2286, 65 L.Ed.2d 263 (1980) (statute prohibiting all residential picketing except "peaceful labor picketing"). The Act would be content based if it required "enforcement authorities" to "examine the content of the message that is conveyed to determine whether" a violation has occurred. League of Women Voters of Cal., supra, at 383, 104 S.Ct. 3106. But it does not. Whether petitioners violate the Act "depends" not "on what they say," Humanitarian Law Project, supra, at 27, 130 S.Ct. 2705, but simply on where they say it. Indeed, petitioners can violate the Act merely by standing in a buffer zone, without displaying a sign or uttering a word.
It is true, of course, that by limiting the buffer zones to abortion clinics, the Act has the "inevitable effect" of restricting abortion-related speech more than speech on other subjects. Brief for Petitioners 24 (quoting United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 384, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968)). But a facially neutral law does not become content based simply because it may disproportionately affect speech on certain topics. On the contrary, "[a] regulation that serves purposes unrelated to the content of expression is deemed neutral, even if it has an incidental effect on some speakers or messages but not others." Ward, supra, at 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746. The question in such a case is whether the law is " 'justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech.' " Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41, 48, 106 S.Ct. 925, 89 L.Ed.2d 29 (1986) (quoting Virginia Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 771, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976); emphasis deleted).
The Massachusetts Act is. Its stated purpose is to "increase forthwith public safety at reproductive health care facilities." 2007 Mass. Acts p. 660. Respondents have articulated similar purposes before this Court-namely, "public safety, patient access to healthcare, and the unobstructed use of public sidewalks and roadways." Brief for Respondents 27; see, e.g., App. 51 (testimony of Attorney General Coakley); id., at 67-70 (testimony of Captain William B. Evans of the Boston Police); id., at 79-80 (testimony of Mary Beth Heffernan, Undersecretary for Criminal Justice); id., at 122-124 (affidavit of Captain Evans). It is not the case that "[e]very objective indication shows that the provision's primary purpose is to restrict speech that opposes abortion." Post, at 2544.
We have previously deemed the foregoing concerns to be content neutral. See Boos, 485 U.S., at 321, 108 S.Ct. 1157 (identifying "congestion," "interference with ingress or egress," and "the need to protect... security" as content-neutral concerns). Obstructed access and congested sidewalks are problems no matter what caused them. A group of individuals can obstruct clinic access and clog sidewalks just as much when they loiter as when they protest abortion or counsel patients.
To be clear, the Act would not be content neutral if it were concerned with undesirable effects that arise from "the direct impact of speech on its audience" or "[l]isteners' reactions to speech." Ibid. If, for example, the speech outside Massachusetts abortion clinics caused offense or made listeners uncomfortable, such offense or discomfort would not give the Commonwealth a content-neutral justification to restrict the speech. All of the problems identified by the Commonwealth here, however, arise irrespective of any listener's reactions. Whether or not a single person reacts to abortion protestors' chants or petitioners' counseling, large crowds outside abortion clinics can still compromise public safety, impede access, and obstruct sidewalks.
Petitioners do not really dispute that the Commonwealth's interests in ensuring safety and preventing obstruction are, as a general matter, content neutral. But petitioners note that these interests "apply outside every building in the State that hosts any activity that might occasion protest or comment," not just abortion clinics. Brief for Petitioners 24. By choosing to pursue these interests only at abortion clinics, petitioners argue, the Massachusetts Legislature evinced a purpose to "single[ ] out for regulation speech about one particular topic: abortion." Reply Brief 9.
We cannot infer such a purpose from the Act's limited scope. The broad reach of a statute can help confirm that it was not enacted to burden a narrower category of disfavored speech. See Kagan, Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine, 63 U. Chi. L.Rev. 413, 451-452 (1996). At the same time, however, "States adopt laws to address the problems that confront them. The First Amendment does not require States to regulate for problems that do not exist." Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 207, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 119 L.Ed.2d 5 (1992) (plurality opinion). The Massachusetts Legislature amended the Act in 2007 in response to a problem that was, in its experience, limited to abortion clinics. There was a record of crowding, obstruction, and even violence outside such clinics. There were apparently no similar recurring problems associated with other kinds of healthcare facilities, let alone with "every building in the State that hosts any activity that might occasion protest or comment." Brief for Petitioners 24. In light of the limited nature of the problem, it was reasonable for the Massachusetts Legislature to enact a limited solution. When selecting among various options for combating a particular problem, legislatures should be encouraged to choose the one that restricts less speech, not more.
Justice SCALIA objects that the statute does restrict more speech than necessary, because "only one [Massachusetts abortion clinic] is known to have been beset by the problems that the statute supposedly addresses." Post, at 2544. But there are no grounds for inferring content-based discrimination here simply because the legislature acted with respect to abortion facilities generally rather than proceeding on a facility-by-facility basis. On these facts, the poor fit noted by Justice SCALIA goes to the question of narrow tailoring, which we consider below. See infra, at 2538 - 2540.
B
Petitioners also argue that the Act is content based because it exempts four classes of individuals, Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, §§ 120E 1/2 (b)(1)-(4), one of which comprises "employees or agents of [a reproductive healthcare] facility acting within the scope of their employment." § 120E 1/2(b)(2). This exemption, petitioners say, favors one side in the abortion debate and thus constitutes viewpoint discrimination-an "egregious form of content discrimination," Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995). In particular, petitioners argue that the exemption allows clinic employees and agents-including the volunteers who "escort" patients arriving at the Boston clinic-to speak inside the buffer zones.
It is of course true that "an exemption from an otherwise permissible regulation of speech may represent a governmental 'attempt to give one side of a debatable public question an advantage in expressing its views to the people.' " City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 51, 114 S.Ct. 2038, 129 L.Ed.2d 36 (1994) (quoting First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 785-786, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978)). At least on the record before us, however, the statutory exemption for clinic employees and agents acting within the scope of their employment does not appear to be such an attempt.
There is nothing inherently suspect about providing some kind of exemption to allow individuals who work at the clinics to enter or remain within the buffer zones. In particular, the exemption cannot be regarded as simply a carve-out for the clinic escorts; it also covers employees such as the maintenance worker shoveling a snowy sidewalk or the security guard patrolling a clinic entrance, see App. 95 (affidavit of Michael T. Baniukiewicz).
Given the need for an exemption for clinic employees, the "scope of their employment" qualification simply ensures that the exemption is limited to its purpose of allowing the employees to do their jobs. It performs the same function as the identical "scope of their employment" restriction on the exemption for "law enforcement, ambulance, fire-fighting, construction, utilities, public works and other municipal agents." § 120E 1/2(b)(3). Contrary to the suggestion of Justice SCALIA, post, at 2546 - 2547, there is little reason to suppose that the Massachusetts Legislature intended to incorporate a common law doctrine developed for determining vicarious liability in tort when it used the phrase "scope of their employment" for the wholly different purpose of defining the scope of an exemption to a criminal statute. The limitation instead makes clear-with respect to both clinic employees and municipal agents-that exempted individuals are allowed inside the zones only to perform those acts authorized by their employers. There is no suggestion in the record that any of the clinics authorize their employees to speak about abortion in the buffer zones. The "scope of their employment" limitation thus seems designed to protect against exactly the sort of conduct that petitioners and Justice SCALIA fear.
Petitioners did testify in this litigation about instances in which escorts at the Boston clinic had expressed views about abortion to the women they were accompanying, thwarted petitioners' attempts to speak and hand literature to the women, and disparaged petitioners in various ways. See App. 165, 168-169, 177-178, 189-190. It is unclear from petitioners' testimony whether these alleged incidents occurred within the buffer zones. There is no viewpoint discrimination problem if the incidents occurred outside the zones because petitioners are equally free to say whatever they would like in that area.
Even assuming the incidents occurred inside the zones, the record does not suggest that they involved speech within the scope of the escorts' employment. If the speech was beyond the scope of their employment, then each of the alleged incidents would violate the Act's express terms. Petitioners' complaint would then be that the police were failing to enforce the Act equally against clinic escorts. Cf. Hoye v. City of Oakland, 653 F.3d 835, 849-852 (C.A.9 2011) (finding selective enforcement of a similar ordinance in Oakland, California). While such allegations might state a claim of official viewpoint discrimination, that would not go to the validity of the Act. In any event, petitioners nowhere allege selective enforcement.
It would be a very different question if it turned out that a clinic authorized escorts to speak about abortion inside the buffer zones. See post, at 2549 (ALITO, J., concurring in judgment). In that case, the escorts would not seem to be violating the Act because the speech would be within the scope of their employment.3 The Act's exemption for clinic employees would then facilitate speech on only one side of the abortion debate-a clear form of viewpoint discrimination that would support an as-applied challenge to the buffer zone at that clinic. But the record before us contains insufficient evidence to show that the exemption operates in this way at any of the clinics, perhaps because the clinics do not want to doom the Act by allowing their employees to speak about abortion within the buffer zones.4
We thus conclude that the Act is neither content nor viewpoint based and therefore need not be analyzed under strict scrutiny.
IV
Even though the Act is content neutral, it still must be "narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest." Ward, 491 U.S., at 796, 109 S.Ct. 2746 (internal quotation marks omitted). The tailoring requirement does not simply guard against an impermissible desire to censor. The government may attempt to suppress speech not only because it disagrees with the message being expressed, but also for mere convenience. Where certain speech is associated with particular problems, silencing the speech is sometimes the path of least resistance. But by demanding a close fit between ends and means, the tailoring requirement prevents the government from too readily "sacrific[ing] speech for efficiency."
Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U.S. 781, 795, 108 S.Ct. 2667, 101 L.Ed.2d 669 (1988).
For a content-neutral time, place, or manner regulation to be narrowly tailored, it must not "burden substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government's legitimate interests." Ward, 491 U.S., at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746. Such a regulation, unlike a content-based restriction of speech, "need not be the least restrictive or least intrusive means of" serving the government's interests. Id., at 798, 109 S.Ct. 2746. But the government still "may not regulate expression in such a manner that a substantial portion of the burden on speech does not serve to advance its goals." Id., at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746.
A
As noted, respondents claim that the Act promotes "public safety, patient access to healthcare, and the unobstructed use of public sidewalks and roadways."
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 702 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 255, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-l, exempts religious organizations from Title VII’s prohibition against discrimination in employment on the basis of religion. The question presented is whether applying the § 702 exemption to the secular nonprofit activities of religious organizations violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The District Court held that it does, and these cases are here on direct appeal pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §1252. We reverse.
I
The Deseret Gymnasium (Gymnasium) in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a nonprofit facility, open to the public, run by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (CPB), and the Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (COP). The CPB and the COP are religious entities associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church), an unincorporated religious association sometimes called the Mormon or LDS Church.
Appellee Mayson worked at the Gymnasium for some 16 years as an assistant building engineer and then as building engineer. He was discharged in 1981 because he failed to qualify for a temple recommend, that is, a .certificate that he is a member of the Church and eligible to attend its temples.
Mayson and others purporting to represent a class of plaintiffs brought an action against the CPB and the COP alleging, among other things, discrimination on the basis of religion in violation of §703 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2. The defendants moved to dismiss this claim on the ground that § 702 shields them from liability. The plaintiffs contended that if construed to allow religious employers to discriminate on religious grounds in hiring for nonreligious jobs, §702 violates the Establishment Clause.
The District Court first considered whether the facts of these cases require a decision on the plaintiffs’ constitutional argument. Starting from the premise that the religious activities of religious employers can permissibly be exempted under § 702, the court developed a three-part test to determine whether an activity is religious. Applying this test to Mayson’s situation, the court found: first, that the Gymnasium is intimately connected to the Church financially and in matter's of management; second, that there is no clear connection between the primary function which the Gymnasium performs and the religious beliefs and tenets of the Mormon Church or church administration; and third, that none of Mayson’s duties at the Gymnasium are “even tangentially related to any conceivable religious belief or ritual of the Mormon Church or church administration,” 594 F. Supp. 791, 802 (Utah 1984). The court concluded that Mayson’s case involves nonreligious activity.
The court next considered the plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge to § 702. Applying the three-part test set out in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971), the court first held that § 702 has the permissible secular purpose of “assuring that the government remains neutral and does not meddle in religious affairs by interfering with the decision-making process in religions . . . .” 594 F. Supp, at 812. The court concluded, however, that § 702 fails the second part of the Lemon test because the provision has the primary effect of advancing religion. Among the considerations mentioned by the court were: that § 702 singles out religious enti-ties for a benefit, rather than benefiting a broad grouping of which religious organizations are only a part; that §702 is not supported by long historical tradition; and that §702 burdens the free exercise rights of employees of religious institutions who work in nonreligious jobs. Finding that § 702 impermissibly sponsors religious organizations by granting them “an exclusive authorization to engage in conduct which can directly and immediately advance religious tenets and practices,” id., at 825, the court declared the statute unconstitutional as applied to secular activity. The court entered summary judgment in favor of Mayson pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) and ordered him reinstated with backpay. Subsequently, the court vacated its judgment so that the United States could intervene to defend the constitutionality of § 702. After further briefing and argument the court affirmed its prior determination and reentered a final judgment for Mayson.
II
“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.” Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136, 144-145 (1987) (footnote omitted). It is well established, too, that “[t]he limits of permissible state accommodation to religion are by no means co-extensive with the noninterference mandated by the Free Exercise Clause.” Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664, 673 (1970). There is ample room under the Establishment Clause for “benevolent neutrality which will permit religious exercise to exist without sponsorship and without interference.” Id., at 669. At some point, accommodation may devolve into “an unlawful fostering of religion,” Hobbie, supra, at 145, but these are not such cases, in our view.
The private appellants contend that we should not apply the three-part Lemon approach, which is assertedly unsuited to judging the constitutionality of exemption statutes such as §702. Brief for Appellants in No. 86-179, pp. 24-26. The argument is that an exemption statute will always have the effect of advancing religion and hence be invalid under the second (effects) part of the Lemon test, a result claimed to be inconsistent with cases such as Walz v. Tax Comm’n, supra, which upheld property tax exemptions for religious organizations. The first two of the three Lemon factors, however, were directly taken from pre-Walz decisions, 403 U. S., at 612-613, and Walz did not purport to depart from prior Establishment Clause cases, except by adding a consideration that became the third element of the Lemon test. 403 U. S., at 613. In any event, we need not reexamine Lemon as applied in this context, for the exemption involved here is in no way questionable under the Lemon analysis.
Lemon requires first that the law at issue serve a “secular legislative purpose.” Id., at 612. This does not mean that the law’s purpose must be unrelated to religion — that would amount to a requirement “that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups,” Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 314 (1952), and the Establishment Clause has never been so interpreted. Rather, Lemon’s “purpose” requirement aims at preventing the relevant governmental decisionmaker — in this case, Congress — from abandoning neutrality and acting with the intent of promoting a particular point of view in religious matters.
Under the Lemon analysis, it is a permissible legislative purpose to alleviate significant governmental interference with the ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious missions. Appellees argue that there is no such purpose here because §702 provided adequate protection for religious employers prior to the 1972 amendment, when it exempted only the religious activities of such employers from the statutory ban on religious discrimination. We may assume for the sake of argument that the pre-1972 exemption was adequate in the sense that the Free Exercise Clause required no more. Nonetheless, it is a significant burden on a religious organization to require it, on pain of substantial liability, to predict which of its activities a secular court will consider religious. The line is hardly a bright one, and an organization might understandably be concerned that a judge would not understand its religious tenets and sense of mission. Fear of potential liability might affect the way an organization carried out what it understood to be its religious mission.
After a detailed examination of the legislative history of the 1972 amendment, the District Court concluded that Congress’ purpose was to minimize governmental “interference] with the decision-making process in religions. ” 594 F. Supp., at 812. We agree with the District Court that this purpose does not violate the Establishment Clause.
The second requirement under Lemon is that the law in question have “a principal or primary effect. . . that neither advances nor inhibits religion.” 403 U. S., at 612. Undoubtedly, religious organizations are better able now to advance their purposes than they were prior to the 1972 amendment to § 702. But religious groups have been better able to advance their purposes on account of many laws that have passed constitutional muster: for example, the property tax exemption at issue in Walz v. Tax Comm’n, supra, or the loans of schoolbooks to schoolchildren, including parochial school students, upheld in Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236 (1968). A law is not unconstitutional simply because it allows churches to advance religion, which is their very purpose. For a law to have forbidden “effects” under Lemon, it must be fair to say that the government itself has advanced religion through its own activities and influence. As the Court observed in Walz, “for the men who wrote the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment the ‘establishment’ of a religion connoted sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity.” 397 U. S., at 668. Accord, Lemon, 403 U. S., at 612.
The District Court appeared to fear that sustaining the exemption would permit churches with financial resources impermissibly to extend their influence and propagate their faith by entering the commercial, profit-making world. 594 F. Supp., at 825. The cases before us, however, involve a nonprofit activity instituted over 75 years ago in the hope that “all who assemble here, and who come for the benefit of their health, and for physical blessings, [may] feel that they are in a house dedicated to the Lord.” Dedicatory Prayer for the Gymnasium, quoted, 594 F. Supp., at 800-801, n. 15. These cases therefore do not implicate the apparent concerns of the District Court. Moreover, we find no persuasive evidence in the record before us that the Church’s ability to propagate its religious doctrine through the Gymnasium is any greater now than it was prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. In such circumstances, we do not see how any advancement of religion achieved by the Gymnasium can be fairly attributed to the Government, as opposed to the Church.
We find unpersuasive the District Court’s reliance on the fact that §702 singles out religious entities for a benefit. Although the Court has given weight to this consideration in its past decisions, see n. 11, supra, it has never indicated that statutes that give special consideration to religious groups are per se invalid. That would run contrary to the teaching of our cases that there is ample room for accommodation of religion under the Establishment Clause. See supra, at 334-335. Where, as here, government acts with the proper purpose of lifting a regulation that burdens the exercise of religion, we see no reason to require that the exemption come packaged with benefits to secular entities.
We are also unpersuaded by the District Court’s reliance on the argument that § 702 is unsupported by long historical tradition. There was simply no need to consider the scope of the § 702 exemption until the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, and the fact that Congress concluded after eight years that the original exemption was unnecessarily narrow is a decision entitled to deference, not suspicion.
Appellees argue that § 702 offends equal protection principles by giving less protection to the employees of religious employers than to the employees of secular employers. Appellees rely on Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228, 246 (1982), for the proposition that a law drawing distinctions on religious grounds must be strictly scrutinized. But Larson indicates that laws discriminating among religions are subject to strict scrutiny, ibid., and that laws “affording a uniform benefit to all religions” should be analyzed under Lemon, 456 U. S., at 252. In cases such as these, where a statute is neutral on its face and motivated by a permissible purpose of limiting governmental interference with the exercise of religion, we see no justification for applying strict scrutiny to a statute that passes the Lemon test. The proper inquiry is whether Congress has chosen a rational classification to further a legitimate end. We have already indicated that «Congress acted with a legitimate purpose in expanding the § 702 exemption to cover all activities of religious employers. Supra, at 336. To dispose of appellees’ equal protection argument, it suffices to hold — as we now do — that as applied to the nonprofit activities of religious employers, § 702 is rationally related to the legitimate purpose of alleviating significant governmental interference with the ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious missions.
It cannot be seriously contended that §702 impermissibly entangles church and state; the statute effectuates a more complete separation of the two and avoids the kind of intrusive inquiry into religious belief that the District Court engaged in in this case. The statute easily passes muster under the third part of the Lemon test.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 702 provides in relevant part:
“This subchapter [i. e., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq.l shall not apply... to a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities.”
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1252 permits any party to appeal to this Court from an interlocutory or final judgment, decree, or order of any court of the United States holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional in any civil action to which the United States is a party.
The CPB and the COP are “corporations sole” organized under Utah law to perform various activities on behalf of the Church. Both corporations are tax-exempt, nonprofit religious entities under § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Appellees do not contest that the CPB and the COP are religious organizations for purposes of § 702.
Temple recommends are issued only to individuals who observe the Church’s standards in such matters as regular church attendance, tithing, and abstinence from coffee, tea, alcohol, and tobacco.
The District Court did not certify a class. The other plaintiffs below, whose claims are not at issue in this appeal, initially included former employees of Beehive Clothing Mills, which manufactures garments with religious significance for Church members. The complaint was amended to add as plaintiff a former employee of Deseret Industries, a division of the Church’s Welfare Services Department. The District Court’s rulings on the other plaintiffs’ claims are described at n. 13, infra.
The District Court described the test as follows:
“First, the court must look at the tie between the religious organization and the activity at issue with regard to such areas as financial affairs, day-to-day operations and management. Second, whether or not there is a close and substantial tie between the two, the court next must examine the nexus between the primary function of the activity in question and the religious rituals or tenets of the religious organization or matters of church administration. If there is substantial connection between the activity in question and the religious organization’s religious tenets or matters of church administration and the tie under the first part of the test is close, the court does not need to proceed any further and may declare the activity religious. . . . However, where the tie between the religious entity and activity in question is either close or remote under the first prong of the test and the nexus between the primary function of the activity in question and the religious tenets or rituals of the religious organization or matters of church administration is tenuous or non-existent, the court must engage in a third inquiry. It must consider the relationship between the nature of the job the employee is performing and the religious rituals or tenets of the religious organization or matters of church administration. If there is a substantial relationship between the employee’s job and church administration or the religious organization’s rituals or tenets, the court must find that the activity in question is religious. If the relationship is not substantial, the activity is not religious.” 594 F. Supp. 791, 799 (Utah 1984).
The court found that “nothing in the running or purpose of [the Gymnasium] . . . suggests that it was intended to spread or teach the religious beliefs and doctrine and practices of sacred ritual of the Mormon Church or that it was intended to be an integral part of church administration.” Id., at 800. The court emphasized that no contention was made that the religious doctrines of the Mormon Church either require religious discrimination in employment or treat physical exercise as a religious ritual. Id., at 801.
The court also considered and rejected the possibility that §702 could be construed to exempt a religious organization only with respect to employment involving religious activities. Id., at 803-804.
The court examined in considerable detail the legislative history of the 1972 amendment of § 702. Id., at 805-812. Prior to that time, § 702 exempted only the religious activities of religious employers from the statutory proscription against religious discrimination in employment. The 1972 amendment extending the exemption to all activities of religious organizations was sponsored by Senators Allen and Ervin. Senator Ervin explained that the purpose of the amendment was to “take the political hands of Caesar off of the institutions of God, where they have no place to be.” 118 Cong. Rec. 4503 (1972).
The court rejected the defendants’ arguments that §702 is required both by the need to avoid excessive governmental entanglement with religion and by the Free Exercise Clause. 594 F. Supp., at 814-820.
Cf., e. g., Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 397 (1983) (provision of benefits to a broad spectrum of groups is an important index of secular effect); Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 794 (1973) (narrowness of benefited class is an important factor in evaluating whether effect of a law violates the Establishment Clause).
Cf. Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664, 676-679 (1970) (relying in part, in upholding property tax exemption for religious groups, on long historical tradition for such exemptions).
The court declared that its determination regarding § 702 “applies with equal force to the [similar] state exemption as it relates to the facts of this case.” 594 F. Supp., at 798. It deferred ruling on the plaintiffs’ claim that § 702 violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution, id., at 828, and rejected the plaintiffs’ state-law claims of wrongful discharge and intentional infliction of emotional distress, id., at 828-830.
Subsequently, the court concluded that disputed issues of material fact precluded summary judgment for the Beehive employees (see n. 5, supra). 618 F. Supp. 1013, 1016 (Utah 1985).
A plaintiff added by amendment of the complaint, Ralph Whitaker, claimed impermissible religious discrimination in his discharge from the position of truckdriver by Deseret Industries (Industries) based on his failure to qualify for a temple recommend. Industries, a division of the Church’s Welfare Services Department, runs a workshop program for the handicapped, retarded, and unemployed, who sort and assemble items and refurbish donated goods for sale in Industries’ thrift stores. Relying on the Church’s emphasis on charity and work, the court held that Industries is a religious activity because “there is an intimate connection between Industries and the defendants and the Mormon Church and between the primary function of Industries and the religious tenets of the Church. ” Id., at 1027. Finding no Establishment Clause violation in applying the § 702 exemption to Industries, the court granted summary judgment against Whitaker, who did not appeal.
The present cases are illustrative of the difficulties: the distinction between Deseret Industries, see n. 13, supra, and the Gymnasium is rather fine. Both activities are run on a nonprofit basis, and the CPB and the COP argue that the District Court failed to appreciate that the Gymnasium as well as Deseret Industries is expressive of the Church’s religious values. Brief for Appellants in No. 86-179, pp. 6-8, 19.
Undoubtedly, Mayson’s freedom of choice in religious matters was impinged upon, but it was the Church (through the COP and the CPB), and not the Government, who put him to the choice of changing his religious practices or losing his job. This is a very different case than Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U. S. 703 (1985). In Caldor, the Court struck down a Connecticut statute prohibiting an employer from requiring an employee to work on a day designated by the employee as his Sabbath. In effect, Connecticut had given the force of law to the employee’s designation of a Sabbath day and required accommodation by the employer regardless of the burden which that constituted for the employer or other employees. See Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136, 145, n. 11 (1987). In the present cases, appellee Mayson was not legally obligated to take the steps necessary to qualify for a temple recommend, and his discharge was not required by statute. We find no merit in appellees’ contention that § 702 “impermissibly delegates governmental power to religious employees and conveys a message of governmental endorsement of religious discrimination.” Brief for Appellees 31.
Appellees also argue that § 702 violates equal protection principles by giving religious employers greater leeway to discriminate than secular employers. It is not clear why appellees should have standing to represent the interests of secular employers, but in any event this argument is, practically speaking, merely a restatement of the first point.
We have no occasion to pass on the argument of the COP and the CPB that the exemption to which they are entitled under § 702 is required by the Free Exercise Clause.
Appellees argue that § 702 creates danger of political divisiveness along political lines. As the Court stated in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 684 (1984):
“[T]his Court has not held that political divisiveness alone can serve to invalidate otherwise permissible conduct. And we decline to so hold today. This case does not involve a direct subsidy to church-sponsored schools or colleges, or other, religious institutions, and hence no inquiry into political divisiveness is even called for, Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 403-404, n. 11 (1983).”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellants brought a declaratory judgment action in the Supreme Court of New York, Kings County, praying that § 12-a of the Civil Service Law, as implemented by the so-called Feinberg Law, be declared unconstitutional, and that action by the Board of Education of the City of New York thereunder be enjoined. On motion for judgment on the pleadings, the court held that subdivision (c) of § 12-a, the Feinberg Law, and the Rules of the State Board of Regents promulgated thereunder violated the Due Process Clause'of the Fourteenth Amendment, and issued an injunction. 196 Misc. 873, 95 N. Y. S. 2d 114. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court reversed, 276 App. Div. 527, 96 N. Y. S. 2d 466, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Appellate Division, 301 N. Y. 476, 95 N. E. 2d 806. The appellants come here by appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1257.
Section 12-a of the Civil Service Law, hereafter referred to as § 12-a, is set forth in the margin. To implement this law, the Feinberg Law was passed, adding a new section, § 3022, to the Education Law of the State of New York, which section so far as here pertinent is set forth in the margin. The Feinberg Law was also to implement § 3021 of the Education Law of New York. The constitutionality of this section was not attacked in the proceedings below.
The preamble of the Feinberg Law, § 1, makes elaborate findings that members of subversive groups, particularly of the Communist Party and its affiliated organizations, have been infiltrating into public employment in the public schools of the State; that this has occurred and continues notwithstanding the existence of protective statutes designed to prevent the appointment to or retention in employment in public office, and particularly in the public schools, of members of any organizations which teach or advocate that the government of the United States or of any state or political subdivision thereof shall be overthrown by force or violence or by any other unlawful means. As a result, propaganda can be disseminated among the children by those who teach them and to whom they look for guidance, authority, and leadership. The Legislature further found that the members of such groups use their positions to advocate and teach their doctrines, and are frequently bound by oath, agreement, pledge, or understanding to follow, advocate and teach a prescribed party line or group dogma or doctrine without regard to truth or free inquiry. This propaganda, the Legislature declared, is sufficiently subtle to escape detection in the classroom; thus, the menace of such infiltration into the classroom is difficult to measure. Finally, to protect the children from such influence, it was thought essential that the laws prohibiting members of such groups, such as the Communist Party or its affiliated organizations-, from obtaining or retaining employment in the public schools be rigorously enforced. It is the purpose of the Feinberg Law to provide for the disqualification and removal of superintendents of schools, teachers, and employees in the public schools in any city or school district of the State who advocate the overthrow of the Government by unlawful means or who are members of organizations which have a like purpose.
Section 3022 of the Education Law, added by the Feinberg Law, provides that the Board of Regents, which has charge of the public school system in the State of New York, shall, after full notice and hearing, make a listing of organizations which it finds advocate, advise, teach, or embrace the doctrine that the government should be overthrown by force or violence or any other unlawful means, and that such listing may be amended and revised from time to’time.
It will be observed that the listings are made only after full- notice and hearing. In addition, the Court of Appeals construed the statute in conjunction with Article 78 of the New York Civil Practice Act, Gilbert-Bliss’ N. Y. Civ. Prac., Vol. 6B, so as to provide listed organizations a right of review.
The Board of Regents is further authorized to provide in rules and regulations, and has so provided, that membership in any listed organization, after notice and hearing, “shall constitute prima facie evidence for disqualification for appointment to or retention in any office or position in the school system”; but before one who is an employee or seeks employment is severed from or denied employment, he likewise must be given a full hearing with the privilege of being represented by counsel and the right to judicial review. It is § 12-a of the Civil Service Law, as implemented by the Feinberg Law as above indicated, that is under attack here.
It is first argued that the Feinberg Law and the rules promulgated thereunder constitute an abridgment of the freedom of speech and assembly of persons employed or seeking employment in the public schools of the State of New York.
It is clear that such persons have the right under our law to assemble, speak, think and believe as they will. Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382. It is equally clear that they have no right to work for the State in the school system on their own terms. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75. They may work for the school system upon the reasonable terms laid down by the proper authorities of New York. If they do not choose to work on such terms, they are at liberty to retain their beliefs and associations and go elsewhere. ■ Has the State thus deprived them of any right to free speech or assembly? We think not. Such persons are or may be denied, under the statutes in question, the privilege of working for the school system of the State of New York because, first, of their advocacy of the overthrow of the government by force or violence, or, secondly, by unexplained membership in an organization found by the school authorities, after notice and hearing, to teach and advocate the overthrow of the government by force or violence, and known by such persons to have such purpose.
The constitutionality of the first proposition is not questioned here. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 667-672, construing § 161 of the New York Penal Law.
As to the second, it is rather subtly suggested that we should not follow our recent decision in Garner v. Los Angeles Board, 341 U. S. 716. We there said:
“We think that a municipal employer is not disabled because it is an agency of the State from inquiring of its employees as to matters that may prove relevant to their fitness and suitability for the public service. Past conduct may well relate to present fitness; past loyalty may have a reasonable relationship to present and future trust. Both are commonly inquired into in determining fitness for both high and low positions in private industry and are not less relevant in public employment.” 341 U. S., at p. 720.
We adhere to that case. A teacher works in a sensitive area in a schoolroom. There he shapes the attitude of young minds towards the society in which they live. In this, the state has a vital concern. It must preserve the integrity of the schools. That the school authoritiés have the right and the duty to screen the officials, teachers, and employees as to their fitness to maintain the integrity of the schools as a part of ordered society, cannot be doubted. One’s associates, past and present, as well as one’s conduct, may properly be considered in determining fitness and loyalty. From time immemorial, one’s reputation has been determined in part by the company he keeps. In the employment of officials and teachers of the school system, the state may very properly inquire into the company they keep, and we know of no rule, constitutional or otherwise, that prevents the state, when determining the fitness and loyalty of such persons, from considering the organizations and persons with whom they associate.
If, under the procedure set up in the New York law, a person, is found to be unfit and is disqualified from employment in the public school system because of membership in a listed organization, he is not thereby denied the right of free speech and assembly. His freedom of choice between membership in the organization' and employment in the school system might be limited, but not his freedom of speech or assembly, except in the remote sense that limitation is inherent in every choice. Certainly such limitation is not one the state may not make in the exercise of its police power to protect the schools from pollution and thereby to defend its own existence.
It is next argued by appellants that the provision in § 3022 directing the Board of Regents to provide in rules and regulations that membership in any organization listed by the Board after notice and hearing, with provision for review in accordance with the' statute, shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification, denies due process, because the fact found bears no relation to the fact presumed. In other words, from the fact found that the organization was one that advocated the overthrow of government by unlawful means and that the pérson employed or to be employed was a member of the organization and knew of its purpose, to presume that such member is disqualified for employment is so unreasonable as to be a denial of due process of law. We do not agree.
“The law of evidence is full of presumptions either of fact or law. The former are, of course, disputable, and the strength of any inference of one fact from proof of another depends upon the generality of the experience upon which it is founded. . . .
“Legislation providing that proof of one fact shall constitute prima facie evidence of the main fact in issue is but to enact a rule of evidence, and quite within the general power of government. Statutes, National and state, dealing with such methods of proof in both civil and criminal cases abound, and the decisions upholding them are numerous.” Mobile, J. & K. C. R. Co. v. Turnipseed, 219 U. S. 35, at p. 42.
Membership in a listed organization found to be within the statute and known by the member to be within the statute is a legislative finding that the member by his membership supports the thing the organization stands for, namely, the overthrow of government by unlawful means. We cannot say that such a finding is contrary to fact or that "generality of experience” points to a different conclusion. Disqualification follows therefore as a reasonable presumption from such membership and support. Nor is there here a problem of procedural due process. The presumption is not conclusive but arises only in a hearing where the person against whom it may arise has full opportunity to rebut it. The holding of the Court of Appeals below is significant in this regard:
“The statute also makes it clear that . . . proof of such membership ‘shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification’ for such employment. But, as was said in Potts v. Pardee (220 N. Y. 431, 433): ‘The presumption growing out of a prima facie case . . . remains only so long as there is no substantial evidence to the contrary. When that is offered the presumption disappears, and unless met by further proof there is nothing to justify a finding based solely upon it.’ Thus the phrase ‘prima facie evidence of disqualification,’ as used in the statute, imports a hearing at which one who seeks appointment to or retention in a public school position shall be afforded, an opportunity to. present substantial evidence contrary to the presumption sanctioned by . the prima facie evidence for which subdivision 2 of section 3022 makes provision. Once such contrary evidence has been received, however, the official who made the order of ineligibility has thereafter the burden of sustaining the validity of that order by a fair preponderance of the evidence. (Civil Service Law, § 12-a, subd. [d].) Should an order of ineligibility then issue, the party aggrieved thereby may avail himself of the provisions for review prescribed by the section of the statute last cited above. In that view there here, arises no question of procedural due process.” 301 N. Y. 476, at p. 494, 95 N. E. 2d 806, at 814-815.
Where, as here, the relation between the fact found and the presumption is clear and direct and is not conclusive, the requirements of due process are satisfied.
Without raising in the complaint or in the proceedings in the lower courts the question of the constitutionality of § 3021 of the Education Law of New York, appellants urge here for the first time that this section is unconstitutionally vague. The question is not before us. We will not pass upon the constitutionality of a state statute before the state courts have had an opportunity to do so. Asbury Hospital v. Cass County, 326 U. S. 207, 213-216; Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 460-462; Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531, 546.
It is also suggested that the use of the word “subversive” is vague and indefinite. But the word is first used in § 1 of the Feinberg Law, which is the preamble to the Act, and not in a definitive part thereof. When used in subdivision 2 of § 3022, the word has a very definite meaning, namely, an organization that teaches and advocates the overthrow of government by force or violence.
We find no constitutional infirmity in § 12-a of the Civil Service Law of New York or in the Feinberg Law which implemented it, and the judgment is
Affirmed.
N. Y. Laws 1939, c. 547, as amended N. Y. Laws 1940, c. 564.
N. Y. Laws 1949, c. 360.
Ҥ 12-a. Ineligibility
“No person shall be appointed to any office or position in the service of the state or of any civil division or city thereof, nor shall any person presently employed in any such office dr position be continued in such employment, nor shall any person be employed in the public service as superintendents, principals or teachers in a public school or academy or in a state normal school or college, or any other state educational institution who: (a) By word of mouth or writing wilfully and deliberately advocates, advises or teaches the doctrine that the government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof should be overthrown or overturned by force, violence or any unlawful means; or
“(b) Prints, publishes, edits, issues or sells, any book, paper, document or written or printed matter in any form containing or advocating, advising or teaching the doctrine that the ‘ government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof should be overthrown by force, violence or any unlawful means, and who ■ advocates, advises, teaches, or embraces the duty, necessity or propriety of adopting the doctrine contained therein;
“(c) Organizes or helps to organize or becomes a member of any society or group of persons which teaches or advocates that the government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof shall be overthrown by force or violence, or by any unlawful means;
“(d) A person dismissed or declared ineligible may within four months of such dismissal or declaration of ineligibility be entitled to petition for an order to show cause signed by a justice of the supreme court, why a hearing on such charges should not be had. Until the final judgment on said hearing is entered, the order to show cause shall stay the effect of any order of dismissal or ineligibility based on the provisions of this section. The hearing shall consist of the taking of testimony in open court with opportunity for cross-examination. The burden of sustaining .the validity of the order of dismissal or ineligibility by a fair preponderance of the credible evidence shall be upon the person making such dismissal or order of ineligibility.”
Ҥ 3022. Elimination of subversive persons from the public school system
“1. The board of regents shall adopt, promulgate, and enforce rules and regulations for the disqualification or removal of superintendents of schools, teachers or employees in the public schools in any city or school district of the state who violate the provisions of section three thousand twenty-one of this article or who are ineligible for appointment to or retention in any office or position in such public schools on any of the grounds set forth in section twelve-a of the civil service law-and shall provide therein appropriate methods and procedure for the enforcement of such sections of this article and the civil service law.
“2. The board of regents shall, after inquiry, and after such notice and hearing as may be appropriate, make a listing of organizations which it finds to be subversive in that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the doctrine that the government of the United States or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof shall be overthrown or overturned by force, violence or any unlawful means, or that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the duty, necessity or propriety of adopting any such doctrine, as set forth in section twelve-a of the civil service law. Such listings may be amended and revised from time to time. The board, in making such inquiry, may utilize any similar listings or designations promulgated by any federal agency or authority authorized by federal law, regulation or executive order, and for the purposes of such inquiry, the board may request and receive from such federal agencies or authorities any supporting material or evidence that may be made available to it. . The board of regents shall provide in the rules and regulations required by subdivision one hereof that membership in any such organization included in such listing made by it shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification for appointment to or retention in any office or position in the public schools of the state.”
Ҥ 3021. ,Removal of superintendents, teachers and employees for treasonable or seditious acts or utterances
“A person employed as superintendent of schools, teacher or employee in the public schools, in any city or school district of the state, shall be removed from such position for the utterance of any treasonable or seditious word or words or the doing of any treasonable or seditious act or acts while holding such position.”
Ҥ 254. Disqualification or removal of superintendents, teachers and other employes.
“2. List of subversive organizations to be issued. Pursuant to chapter 360 of the Laws of 1949, the Board of Regents will issue a list, which may be amended and revised from time to time, of organizations which the Board finds to be subversive in that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the doctrine that the Government of the United States, or of any state or of any political subdivision thereof, shall be overthrown or overturned by force, violence . or any unlawful means, or that they advocate, advise, teach or embrace the duty, necessity or propriety of adopting any such doctrine, as set forth in section 12-a of the Civil Service Law. Evidence of membership in any organization so listed on or after the tenth day subsequent to the date of official promulgation of such list shall constitute prima facie evidence of disqualification for appointment to or. retention of any office or position in the school system. Evidence of membership in such an organization prior to said day shall be presumptive evidence that membership has continued, in the absence of a showing that such membership has been terminated in good faith.” Official Compilation of Codes, Rules arid Regulations of the State of New York (Fifth Supp.), Vol. 1, pp. 205-206.
The Court of Appeals construed the statute in conjunction with § 12-a subd. [d], supra, n. 3. The Rules of the Board of Regents provided: “In all cases all rights to a fair trial, representation by counsel and appeal or court review as provided by statute or the Constitution shall be scrupulously observed.” Section 254, 1 (e), Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (Fifth Supp.), Vol. 1, p. 206.
In the proceedings below, both the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals construed the statute to require such knowledge. 276 App. Div. 527, 530, 96 N. Y. S. 2d 466, 470-471; 301 N. Y. 476, 494, 95 N. E. 2d 806, 814-815.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1950, a tax liability of approximately $26,000 was assessed against the taxpayer Donnelly, a resident of Michigan. Upon assessment, a statutory lien was created in favor of the United States “upon all property and rights to property, whether real or personal” belonging to the taxpayer. Internal Revenue Code of 1939, § 3670. Under § 3672 of the 1939 Code, such a lien could become effective against subsequent purchasers of Donnelly’s property in either of two ways: (1) by filing notice of the lien in the state office in which filing of such notice was authorized by state law; or (2) if filing in a state office was not authorized by state law, by filing notice of the lien in the United States District Court for the district in which the property was located.
A Michigan statute purported to authorize the filing of federal tax lien notices with the county register of deeds. However, the Michigan statute expressly required that notices of federal tax liens upon real property contain “a description of the land upon which a lien is claimed.” The standard tax lien notice form used by the Treasury Department made no provision for such a description, but was rather a blanket notice covering all property of the taxpayer in the county. The Department had taken the position that § 3672 permitted state law to dictate the place for filing the notice of lien, but not the form or content of the notice. Accordingly, the Department, believing that state law did not “authorize” filing of the standard federal notice with the register of deeds, filed its notice of lien on Donnelly’s property in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The Eastern District includes the land involved in the case, which was held by Donnelly and his wife as tenants by the entirety. The question is whether the filing in federal court gave the United States priority against a subsequent good-faith purchaser of Donnelly’s land.
The Department did not collect in full on Donnelly’s tax liability nor did it foreclose its lien on any of his property. Rather, between 1950 and his death in 1963, it obtained waivers from him of the statute of limitations on the assessed liability, the last of which extended the time for collection to December 31, 1966. In the meantime, Donnelly’s wife died and he became fee owner of the Livingston County land. Shortly thereafter, in August 1960, he sold the land to respondents Mr. and Mrs. Carlson, who are the real parties in interest in this case. An abstract of title, prepared for the Carlsons by the Livingston County abstract office, disclosed no tax liens affecting real property owned by Donnelly; the same abstract, however, disclaimed any examination of court records, state or federal. The United States concedes that the Carlsons had no actual notice of the lien on Donnelly’s land.
After the Carlsons purchased the land, this Court decided in United States v. Union Central Life Ins. Co., 368 U. S. 291 (1961), that the Department had been right in maintaining that it did not have to conform its lien notices to the Michigan requirement that such notices must contain a description of the land upon which the lien is claimed. Thus, this Court held, the state law did not “authorize” state filing of federal lien notices, and the filing of a notice in the appropriate federal district court was sufficient to give the lien priority against subsequent purchasers.
In 1966, just before the last statutory waiver executed by Donnelly expired, the United States brought suit in federal court to foreclose its tax lien on the Livingston County property, now owned by the Carlsons. The District Court held that Union Central, supra, was distinguishable, and in any event should not be applied retroactively against a person making a good-faith purchase before its date of decision, and granted summary judgment for the Carlsons. 295 F. Supp. 557 (D. C. E. D. Mich. 1967). The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of the opinion of the District Court. 406 F. 2d 1065 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1969). We granted certiorari, 396 U. S. 814 (1969), to consider the apparent conflict with our decision in Union Central, supra, and we reverse.
The District Court distinguished Union Central on the ground that “an attempt had been made in [that case] to file notice with the Register of Deeds in 1954, which had been refused by the Register of Deeds pursuant to a Michigan Attorney General opinion rendered in 1953, which ruled that federal tax lien notices not containing a description of the property are not entitled to be recorded. In the instant case, there had been no attempt to file with the Register of Deeds.” 295 F. Supp., at 559.
The attempted distinction is unsatisfactory for two reasons. First, nothing in this Court's opinion in Union Central or in the record of that case indicates that any attempt was made to file the notice of lien with the register of deeds. Second, whether or not such an attempt was made, state law barred the local office from accepting the federal lien notice, which lacked the description of the land explicitly required by the state statute. The presence or absence of the legally futile act of tendering the noncomplying lien notice to the register of deeds could not be a factor determinative of the priority to be granted the federal lien.
Further, the District Court held that when the Carl-sons purchased Donnelly's land in 1960, they were entitled to rely on the law as it appeared at that time. As the court saw it, the prevailing interpretation of the federal statute in Michigan, stated in Youngblood v. United States, 141 F. 2d 912 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1944), required the Treasury Department to file a complying notice of lien with the register of deeds in order to gain priority against subsequent purchasers. Conceding that this Court rejected the Youngblood interpretation in its Union Central decision in 1961, the District Court nevertheless concluded that Union Central should not be applied retroactively to give the 1950 federal lien priority over the Carlsons’ 1960 good-faith purchase of the same land, and thus to upset the Carlsons’ allegedly justifiable expectation of unclouded title.
In its retroactivity determination, the District Court relied largely on this Court’s decision in Chicot County Drainage District v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U. S. 371 (1940). The petitioner in that case had taken advantage of a federal statute that permitted readjustment of municipal debt, amounting to a reduction of that debt, upon a finding by a district court that the readjustment plan was fair and equitable and upon approval of the plan by holders of two-thirds of the outstanding indebtedness. The respondents, holders of bonds issued by the petitioner, had been parties to that action, had raised no constitutional challenge to the statute, and had not appealed the final decree of the District Court approving the plan. Subsequently, in an unrelated proceeding, the statute was declared unconstitutional. Ashton v. Cameron County District, 298 U. S. 513 (1936). The respondents then brought suit on the original bonds, which had been canceled by the original decree, claiming that a decree obtained under an unconstitutional statute could not support a plea of res judicata. This Court held that res judicata barred the new action, stressing the fact that the respondents had not raised the constitutional claim in the original action. The Court noted generally that the actual existence of a statute, prior to determination of its unconstitutionality
“is an operative fact and may have consequences which cannot justly be ignored. The past cannot always be erased by a new judicial declaration. . . . Questions of rights claimed to have become vested, of status, of prior determinations deemed to have finality and acted upon accordingly, of public policy in the light of the nature both of the statute and of its previous application, demand examination.” 308 U. S., at 374.
The District Court here found that this Court’s decision in Union Central amounted to an invalidation of the Michigan statute providing for local filing of federal tax lien notices, and that the Carlsons had justifiably relied upon the state statute, prior to its invalidation, in purchasing Donnelly’s property without first searching the records of the federal court. Quoting the above language from Chicot County the court held that the Carlsons’ reliance on the subsequently invalidated statute was sufficient to give them priority over the earlier filed tax lien.
In our view, Chicot County does not support failure to apply Union Central here. In the first place, the Union Central decision did not invalidate any statute, state or federal. It merely construed § 3672, in accordance with the clear language of the statute, to authorize the filing of tax lien notices in federal court where the state law failed to provide for local filing. It determined, as the courts and other authorities who had considered the question had all agreed, that Michigan law did not authorize the filing of the standard federal lien notice, which lacked the description of the land required by the Michigan filing statute. Finally it held, in accordance with the will of Congress as expressed in the 1942 amendment to § 3672 and the accompanying legislative history, that state law imposing more onerous requirements of content on lien notices than federal law did not “authorize” state filing within the meaning of the federal statute.
Thus, the Carlsons did not rely on any statute subsequently declared unconstitutional by this Court. The most that can be said is that they may have failed to search for notices of tax lien in the federal court on the basis of a construction of § 3672 given by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Youngblood v. United States, supra. However, the Youngblood construction, which the Government never accepted and which it could not seek to have reviewed in this Court because the judgment in that case rested on independent grounds, cannot be sufficient to deprive the Government of the fruits of following what under the statute was the proper filing procedure.
Further, in Chicot County the petitioner did not merely rely on a federal statute later declared unconstitutional, but on a final judgment rendered in his favor in a proceeding in which the respondent did not even raise the constitutional issue. The analogous situation would be presented here only if the Carlsons had, before the decision in Union Central, obtained a decree of quiet title to their property in a proceeding to which the United States was a party and in which the United States had not raised the issue of the priority of its lien under § 3672. In short, this case lacks the element of res judicata — reliance by a party on a final judgment rendered in his favor — which was the decisive factor in Chicot County.
Acts of Congress are generally to be applied uniformly throughout the country from the date of their effectiveness onward. Generally the United States, like other parties, is entitled to adhere to what it believes to be the correct interpretation of a statute, and to reap the benefits of that adherence if it proves to be correct, except where bound to the contrary by a final judgment in a particular case. Deviant rulings by circuit courts of appeals, particularly in apparent dictum, cannot generally provide the “justified reliance” necessary to warrant withholding retroactive application of a decision construing a statute as Congress intended it. In rare cases, decisions construing federal statutes might be denied full retroactive effect, as for instance where this Court overrules its own construction of a statute, cf. Simpson v. Union Oil Co., 377 U. S. 13, 25 (1964), but this is not such a case.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Internal Revenue Code of 1939 provided:
“Sec. 3670. Property Subject to Lien.
“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same after demand, the amount (including any interest, penalty, additional amount, or addition to such tax, together with any costs that may accrue in addition thereto) shall be a lien in favor of the United States upon all property and rights to property, whether real or personal, belonging to such person." 26 U. S. C. § 3670 (1940 ed.).
“Sec. 3672. Validity Against Mortgagees, Pledgees, Purchasers, and Judgment Creditors. not be
“(a) Invalidity of Lien Without Notice. — Such lien shall not be valid as against any mortgagee, pledgee, purchaser, or judgment creditor until notice thereof has been filed by the collector— the
“(1) Under State or Territorial laws. — In the office in which the filing of such notice is authorized by the law of the State or Territory in which the property subject to the lien is situated, whenever the State or Territory has by law authorized the filing of such notice in an office within the State or Territory; or clerk
an “(2) With -Clerk oj District Court. — In the office of the clerk of United States district court for the judicial district in which the property subject to the lien is situated, whenever the State or Territory has not by law authorized the filing of such notice in an office within the State or Territory . . . ." 26 U. S. C. § 3672 (1946 ed.).
Michigan Public Acts, 1923, as Public Acts, 1925, No. 13, repealed by Michigan Public Acts, 1956, No. 107; provided in pertinent part: for
“Sec. 1. That whenever the collector of internal revenue for any district in the United States, or any tax collecting officers of the United States having charge of the collection of any tax payable to the United States, shall desire to acquire a lien in favor of the United States for any tax payable to the United States against any property real or personal, within the state of Michigan pursuant to section three thousand one hundred eighty-six of the revised statutes of the United States, he is hereby authorized to file a notice of lien, setting forth the name and the residence or business address of such taxpayer, the nature and the amount of such assessment, and a description of the land upon which a lien is claimed, in the office of the register of deeds in and for the county or counties in Michigan in which such property subject to such lien is situated; and such register of deeds shall, upon receiving a filing fee of fifty cents for such notice, file and index the same . . . .”
Nor is it significant that the lien notice here was filed in "i£)50, before the Michigan Attorney General’s opinion referred to by the District Court (opinion of the Attorney General of Michigan, No. 1709, September 10, 1953), whereas the fifing in Union Central came in 1954, after that opinion was rendered. The Attorney General’s opinion merely declared what was already the law of Michigan.
In Youngblood, the United States sought an order in the nature of a writ of mandamus to compel a county register of deeds in Michigan to accept and file a standard federal lien notice, which lacked the description of the encumbered land required by the state statute. The Court of Appeals held that the order should not issue, first, because United States district courts lack jurisdiction to issue original writs of mandamus or orders in the nature of mandamus; and second, because the law of Michigan clearly provided in terms that in order to be filed with the register of deeds, a federal tax lien notice had to contain a description of the land. The court went on, in apparent dictum, to confirm its earlier holding in United States v. Maniaci, 116 F. 2d 935 (1940), aff'g 36 F. Supp. 293 (D. C. W. D. Mich. 1939), that §3672 required the United States to file in the local office hen notices conforming to the state law requirements as to content. In delivering this apparent dictum, the Court of Appeals ignored the clear legislative history, summarized in this Court’s Union Central decision, 368 U. S., at 295-296, which showed that in enacting the 1942 amendment to § 3672, Congress had meant to disapprove the Maniaci holding.
The Carlsons have raised additional defenses to the foreclosure suit brought by the United States, but as these defenses were not considered by the District Court or the Court of Appeals, we do not rule on them here.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Jose Padilla is a United States citizen detained by the Department of Defense pursuant to the President’s determination that he is an “enemy combatant” who conspired with al Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States. We confront two questions: First, did Padilla properly file his habeas petition in the Southern District of New York; and second, did the President possess authority to detain Padilla militarily. We answer the threshold question in the negative and thus do not reach the second question presented.
Because we do not decide the merits, we only briefly recount the relevant facts. On May 8, 2002, Padilla flew, from Pakistan to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. As he stepped off the plane, Padilla was apprehended by federal agents executing a material witness warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Southern District) in connection with its grand jury investigation into the September 11th terrorist attacks. Padilla was then transported to New York, where he was held in federal criminal custody. On May 22, acting through appointed counsel, Padilla moved to vacate the material witness warrant.
Padilla’s motion was still pending when, on June 9, the President issued an order to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld designating Padilla an “enemy combatant” and directing the Secretary to detain him in military custody. App. D to Brief for Petitioner 5a (June 9 Order). In support of this action, the President invoked his authority as “Commander in Chief of the U. S. armed forces” and the Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution, Pub. L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (AUMF), enacted by Congress on September 18, 2001. June.9 Order 5a. The President also made several, factual findings explaining his decision to designate Padilla an enemy combatant. Based on these findings, the President concluded that it is “consistent with U. S. law and the laws of war for the Secretary of Defense to detain Mr. Padilla as an enemy combatant.” Id., at 6a.
That same day, Padilla was taken into custody by Department of Defense officials and transported to the Consolidated Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. He has been held there ever since.
On June 11, Padilla’s counsel, claiming to act as his next friend, filed in the Southern District a habeas corpus petition under 28 U. S. C. §2241. The petition, as amended, alleged that Padilla’s military detention violates the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and the Suspension Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution. The amended petition named as respondents President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, and Melanie A. Marr, Commander of the Consolidated Naval Brig.
The Government moved to dismiss, arguing that Commander Marr, as Padilla’s immediate custodian, is the only proper respondent to his habeas petition, and that the District Court lacks jurisdiction over Commander Marr because she is located outside the Southern District. On the merits, the Government contended that the President has authority to detain Padilla militarily.pursuant to the Commander in Chief Clause of the Constitution, Art. II, §2, cl. 1, the congressional AUMF, and this Court’s decision in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U. S. 1 (1942).
The District Court issued its decision in December 2002. Padilla ex rel. Newman v. Bush, 233 F. Supp. 2d 564. The court held that the Secretary’s “personal involvement” in Padilla’s military custody renders him a proper respondent to Padilla’s habeas petition, and that it can assert jurisdiction over the Secretary under New York’s long-arm statute, notwithstanding his absence from the Southern District. Id., at 581-587. On the merits, however, the court accepted the Government’s contention that the President has authority to detain as enemy combatants citizens captured on American soil during a time of war. Id., at 58T-599.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. 352 F. 3d 695 (2003). The court agreed with the District Court that Secretary Rumsfeld is a proper respondent, reasoning that in cases where the habeas petitioner is detained for “other than federal criminal violations, the Supreme Court has recognized exceptions to the general practice of naming the immediate physical custodian as respondent.” Id., at 704-708. The Court of Appeals concluded that on these “unique” facts Secretary Rumsfeld is Padilla’s custodian because he exercises “the legal reality of control” over Padilla and because he was personally involved in Padilla’s military detention. Id., at 707-708. The Court of Appeals also affirmed the District Court’s holding that it has jurisdiction over the Secretary under New York’s long-arm statute. Id., at 708-710.
Reaching the merits, the Court of Appeals held that the President lacks authority to detain Padilla militarily. Id., at 710-724. The court concluded that neither the President’s Commander in Chief power nor the AUMF authorizes military detentions of American citizens captured on American soil. Id., at 712-718, 722-723. To the contrary, the Court of Appeals found in both our case law and in the Non-Detention Act, 18 U. S. C. § 4001(a), a strong presumption against domestic military detention of citizens absent explicit congressional authorization. 352 F. 3d, at 710-722. Accordingly, the court granted the writ of habeas corpus and directed the Secretary to release Padilla from military custody within 30 days. Id., at 724.
We granted the Government’s petition for certiorari to review the Court of Appeals’ rulings with respect to the jurisdictional and the merits issues, both of which raise important questions of federal law. 540 U. S. 1173 (2004).
The question whether the Southern District has jurisdiction over Padilla’s habeas petition breaks down into two related subquestions. First, who is the proper respondent to that petition? And second, does the Southern District have jurisdiction over him or her? We address these questions in turn.
I
The federal habeas statute straightforwardly provides that the proper respondent to a habeas petition is “the person who has custody over [the petitioner].” 28 U. S. C. §2242; see also §2243 (“The writ, or order to show cause shall be directed to the person having custody of the person detained”). The consistent use of the definite article in reference to the custodian indicates that there is generally only one proper respondent to a given prisoner’s habeas petition. This custodian, moreover, is “the person” with the ability to produce the prisoner’s body before the habeas court. Ibid. We summed up the plain language of the habeas statute over 100 years ago in this way: “[Tjhese provisions contemplate a proceeding against some person who has the immediate custody of the party detained, with the power to produce the. body of such party before the court or judge, that he may be liberated if no sufficient reason is shown to the contrary.” Wales v. Whitney, 114 U. S. 564, 574 (1885) (emphasis added); see also Braden v. 80th Judicial Circuit Court of Ky., 410 U. S. 484, 494-495 (1973) (“The writ of habeas corpus” acts upon “the person who holds [the detainee] in what is alleged to be unlawful custody,” citing Wales, supra, at 574); Braden, supra, at 495 (“ ‘[T]his writ... is directed to... [the] jailer,’ ” quoting In re Jackson, 15 Mich. 417, 439-440 (1867)).
In accord with the statutory language and Wales' immediate custodian rule, longstanding practice confirms that in ha-beas challenges to present physical confinement — “core challenges” — the default rule is that the proper respondent is the warden of the facility where the prisoner is being held, not the Attorney General or some other remote supervisory official. See, e. g., Hogan v. Hanks, 97 F. 3d 189, 190 (CA7 1996); Brittingham v. United States, 982 F. 2d 378, 379 (CA9 1992); Blango v. Thornburgh, 942 F. 2d 1487, 1491-1492 (CA10 1991) (per curiam); Brennan v. Cunningham, 813 F. 2d 1, 12 (CA1 1987); Guerra v. Meese, 786 F. 2d 414, 416 (CADC 1986) (per curiam); Billiteri v. United States Bd. of Parole, 541 F. 2d 938, 948 (CA2 1976); Sanders v. Bennett, 148 F. 2d 19, 20 (CADC 1945); Jones v. Biddle, 131 F. 2d 853, 854 (CA8 1942). No exceptions to this rule, either recognized or proposed, see post, at 454 (Kennedy, J., concurring), apply here.
If the Wales immediate custodian rule applies in this case, Commander Marr — the equivalent of the warden at the military brig — is the proper respondent, not Secretary Rumsfeld. See Al-Marri v. Rumsfeld, 360 F. 3d 707, 708-709 (CA7 2004) (holding in the case of an alleged enemy combatant detained at the Consolidated Naval Brig, the proper respondent is Commander Marr, not Secretary Rumsfeld); Monk v. Secretary of the Navy, 793 F. 2d 364, 369 (CADC 1986) (holding that the proper respondent in a habeas action brought by a military prisoner is the commandant of the military detention facility, not the Secretary of the Navy); cf. 10 U. S. C. § 951(c) (providing that the commanding officer of a military correctional facility “shall have custody and control” of the prisoners confined therein). Neither Padilla, nor the courts below, nor Justice Stevens’ dissent deny the general applicability of the immediate custodian rule to habeas petitions challenging physical custody. Post, at 458. They argue instead that the rule is flexible and should not apply on the “unique facts” of this case. Brief for Respondents 44. We disagree.
First, Padilla notes that the substantive holding of Wales — that a person released on his own recognizance is not “in custody” for habeas purposes — was disapproved in Hensley v. Municipal Court, San Jose-Milpitas Judicial Dist, Santa Clara Cty., 411 U. S. 345, 350, n. 8 (1973), as part of this Court’s expanding definition of “custody” under the habeas statute. Padilla seems to contend, and the dissent agrees, post, at 461-462, that because we no longer require physical detention as a prerequisite to habeas relief, the immediate custodian rule, too, must no longer bind us, even in challenges to physical custody. That argument, as the Seventh Circuit aptly concluded, is a “non sequitur.” Al-Marri, supra, at 711. That our understanding of custody has broadened' to include restraints short of physical confinement does nothing to undermine the rationale or statutory foundation of Wales’ immediate custodian rule where physical custody is at issue. Indeed, as the cases cited above attest, it has consistently been applied in this core habeas context within the United States.
The Court of Appeals’ view that we have relaxed the immediate custodian rule in cases involving prisoners detained for “other than federal criminal violations,” and that in such cases the proper respondent is the person exercising the “legal reality of control” over the petitioner, suffers from the same logical flaw. 352 F. 3d, at 705, 707. Certainly the statute itself makes no such distinction based on the source of the physical detention. Nor does our case law support a deviation from the immediate custodian rule here. Rather, the cases cited by Padilla stand for the simple proposition that the immediate physical custodian rule, by its terms, does not apply when a habeas petitioner challenges something other than his present physical confinement.
In Braden, for example, an Alabama prisoner filed a ha-beas petition in the Western District of Kentucky. He did not contest the validity of the Alabama conviction for which he was confined, but instead challenged a detainer lodged against him in Kentucky state court. Noting that petitioner sought to challenge a “confinement that would be imposed in the future,” we held that petitioner was “in custody” in Kentucky by virtue of the detainer. 410 U. S., at 488-489. In these circumstances, the Court held that the proper respondent was not the prisoner’s immediate physical custodian (the Alabama warden), but was instead the Kentucky court in which the detainer was lodged. This made sense because the Alabama warden was not “the person who [held] him in what [was] alleged to be unlawful custody.” Id., at 494-495 (citing Wales, 114 U. S., at 574); Hensley, supra, at 351, n. 9 (observing that the petitioner in Braden “was in the custody of Kentucky officials for purposes of his habeas corpus action”). Under Braden, then, a habeas petitioner who challenges a form of “custody” other than present physical confinement may name as respondent the entity or person who exercises legal control with respect to the challenged “custody.” But nothing in Braden supports departing from the immediate custodian rule in the traditional context of challenges to present physical confinement. See Al-Marri, supra, at 711-712; Monk, supra, at 369. To the contrary, Braden cited Wales favorably and reiterated the traditional rule that a prisoner seeking release from confinement must sue his “jailer.” 410 U. S., at 495 (internal quotation marks omitted).
For the same reason, Strait v. Laird, 406 U. S. 341 (1972), does not aid Padilla. Strait involved an inactive reservist domiciled in California who filed a §2241 petition seeking relief from his military obligations. We noted that the reservist’s “nominal” custodian was a commanding officer in Indiana who had charge of petitioner’s Army records. Id., at 344. As in Braden, the immediate custodian rule had no application because petitioner was not challenging any present physical confinement.
In Braden and Strait, the immediate custodian rule did not apply because there was no immediate physical custodian with respect to the “custody” being challenged. That is not the case here: Commander Marr exercises day-to-day control over Padilla’s physical custody. We have never intimated that a habeas petitioner could name someone other than his immediate physical custodian as respondent simply because the challenged physical custody does not arise out of a criminal conviction. Nor can we do so here just because Padilla’s physical confinement stems from a military order by the President.
It follows that neither Braden nor Strait supports the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that Secretary Rumsfeld is the proper respondent because he exercises the “legal reality of control” over Padilla. As we have explained, identification of the party exercising legal control only comes into play when there is no immediate physical custodian with respect to the challenged “custody.” In challenges to present physical confinement, we reaffirm that the immediate custodian, not a supervisory official who exercises legal control, is the proper respondent. If the “legal control” test applied to physical-custody challenges, a convicted prisoner would be able to name the State or the Attorney General as a respondent to a §2241 petition. As the statutory language, established practice, and our precedent demonstrate, that is not the case.
At first blush Ex parte Endo, 323 U. S. 283 (1944), might seem to lend support to Padilla’s “legal control” argument. There, a Japanese-American citizen interned in California by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) sought relief by filing a §2241 petition in the Northern District of California, naming as a respondent her immediate custodian. After she filed the petition, however, the Government moved her to Utah. Thus, the prisoner’s immediate physical custodian was no longer within the jurisdiction of the District Court. We held, nonetheless, that the Northern District “acquired jurisdiction in this case and that [Endo’s] removal... did not cause it to lose jurisdiction where a person in whose custody she is remains within the district.” Id., at 306. We held that, under these circumstances, the assistant director of the WRA, who resided in the Northern District, would be an “appropriate respondent” to whom the District Court could direct the writ. Id., at 304-305.
While Endo did involve a petitioner challenging her present physical confinement, it did not, as Padilla and Justice Stevens contend, hold that such a petitioner may properly name as respondent someone other than the immediate physical custodian. Post, at 461-462 (citing Endo as supporting a “more functional approach” that allows habeas petitioners to name as respondent an individual with “control” over the petitioner). Rather, the Court’s holding that the writ could be directed to a supervisory official came not in our holding that the District Court initially acquired jurisdiction — it did so because Endo properly named her immediate custodian and filed in the district of confinement — but in our holding that the District Court could effectively grant habeas relief despite the Government-procured absence of petitioner from the Northern District. Thus, Endo stands for the important but limited proposition that when the Government moves a habeas petitioner after she properly files a petition naming her immediate custodian, the District Court retains jurisdiction and may direct the writ to any respondent within its jurisdiction who has legal authority to effectuate the prisoner’s release.
Endo’s holding does not help respondents here. Padilla was moved from New York to South Carolina before his lawyer filed a habeas petition on his behalf. Unlike the District Court in Endo, therefore, the Southern District never acquired jurisdiction over Padilla’s petition.
Padilla’s argument reduces to a request for a new exception to the immediate custodian rule based upon the “unique facts” of this case. While Padilla’s detention is undeniably unique in many respects, it is at bottom a simple challenge to physical custody imposed by the Executive — the traditional core of the Great Writ. There is no indication that there was any attempt to manipulate behind Padilla’s transfer — he was taken to the same facility where other al Qaeda members were already being held, and the Government did not attempt to hide from Padilla’s lawyer where it had taken him. Infra, at 449-450, and n. 17; post, at 454 (Kennedy, J., concurring). His detention is thus not unique in any way that would provide arguable basis for a departure from the immediate custodian rule. Accordingly, we hold that Commander Marr, not Secretary Rumsfeld, is Padilla’s custodian and the proper respondent to his habeas petition.
II
We turn now to the second subquestion. District courts are limited to granting habeas relief “within their respective jurisdictions.” 28 U. S. C. § 2241(a). We have interpreted this language to require “nothing more than that the court issuing the writ have jurisdiction over the custodian.” Bra-den, 410 U. S., at 495. Thus, jurisdiction over Padilla’s ha-beas pétition lies in the Southern District only if it has jurisdiction over Commander Marr. We conclude it does not.
Congress added the limiting clause — “within their respective jurisdictions” — to the habeas statute in 1867 to avert the “inconvenient [and] potentially embarrassing” possibility that “every judge anywhere [could] issue the Great Writ on behalf of applicants far distantly removed from the courts whereon they sat.” Carbo v. United States, 364 U. S. 611, 617 (1961). Accordingly, with respect to habeas petitions “designed to relieve an individual from oppressive confinement,” the traditional rule has always been that the Great Writ is “issuable only in the district of confinement.” Id., at 618.
Other portions of the habeas statute support this, commonsense reading of § 2241(a). For example, if a petitioner seeks habeas relief in the court of appeals, or from this Court or a Justice thereof, the petition must “state the reasons for not making application to the district court of the district in which the applicant is held.” 28 U. S. C. §2242 (emphases added). Moreover, the court of appeals, this Court, or a Justice thereof “may decline to entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus and may transfer the application... to the district court having jurisdiction to entertain it.” § 2241(b) (emphasis added). The Federal Rules similarly provide that an “application for a writ of habeas corpus must be made to the appropriate district court.” Fed. Rule App. Proc. 22(a) (emphasis added).
Congress has also legislated against the background of the “district of confinement” rule by fashioning explicit exceptions to the rule in certain circumstances. For instance, § 2241(d) provides that when a petitioner is serving a state criminal sentence in a State that contains more than one federal district, he may file a habeas petition not only “in the district court for the district wherein [he] is in custody,” but also “in the district court for the district within which the State court was held which convicted and sentenced him”; and “each of such district courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction to entertain the application.” Similarly, until Congress directed federal criminal prisoners to file certain post-conviction petitions in the sentencing courts by adding § 2255 to the habeas statute, federal prisoners could litigate such collateral attacks only in the district of confinement. See United States v. Hayman, 342 U. S. 205, 212-219 (1952). Both of these provisions would have been unnecessary if, as the Court of Appeals believed, § 2241’s general habeas provisions permit a prisoner to file outside the district of confinement.
The plain language of the habeas statute thus confirms the general rule that for core habeas petitions challenging present physical confinement, jurisdiction lies in only one district: the district of confinement. Despite this ample statutory and historical pedigree, Padilla contends, and the Court of Appeals held, that the district of confinement rule no longer applies to core habeas challenges. Rather, Padilla, as well as today’s dissenters, post, at 462-464, urge that our decisions in Braden and Strait stand for the proposition that jurisdiction will lie in any district in which the respondent is amenable.to service of process. We disagree.
Prior to Braden, we had held that habeas jurisdiction depended on the presence of both the petitioner and his custodian within the territorial confines of the district court. See Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U. S. 188, 190-192 (1948). By allowing an Alabama prisoner to challenge a Kentucky detainer in the Western District of Kentucky, Braden changed course and held that habeas jurisdiction requires only “that the court issuing the writ have jurisdiction over the custodian.” 410 U. S., at 495.
But we fail to see how Braden's requirement of jurisdiction over the respondent alters the district of confinement rule for challenges to present physical custody. Braden itself did not involve such a challenge; rather, Braden challenged his future confinement in Kentucky by suing his Kentucky custodian. We reasoned that “[u]nder these circumstances it would serve no useful purpose to apply the Ahrens rule and require that the action be brought in Alabama.” Id., at 499. In habeas challenges to present physical confinement, by contrast, the district of confinement is synonymous with the district court that has territorial jurisdiction over the proper respondent. This is because, as we have held, the immediate custodian rule applies to core habeas challenges to presr ent physical custody. By definition, the immediate custodian and the prisoner reside in the same district.
Rather than focusing on the holding and historical context of Braden, Justice Stevens, post, at 462, like the Court of Appeals, seizes on dicta in which we referred to “service of process” to contend that the Southern District could assert jurisdiction over Secretary Rumsfeld under New York’s long-arm statute. See Braden, 410 U. S., at 495 (“So long as the custodian can be reached by service of process, the court can issue a writ ‘within its jurisdiction’... even if the prisoner himself is confined outside the court’s territorial jurisdiction”). But that, dicta did not indicate that a custodian may be served with process outside of the district court’s territorial jurisdiction. To the contrary, the facts and holding of Braden dictate the opposite inference. Braden served his Kentucky custodian in Kentucky. Accordingly, we concluded that the Western District of Kentucky had jurisdiction over the petition “since the respondent was properly served in that district.” Id., at 500 (emphasis added); see also Endo, 323 U. S., at 304-305 (noting that the court could issue the writ to a WRA official “whose office is at San Francisco, which is in the jurisdiction of the [Northern District of California]”)- Thus, Braden in no way authorizes district courts to employ long-arm statutes to gain jurisdiction over custodians who are outside of their territorial jurisdiction. See Al-Marri, 360 F. 3d, at 711; Guerra, 786 F. 2d, at 417. Indeed, in stating its holding, Braden favorably cites Schlanger v. Seamans, 401 U. S. 487 (1971), a case squarely holding that the custodian’s absence from the territorial jurisdiction of the district court is fatal to habeas jurisdiction. 410 U. S., at 500. Thus, Braden does not derogate from the traditional district of confinement rule for core habeas petitions challenging present physical custody.
The Court of Appeals also thought Strait supported its long-arm approach to habeas jurisdiction. But Strait offers even less help than Braden. In Strait, we held that the Northern District of California had jurisdiction over Strait’s “nominal” custodian — the commanding officer of the Army records center — even though he was physically located in Indiana. We reasoned that the custodian was “present” in California “through the officers in the hierarchy of the command who processed [Strait’s] application for discharge.” 406 U. S., at 345. The Strait Court contrasted its broad view of “presence” in the case of a nominal custodian with a “ ‘commanding officer who is responsible for the day to day control of his subordinates,’ ” who would be subject to habeas jurisdiction only in the district where he physically resides. Ibid, (quoting Arlen v. Laird, 451 F. 2d 684, 687 (CA2 1971)).
The Court of Appeals, much like Justice Stevens’ dissent, reasoned that Secretary Rumsfeld, in the same way as Strait’s commanding officer, was “present” in the Southern District through his subordinates who took Padilla into military custody. 352 F. 3d, at 709-710; post, at 462. We think not.
Strait simply has no application to the present case. Strait predated Braden, so the then-applicable Ahrens rule required that both the petitioner and his custodian be present in California. Thus, the only question was whether Strait’s commanding officer was present in California notwithstanding his physical absence from the district. Distinguishing Schlanger, supra, we held that it would “exalt fiction over reality” to require Strait to sue his “nominal custodian” in Indiana when Strait had always resided in California and had his only meaningful contacts with the Army there.. 406 U. S., at 344-346. Only under these limited circumstances did we invoke concepts of personal jurisdiction to hold that the custodian was “present” in California through the actions of his agents. Id., at 345.
Here, by contrast, Padilla seeks to challenge his present physical custody in South Carolina. Because the immediate custodian rule applies to such habeas challenges, the proper respondent is Commander Marr, who is also present in South Carolina. There is thus no occasion to designate a “nominal” custodian and determine whether he or she is “present” in the same district as petitioner. Under Bra-den and the district of confinement rule, as we have explained, Padilla must file his habeas action in South Carolina. Were we to extend Strait’s limited exception to the territorial nature of habeas jurisdiction to the context of physical-custody challenges, we would undermine, if not negate, the purpose of Congress in amending the habeas statute in 1867.
The proviso that district courts may issue the writ only “within their respective jurisdictions” forms an important corollary to the immediate custodian rule in challenges to present physical custody under § 2241. Together they compose a simple rule that has been consistently applied in the lower courts, including in the context of military detentions: Whenever a §2241 habeas petitioner seeks to challenge his present physical custody within the United States, he should name his warden as respondent and file the petition in the district of confinement. See Al-Marri, supra, at 710, 712 (alleged enemy combatant detained at Consolidated Naval Brig must file petition in the District of South Carolina; collecting cases dismissing §2241 petitions filed outside the district of confinement); Monk, 793 F. 2d, at 369 (court-martial convict must file in district of confinement).
This rule, derived from the terms of the habeas statute, serves the important purpose of preventing forum shopping by habeas petitioners. Without it, a prisoner could name a high-level supervisory official as respondent and then sue that person wherever he is amenable, to long-arm jurisdiction. The result would be rampant forum shopping, district courts with overlapping jurisdiction, and the very inconvenience, expense, and embarrassment Congress sought to avoid when it added the jurisdictional limitation 137 years ago.
Ill
Justice Stevens’ dissent, not unlike the Court of Appeals’ decision, rests on the mistaken belief that we have made various exceptions to the immediate custodian and district of confinement rules whenever “exceptional,” “‘special,’ ” or “unusual” cases have arisen. Post, at 455,458,462, n. 5. We have addressed most of his contentions in the foregoing discussion, but we briefly touch on a few additional points.
Apparently drawing a loose analogy to Endo, Justice Stevens asks us to pretend that Padilla and his immediate custodian were present in the Southern District at the time counsel filed the instant habeas petition, thus rendering jurisdiction proper. Post, at 458-459. The dissent asserts that the Government “departed] from the time-honored practice of giving one’s adversary fair notice of an intent to present an important motion to the court,” when on June 9 it moved ex parte to vacate the material witness warrant and allegedly failed to immediately inform counsel of its intent to transfer Padilla to military custody in South Carolina. Post, at 459; cf. n. 3, supra. Constructing a hypothetical “scenario,” the dissent contends that if counsel had been immediately informed, she “would have filed the habeas application then and there,” while Padilla remained in the Southern District, “rather than waiting two days.” Post, at 458. Therefore, Justice Stevens concludes, the Government’s alleged misconduct “justifies treating the habeas application as the functional equivalent of one filed two days earlier.” Post, at 459 (“[W]e should not permit the Government to obtain a tactical advantage as a consequence of an ex parte proceeding”).
The dissent cites no authority whatsoever for its extraordinary proposition that a district court can exercise statutory jurisdiction based on a series of events that did not occur, or that jurisdiction might be premised on “punishing” alleged Government misconduct. The lower courts — unlike the dissent — did not perceive any hint of Government misconduct or bad faith that would warrant extending Endo to a case where both the petitioner and his immediate custodian were outside of the district at the time of filing. Not surprisingly, then, neither Padilla nor the lower courts relied on the dissent’s counterfactual theory to argue that habeas jurisdiction was proper. Finding it contrary to our well-established precedent, we are not persuaded either.
The dissent contends that even if we do not indulge its hypothetical scenario, the Court has made “numerous exceptions” to the immediate custodian and district of confinement rules, rendering our bright-line rule “far from bright.” Post, at 460. Yet the dissent cannot cite a single case in which we have deviated from the longstanding rule we reaffirm today — that is, a case in which we allowed a habeas petitioner challenging his present physical custody within the United States to name as respondent someone other than the immediate custodian and to file somewhere other than the district of confinement. If Justice Stevens’ view were accepted, district courts would be consigned to making ad hoc determinations as to whether the circumstances of a given case are “exceptional,” “special,” or “unusual” enough to require departure from the jurisdictional rules this Court has consistently applied. We do not think Congress intended such a result.
Finally, the dissent urges us to bend the jurisdictional rules because the merits of this case are indisputably of “profound importance,” post, at 455, 460-461. But it is surely just as necessary in important cases as in unimportant ones that courts take care not to exceed their “respective jurisdictions” established by Congress.
The District of South Carolina, not the Southern District of New York, was the district court in which Padilla should have brought his habeas petition. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for entry of an order of dismissal without prejudice.
It is so ordered.
The AUMF provides in relevant part: “[T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” 115 Stat. 224.
In short, the President “[d]etermine[d]” that Padilla (1) “is closely associated with al Qaeda, an international terrorist organization with which the United States is at war;” (2) that he “engaged in... hostile and war-like acts, including... preparation for acts of international terrorism” against the United States; (3) that he “possesses intelligence” about al Qaeda that “would aid U. S. efforts to prevent attacks by al Qaeda on the United States”; and finally, (4) that he “represents a continuing, present and grave danger to the national security of the United States,” such that his military detention “is necessary to prevent him from aiding al Qaeda in its efforts to attack the United States.” June 9 Order 5a-6a.
Also on June 9, the Government notified the District Court ex parte of the President’s order; informed the court that it was transferring Padilla into military custody in South Carolina and that it was consequently withdrawing its grand jury subpoena of Padilla; and asked the court to vacate the material witness warrant. Padilla ex rel. Newman v. Bush, 233 F. Supp. 2d 564, 571 (SDNY 2002). The
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In sustaining a state criminal statute that forbids certain expenditures by banks and business corporations for the purpose of influencing the vote on referendum proposals, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the First Amendment rights of a corporation are limited to issues that materially affect its business, property, or assets. The court rejected appellants’ claim that the statute abridges freedom of speech in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The issue presented in this context is one of first impression in this Court. We postponed the question of jurisdiction to our consideration of the merits. 430 U. S. 964 (1977). We now reverse.
I
The statute at issue, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 55, § 8 (West Supp. 1977), prohibits appellants, two national banking associations and three business corporations, from making contributions or expenditures “for the purpose of... influencing or affecting the vote on any question submitted to the voters, other than one materially affecting any of the property, business or assets of the corporation.” The statute further specifies that “[n]o question submitted to the voters solely concerning the taxation of the income, property or transactions of individuals shall be deemed materially to affect the property, business or assets of the corporation.” A corporation that violates § 8 may receive a maximum fine of $50,000; a corporate officer, director, or agent who violates the section may receive a maximum fine of $10,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both.
Appellants wanted to spend money to publicize their views on a proposed constitutional amendment that was to be submitted to the voters as a ballot question at a general election on November 2,1976. The amendment would have permitted the legislature to impose a graduated tax on the income of individuals. After appellee, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, informed appellants that he intended to enforce § 8 against them, they brought this action seeking to have the statute declared unconstitutional. On April 26, 1976, the case was submitted to a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court on an expedited basis and upon agreed facts, in order to settle the question before the upcoming election. Judgment was reserved and the case referred to the full court that same day.
Appellants argued that § 8 violates the First Amendment, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and similar provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution. They prayed that the statute be declared unconstitutional on its face and as it would be applied to their proposed expenditures. The parties’ statement of agreed facts reflected their disagreement as to the effect that the adoption of a personal income tax would have on appellants’ business; it noted that “[t]here is a division of opinion among economists as to whether and to what extent a graduated income tax imposed solely on individuals would affect the business and assets of corporations.” App. 17. Appellee did not dispute that appellants’ management believed that the tax would have a significant effect on their businesses.
On September 22, 1976, the full bench directed the single justice to enter judgment upholding the constitutionality of § 8. An opinion followed on February 1,1977. In addressing appellants’ constitutional contentions, the court acknowledged that § 8 “operate [s] in an area of the most fundamental First Amendment activities,” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 14 (1976), and viewed the principal question as “whether business corporations, such as [appellants], have First Amendment rights coextensive with those of natural persons or associations of natural persons.” 371 Mass. 773, 783, 359 N. E. 2d 1262, 1269. The court found its answer in the.contours of a corporation’s constitutional right, as a “person” under the Fourteenth Amendment, not to be deprived of property without due process of law. Distinguishing the First Amendment rights of a natural person from the more limited rights of a corporation, the court concluded that “whether its rights are designated ‘liberty’ rights or ‘property’ rights, a corporation’s property and business interests are entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.... [A] s an incident of such protection, corporations also possess certain rights of speech and expression under the First Amendment.” Id., at 784, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1270. (citations and footnote omitted). Accordingly, the court held that “only when a general political issue materially affects a corporation’s business, property or assets may that corporation claim First Amendment protection for its speech or other activities entitling it to communicate its position on that issue to the general public.” Since this limitation is “identical to the legislative command in the first sentence of [§8],” the court concluded that the legislature “has clearly identified in the challenged statute the parameters of corporate free speech.” Id., at 785, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1270.
The court also declined to say that there was “no rational basis for [the] legislative determination,” embodied in the second sentence of § 8, that a ballot question concerning the taxation of individuals could not materially affect the interests of a corporation. Id., at 786, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1271. In rejecting appellants’ argument that this second sentence established a conclusive presumption in violation of the Due Process Clause, the court construed § 8 to embody two distinct crimes: The first prohibits a corporation from spending money to influence the vote on a ballot question not materially affecting its business interests; the second, and more specific, prohibition makes it criminal per se for a corporation to spend money to influence the vote on a ballot question solely concerning individual taxation. While acknowledging that the second crime is “related to the general crime” stated in the first sentence of § 8, the court intimated that the second sentence was intended to make criminal an expenditure of the type proposed by appellants without regard to specific proof of the materiality of the question to the corporation’s business interests. Id., at 795 n. 19, 790-791, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1276 n. 19, 1273-1274. The court nevertheless seems to have reintroduced the “materially affecting” concept into its interpretation of the second sentence of § 8, as a limitation on the scope of the so-called “second crime” imposed by the Federal Constitution rather than the Massachusetts Legislature. Id., at 786, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1271. But because the court thought appellants had not made a sufficient showing of material effect, their challenge to the statutory prohibition as applied to them also failed.
Appellants’ other arguments fared no better. Adopting a narrowing construction of the statute, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected the contention that § 8 is overbroad. It also found no merit in appellants’ vagueness argument because the specific prohibition against corporate expenditures on a referendum solely concerning individual taxation is “both precise and definite.” Id., at 791, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1273-1274. Finally, the court held that appellants were not denied the equal protection of the laws.
II
Because the 1976 referendum has been held, and the proposed constitutional amendment defeated, we face at the outset a question of mootness. As the case falls within the class of controversies “capable of repetition, yet evading review,” Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911), we conclude that it is not moot. Present here are both elements identified in Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U. S. 147, 149 (1975), as precluding a finding of mootness in the absence of a class action: “(1) the challenged action was in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there [is] a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party [will] be subjected to the same action again.”
Under no reasonably foreseeable circumstances could appellants obtain plenary review by this Court of the issue here presented in advance of a referendum on a similar' constitutional amendment. In each of the legislature’s four attempts to obtain constitutional authorization to enact a graduated income tax, including this most recent one, the period of time between legislative authorization of the proposal and its submission to the voters was approximately 18 months. This proved too short a period of time for appellants to obtain complete judicial review, and there is every reason to believe that any future suit would take at least as long. Furthermore, a decision allowing the desired expenditures would be an empty gesture unless it afforded appellants sufficient opportunity prior to the election date to communicate their views effectively.
Nor can there be any serious doubt that there is a “reasonable expectation,” Weinstein v. Bradford, supra, that appellants again will be subject to the threat of prosecution under § 8. The 1976 election marked the fourth time in recent years that a proposed graduated income tax amendment has been submitted to the Massachusetts voters. Appellee’s suggestion that the legislature may abandon its quest for a constitutional amendment is purely speculative. Appellants insist that they will continue to oppose the constitutional amendment, and there is no reason to believe that the Attorney General will refrain from prosecuting violations of § 8. Compare Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539, 546-547 (1976), with Spomer v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 514, 521 (1974).
Meanwhile, § 8 remains on the books as a complete prohibition of corporate expenditures related to individual tax referenda, and as a restraining influence on corporate expenditures concerning other ballot questions. The criminal penalties of § 8 discourage challenge by violation, and the effect of the statute on arguably protected speech will persist. Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 737 n. 8 (1974); see American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S. 767, 770 n. 1 (1974); Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752, 756 n. 5 (1973); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 333 n. 2 (1972). Accordingly, we conclude that this cáse is not moot and proceed to address the merits.
Ill
The court below framed the principal question in this case as whether and to what extent corporations have First Amendment rights. We believe that the court posed the wrong question. The Constitution often protects interests broader than those of the party seeking their vindication. The First Amendment, in particular, serves significant societal interests. The proper question therefore is not whether corporations “have” First Amendment rights and, if so, whether they are coextensive with those of natural persons. Instead, the question must be whether § 8 abridges expression that the First Amendment was meant to protect. We hold that it does.
A
The speech proposed by appellants is at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection.
“The freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed by the Constitution embraces at the least the liberty to discuss publicly and truthfully all matters of public concern without previous restraint or fear of subsequent punishment.... Freedom of discussion, if it would fulfill its historic function in this nation, must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their period.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 101-102 (1940).
The referendum issue that appellants wish to address falls squarely within this description. In appellants’ view, the enactment of a graduated personal income tax, as proposed to be authorized by constitutional amendment, would have a seriously adverse effect on the economy of the State. See n. 4, supra. The importance of the referendum issue to the people and government of Massachusetts is not disputed. Its merits, however, are the subject of sharp disagreement.
As the Court said in Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214, 218 (1966), “there is practically universal agreement that á major purpose of [the First] Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs.” If the speakers here were not corporations, no one would suggest that the State could silence their proposed speech. It is the type of speech indispensable to decisionmaking in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual. The inherent worth of the speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual.
The court below nevertheless held that corporate speech is protected by the First Amendment only when it pertains directly to the corporation’s business interests. In deciding whether this novel and restrictive gloss on the First Amendment comports with the Constitution and the precedents of this Court, we need not survey the outer boundaries of the Amendment’s protection of corporate speech, or address the abstract question whether corporations have the full measure of rights that individuals enjoy under the First Amendment. The question in this case, simply put, is whether the corporate identity of the speaker deprives this proposed speech of what otherwise would be its clear entitlement to protection. We turn now to that question.
B
The court below found confirmation of the legislature’s definition of the scope of a corporation’s First Amendment rights in the language of the Fourteenth Amendment. Noting that the First Amendment is applicable to the States through the Fourteenth, and seizing upon the observation that corporations “cannot claim for themselves the liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees,” Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925), the court concluded that a corporation’s First Amendment rights must derive from its property rights under the Fourteenth.
This is an artificial mode of analysis, untenable under decisions of this Court.
“In a series of decisions beginning with Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925), this Court held that the liberty of speech and of the press which the First Amendment guarantees against abridgment by the federal government is within the liberty safeguarded by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by state action. That principle has been followed and reaffirmed to the present day.” Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 500-501 (1952) (footnote omitted) (emphasis supplied).
Freedom of speech and the other freedoms encompassed by the First Amendment always have been viewed as fundamental components of the liberty safeguarded by the Due Process Clause, see Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666 (1925) (opinion of the Court); id., at 672 (Holmes, J., dissenting); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 460 (1958); Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 368 (1931); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 364 (1937); Warren, The New “Liberty” Under the Fourteenth Amendment, 39 Harv. L. Rev. 431 (1926), and the Court has not identified a separate source for the right when it has been asserted by corporations. See, e. g., Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U. S. 43, 47 (1961); Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 360 U. S. 684, 688 (1959); Joseph Burstyn, supra. In Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233, 244 (1936), the Court rejected the very reasoning adopted by the Supreme Judicial Court and did not rely on the corporation's property rights under the Fourteenth Amendment in sustaining its freedom of speech.
Yet appellee suggests that First Amendment rights generally have been afforded only to corporations engaged in the communications business or through which individuals express themselves, and the court below apparently accepted the “materially affecting” theory as the conceptual common denominator between appellee’s position and the precedents of this Court. It is true that the “materially affecting” requirement would have been satisfied in the Court’s decisions affording protection to the speech of media corporations and corporations otherwise in the business of communication or entertainment, and to the commercial speech of business corporations. See cases cited in n. 14, supra. In such cases, the speech would be connected to the corporation’s business almost by definition. But the effect on the business of the corporation was not the governing rationale in any of these decisions. None of them mentions, let alone attributes significance to, the fact that the subject of the challenged communication materially affected the corporation’s business.
The press cases emphasize the special and constitutionally recognized role of that institution in informing and educating the public, offering criticism, and providing a forum for discussion and debate. Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S., at 219; see Saxbe v. Washington Post Co., 417 U. S. 843, 863-864 (1974) (Powell, J., dissenting). But the press does not have a monopoly on either the First Amendment or the ability to enlighten. Cf. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 51 n. 56; Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367, 389-390 (1969); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 266 (1964); Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, 20 (1945). Similarly, the Court’s decisions involving corporations in the business of communication or entertainment are based not only on the role of the First Amendment in fostering individual self-expression but also on its role in affording the public access to discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas. See Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, supra; Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 564 (1969); Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 389 (1967). Even decisions seemingly based exclusively on the individual’s right to express himself acknowledge that the expression may contribute to society’s edification. Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510 (1948).
Nor do our recent commercial speech cases lend support to appellee’s business interest theory. They illustrate that the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and the self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw. A commercial advertisement is constitutionally protected not so much because it pertains to' the seller’s business as because it furthers the societal interest in the “free flow of commercial information.” Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748, 764 (1976); see Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U. S. 85,95 (1977).
C
We thus find no support in the First or Fourteenth Amendment, or in the decisions of this Court, for the proposition that speech that otherwise would be within the protection of the First Amendment loses that protection simply because its source is a corporation that cannot prove, to the satisfaction of a court, a material effect on its business or property. The “materially affecting” requirement is not an identification of the boundaries of corporate speech etched by the Constitution itself. Rather, it amounts to an impermissible legislative prohibition of speech based on the identity of the interests that spokesmen may represent in public debate over controversial issues and a requirement that the speaker have a sufficiently great interest in the subject to justify communication.
Section 8 permits a corporation to communicate to the public its views on certain referendum subjects — those materially affecting its business — but not others. It also singles out one kind of ballot question — individual, taxation — as a subject about which corporations may never make their ideas public. The legislature has drawn the line between permissible and impermissible speech according to whether there is a sufficient nexus, as defined by the legislature, between the issue presented to the voters and the business interests of the speaker.
In the realm of protected speech, the legislature is constitutionally disqualified from dictating the subjects about which persons may speak and the speakers who may address a public issue. Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 96 (1972). If a legislature may direct business corporations to “stick to business,” it also may limit other corporations— religious, charitable, or civic — to their respective “business” when addressing the public. Such power in government to channel the expression of views is unacceptable under the First Amendment. Especially where, as here, the legislature’s suppression of speech suggests an attempt to give one side of a debatable public question an advantage in expressing its views to the people, the First Amendment is plainly offended. Yet the State contends that its action is necessitated by governmental interests of the highest order. We next consider these asserted interests.
IV
The constitutionality of § 8’s prohibition of the “exposition of ideas” by corporations turns on whether it can survive the exacting scrutiny necessitated by a state-imposed restriction of freedom of speech. Especially where, as here, a prohibition is directed at speech itself, and the speech is intimately related to the process of governing, “the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling,” Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 524 (1960); see NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438-439 (1963); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S., at 463; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 530 (1945), “and the burden is on the government to show the existence of such an interest.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347, 362 (1976). Even then, the State must employ means “closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment....” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 25; see NAACP v. Button, supra, at 438; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488 (1960).
The Supreme Judicial Court did not subject § 8 to “the critical scrutiny demanded under accepted First Amendment and equal protection principles,” Buckley, supra, at 11, because of its view that the First Amendment does not apply to appellants’ proposed speech. For this reason the court did not even discuss the State’s interests in considering appellants’ First Amendment argument. The court adverted to the conceivable interests served by § 8 only in rejecting appellants’ equal protection claim. Appellee nevertheless advances two principal justifications for. the prohibition of corporate speech. The first is the State’s interest in sustaining the active role of the individual citizen in the electoral process and thereby preventing diminution of the citizen’s confidence in government. The second is the interest in protecting the rights of shareholders whose views differ from those expressed by management on behalf of the corporation. However weighty these interests may be in the context of partisan candidate elections, they either are not implicated in this case or are not served at all, or in other than a random manner, by the prohibition in § 8.
A
f Preserving the integrity of the electoral process, preventing ^corruption, and “sustain [ing] the active, alert responsibility of the individual citizen in a democracy for the wise conduct of government” are interests of the highest importance. Buckley, supra; United States v. Automobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 570 (1957); United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 139 (1948) (Rutledge, J., concurring); Burroughs v. United States, 290 U. S. 534 (1934). Preservation of the individual citizen’s confidence in government is equally important. Buckley, supra, at 27; CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 565 (1973).
Appellee advances a number of arguments in support of his view that these interests are endangered by corporate participation in discussion of a referendum issue. They hinge upon the assumption that such participation would exert an undue influence on the outcome of a referendum vote, and — • in the end — destroy the confidence of the people in the democratic process and the integrity of government. According to appellee, corporations are wealthy and powerful and their views may drown out other points of view. If appellee’s arguments were supported by record or legislative findings that corporate advocacy threatened imminently to undermine democratic processes, thereby denigrating rather than serving First Amendment interests, these arguments would merit our consideration. Cf. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367 (1969). But there has been no showing that the relative voice of corporations has been overwhelming or even significant in influencing referenda in Massachusetts, or that there has been any threat to the confidence of the citizenry in government. Cf. Wood v. Georgia, 370 U. S. 375, 388 (1962).
Nor are appellee’s arguments inherently persuasive or supported by the precedents of this Court. Referenda are held on issues, not candidates for public -office. The risk of corruption perceived in cases involving candidate elections, e. g., United States v. Automobile Workers, supra; United States v. CIO, supra, simply is not present in a popular vote on a public issue. To be sure, corporate advertising may influence the outcome of the vote; this would be its purpose. But the fact that advocacy may persuade the electorate is hardly a reason to suppress it: The Constitution “protects expression which is eloquent no less than that which is unconvincing.” Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 360 U. S., at 689. We noted only recently that “the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment... Buckley, 424 U. S., at 48-49. Moreover, the people in our democracy are entrusted with the responsibility for judging and evaluating the relative merits of conflicting arguments. They may consider, in making their judgment, the source and credibility of the advocate. But if there be any danger that the people cannot evaluate the information and arguments advanced by appellants, it is a danger contemplated by the Framers of the First Amendment. Wood v. Georgia, supra. In sum, “[a] restriction so destructive of the right of public discussion [as § 8], without greater or more imminent danger to the public interest than existed in this case, is incompatible with the freedoms secured by the First Amendment.”
B
Finally, appellee argues that § 8, protects corporate shareholders, an interest that is both legitimate and traditionally within the province of state law. Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66, 82-84 (1975). The statute is said to serve this interest by preventing the use of corporate resources in furtherance of views with which some shareholders may disagree. This purpose is belied, however, by the provisions of the statute, which are both underinclusive and overinclusive.
The underinclusiveness of the statute is self-evident. Corporate expenditures with respect to a referendum are prohibited, while corporate activity with respect to the passage or defeat of legislation is permitted, see n. 31, supra, even though corporations may engage in lobbying more often than they take positions on ballot questions submitted to the voters. Nor does § 8 prohibit a corporation from expressing its views, by the expenditure of corporate funds, on any public issue until it becomes the subject of a referendum, though the displeasure of disapproving shareholders is unlikely to be any less.
The fact that a particular kind of ballot question has been singled out for special treatment undermines the likelihood of a genuine state interest in protecting shareholders. It suggests instead that the legislature may have been concerned with silencing corporations on a particular subject. Indeed, appellee has conceded that “the legislative and judicial history of the statute indicates... that the second crime was ‘tailor-made' to prohibit corporate campaign contributions to' oppose a graduated income tax amendment." Brief for Appellee 6.
Nor is the fact that § 8 is limited to banks and business corporations without relevance. Excluded from its provisions and criminal sanctions are entities or organized groups in which numbers of persons may hold an interest or membership, and which often have resources comparable to those of large corporations. Minorities in such groups or entities may have interests with respect to institutional speech quite comparable to those of minority shareholders in a corporation. Thus the exclusion of Massachusetts business trusts, real estate investment trusts, labor unions, and other associations undermines the plausibility of the State’s purported concern for the persons who happen to be shareholders in the banks and corporations covered by § 8.
The overinclusiveness of the statute is demonstrated by the fact that § 8 would prohibit a corporation from supporting or opposing a referendum proposal even if its shareholders unanimously authorized the contribution or expenditure. Ultimately shareholders may decide, through the procedures of corporate democracy, whether their corporation should engage in debate on public issues. Acting through their power to elect the board of directors or to insist upon protective provisions in the corporation’s charter, shareholders normally are presumed competent to protect their own interests. In addition to intracorporate remedies, minority shareholders generally have access to the judicial remedy of a derivative suit to challenge corporate disbursements alleged to have been made for improper corporate purposes or merely to further the personal interests of management.
Assuming, arguendo, that protection of shareholders is a “compelling” interest under the circumstances of this case, we find “no substantially relevant correlation between the governmental interest asserted and the State’s effort” to prohibit appellants from speaking. Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S., at 485.
V
Because that portion of § 8 challenged by appellants prohibits protected speech in a manner unjustified by a compelling state interest, it must be invalidated. The judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court is
Reversed.
Appellants are the First National Bank of Boston, New England Merchants National Bank, the Gillette Co., Digital Equipment Corp., and Wyman-Gordon. Co.
Massachusetts Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 55, §8 (West Supp. 1977), provides (with emphasis supplied):
“No corporation carrying on the business of a bank, trust, surety, indemnity, safe deposit, insurance, railroad, street railway, telegraph, telephone, gas, electric light, heat, power, canal, aqueduct, or water company, no company having the right to take land by eminent domain or to exercise franchises in public ways, granted by the commonwealth or by any county, city or town, no trustee or trustees owning or holding the majority of the stock of such a corporation, no business corporation incorporated under the laws of or doing business in the commonwealth and no officer or agent acting in behalf of any corporation mentioned in this section, shall directly or indirectly give, pay, expend or contribute, or promise to give, pay, expend or contribute, any money or other valuable thing for the purpose of aiding, promoting or preventing the nomination or election of any person to public office, or aiding, promoting or antagonizing the interests of any political party, or influencing or affecting the vote on any question submitted to the voters, other than one materially affecting any of the property, business or assets of the corporation. No question submitted to the voters solely concerning the taxation of the income, property or transactions of individuáis shall be deemed materially to affect the property, business or assets of the corporation. No person or persons, no political committee, and no person acting under the authority of a political committee, or in its behalf, shall solicit or receive from such corporation or such holders of stock any gift, payment, expenditure, contribution or promise to give, pay, expend or contribute for any such purpose.
“Any corporation violating any provision of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than fifty thousand dollars and any officer, director or agent of the corporation violating any provision thereof or authorizing such violation,... shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.”
This was not the first challenge to § 8. The statute’s legislative and judicial history has been a troubled one. Its successive re-enactments have been linked to the legislature’s repeated submissions to the voters of a constitutional amendment that would allow the enactment of a graduated tax.
The predecessor of § 8, Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 55, § 7 (as amended by 1946 Mass. Acts, ch. 537, § 10), was first challenged in Lustwerk v. Lytron, Inc., 344 Mass. 647, 183 N. E. 2d 871 (1962). Unlike § 8, § 7 did not dictate that questions concerning the taxation of individuals could not satisfy the “materially affecting” requirement. The Supreme Judicial Court construed §7 not to prohibit a corporate expenditure urging the voters to reject a proposed constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to impose a graduated tax on corporate as well as individual income.
After Lustwerk the legislature amended § 7 by adding the sentence: “No question submitted to the voters concerning the taxation of the income, property or transactions of individuals shall be deemed materially to affect the property, business or assets of the corporation.” 1972 Mass. Acts, ch. 458. The statute was challenged in 1972 by four of the present appellants; they wanted to oppose a referendum proposal similar to the one submitted to and rejected by the voters in 1962. Again the expenditure was held to be lawful. First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Attorney General, 362 Mass. 570,290 N. E. 2d 526 (1972).
The most recent amendment was enacted on April 28, 1975, when the legislature further refined the second sentence of § 8 to apply only to ballot questions "solely” concerning the taxation of individuals. 1975 Mass. Acts, ch. 151, § 1. Following this amendment, the legislature on May 7, 1975, voted to submit to the voters on November 2, 1976, the proposed constitutional amendment authorizing the imposition of a graduated 'personal income tax. It was this proposal that led to the case now before us.
Appellants believe that the adoption of a graduated personal income tax would materially affect their business in a variety of ways, including, in the words of the court below,
“discouraging highly qualified executives and highly skilled professional personnel from settling, working or remaining in Massachusetts; promoting a tax climate which would be considered unfavorable by business corporations, thereby discouraging them from settling in Massachusetts with ‘resultant adverse effects’ on the plaintiff banks’ loans, deposits, and other services; and tending to shrink the disposable income of individuals available for the purchase of the consumer products manufactured by at least one of the plaintiff corporations.” 371 Mass., at 777, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1266.
In contrast to its approach in the previous challenges to the predecessor of § 8, see n. 3, supra, the court determined that it had to address appellants’ constitutional challenge because “[t]he statutory amendment to § 8 makes it clear that the Legislature has specifically proscribed corporate expenditures of moneys relative to this proposed amendment.” 371 Mass., at 780, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1268. This was clear from the language of the second sentence of § 8 and from the legislature’s synchronized amendment of § 8 and approval of the submission of the ballot question to the voters.
For purposes of this decision we need not distinguish between the “two crimes
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
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