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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The first question to be decided in this seaman’s personal injury suit for damages on the grounds of unseaworthiness and negligence under the Jones Act is whether the jury should have been allowed to determine, in the absence of supporting testimony by an expert in naval architecture, a claim that the shipowner failed to equip his ship with necessary and feasible safety devices to prevent the mishap which befell the seaman.
The trial judge submitted for the jury’s determination various bases of respondent’s alleged liability, including the claim resting on the failure to provide certain safety-devices. Because the jury returned a general verdict for the seaman, it cannot be said what basis of liability the jury found to exist. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Judge Smith dissenting, reversed and remanded for a new trial, holding that in the absence of expert evidence, it was error to have allowed the jury to consider the failure to provide safety devices. 293 F. 2d 121, 123-124. Since the question whether supporting expert testimony is needed is important in litigation of this type, we granted certiorari. 368 U. S. 811. We hold that the Court of Appeals erred.
Petitioner was a lookout on the S. S. United States. He was injured as he moved from a ladder to a platform leading to his post in the crow’s-nest. The crow’s-nest was housed in a “bubble" half way up a hollow aluminum radar tower which rose 65 feet from the bridge deck. The ladder extended the full height of the tower along the inside of its after side. At various levels inside the tower were horizontal platforms, at the after ends of which were access openings slightly larger than manholes, through which the ladder passed straight up. The tower was more than six feet from fore to aft at the crow’s-nest level, and tapered from four to three feet in width. There was only a narrow ledge around three-quarters of the opening in the platform at that level; the platform proper was toward the bow, and led to the door in the crow’s-nest. As a seaman climbed the ladder to the crow’s-nest, he faced astern until his feet were approximately level with the platform. To get from the ladder to the platform proper, he had to pivot, putting one foot on the starboard or port ledge, follow it with the other foot, complete his pivot and step forward along the ledge to the platform proper. Although the respondent describes the crow’s-nest and its approach as “purposely constructed so as to provide maximum protection and safety for members of the crew having to use it,” there were no devices intended to facilitate safe maneuvering from ladder, to platform; for support during this maneuver, the seaman could grasp one of the thin vertical beams located at intervals along the port and starboard sides, or a vertical, bulky rectangular pipe enclosing a radar cable and near the starboard side, or a horizontal stiffener or ledging that ran at shoulder-height around the tower. Respondent argues that the seaman also could simply spread his arms to brace himself against the sides of the tower.
On the night of February 15-16, 1958, as the United States went at high speed and rolled in rough seas, the tower was plunged into darkness, just as the petitioner was executing the movement to the crow’s-nest platform from the ladder. Illumination within the tower was provided by five electric lights at various levels, but these burned out frequently. Two had been out for a long period and two others had gone out a few hours before the accident, leaving as the only light that which was at the crow’s-nest platform. At some point after petitioner had begun the maneuver from ladder to platform, but before he reached a place on the platform proper and away from the access opening, that last light went out. An instant later petitioner fell backwards across the opening and struck his head against the ladder and his lower back against the fore edge of the opening, leaving his body suspended in the opening. He grasped the ladder rungs and called for help from the lookout on duty in the crow’s-nest. With the lookout’s aid he was able to seat himself on the starboard ledge with his legs hanging down through the opening and his right arm around the cable pipe. The lookout returned to the crow’s-nest to phone the bridge for help. In his absence the petitioner became dizzy and fell through the opening to a place eight feet below the platform.
The only issue before us on this phase of the case is whether the trial judge erred in instructing the jury that they might find the respondent liable for unseaworthiness or negligence for having failed to provide “railings or other safety devices” at the crow’s-nest platform. The Court of Appeals held that it was error to submit that question to the jury because “There was no expert testimony that proper marine architecture required the additional provision of railings or other safety devices on such a ladder or platform enclosed within a tower leading to a crow’s nest. Should the jury, under these conditions, have been permitted to decide whether proper marine architecture required railings or other safety devices? In two recent cases, this court has held that a jury should not be permitted to speculate on such matters in the absence of expert evidence.” 293 F. 2d, at 123. There was evidence, in the form of testimony and photographs, from which the jury might clearly see the construction at the crow’s-nest level which we have described. If the holding of the Court of Appeals is only that in this case there are peculiar fact circumstances which made it impossible for a jury to decide intelligently, we are not told what those circumstances are, and our examination of the record discloses none. If the holding is that claims which might be said to touch upon naval architecture can never succeed without expert evidence, neither the Court of Appeals nor the respondent refers us to authority or reason for any such broad proposition.
This is not one of the rare causes of action in which the law predicates recovery upon expert testimony. See Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940), §§ 2090, 2090a. Rather, the general rule is as stated by Mr. Justice Van Devan ter, when circuit judge, that expert testimony not only is unnecessary but indeed may properly be excluded in the discretion of the trial judge “if all the primary facts can be accurately and intelligibly described to the jury, and if they, as men of common understanding, are as capable of comprehending the primary facts and of drawing correct conclusions from them as are witnesses possessed of special or peculiar training, experience, or observation in respect of the subject under investigation . . . .” United States Smelting Co. v. Parry, 166 F. 407, 411, 415. Furthermore, the trial judge has broad discretion in the matter of the admission or exclusion of expert evidence, and his action is to be sustained unless manifestly erroneous. Spring Co. v. Edgar, 99 U. S. 645, 658.
This Court has held, in a factual context similar to this, that there was no error, let alone manifest error, in having a jury decide without the aid of experts. Spokane & Inland Empire R. Co. v. United States, 241 U. S. 344, was an action by the United States to recover penalties for violation of the Safety Appliance Act provision requiring handholds or grab-irons to be placed on the ends of railroad cars used in interstate commerce. The defendant railroad offered expert testimony to establish that the substitutes provided on its cars would accomplish the statute’s purposes. The jury had inspected the cars, and the expert evidence was excluded when the United States objected that this “was a matter of common knowledge.” We held that “the court was clearly right in holding that the question was not one for experts and that the jury after hearing the testimony and inspecting the [cars] were competent to determine the issue . . . .” 241 U. S., at 351.
In sum, we agree with Judge Smith in dissent below:
“There was before the jury sufficient evidence, both from oral testimony and from photographs, for it to visualize the platform on and from which plaintiff fell and to determine whether some railing or hand hold in addition to the structures present was reasonably necessary for the protection of a seaman passing from the ladder to the platform in the swaying mast.
“. . . [There is no] blanket proposition that any and all theories of negligence and/or unseaworthiness which might touch on the broad field of 'naval architecture’ may be properly submitted to a jury only if supported by expert testimony. Here the potential danger was fairly obvious and a jury should be perfectly competent to decide whether the handholds furnished were sufficient to discharge the owner’s duty to provide his seamen with a safe place to work. Such a determination hardly requires expert knowledge of naval architecture . . . 293 F. 2d, at 126.
Indeed, “if there was a reason hidden from the ordinary mind why this condition of things must have existed, those facts called upon the defendant to make that reason known.” Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Williams, 103 Tex. 228, 231, 125 S. W. 881, 882; and see Poignant v. United States, 225 F. 2d 595, 602 (concurring opinion).
There is another question to be decided. The petitioner also sought maintenance and cure. The trial judge awarded past maintenance, which the respondent has not disputed, and also future maintenance for three years. The Court of Appeals set aside the award of future maintenance, saying: “There does not appear to be any sufficient basis, by opinion evidence or otherwise, for the finding that three years is the period reasonably to be expected for Salem to reach maximum improvement.” 293 F. 2d, at 125. The trial judge made no findings. We have therefore examined the evidence on the question in the light of what was said in Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U. S. 525, 531-532: “. . . [AJmounts [for future maintenance should be such] as may be needful in the immediate future for the maintenance and cure of a kind and for a period which can be definitely ascertained.” We agree that the evidence provides no support under that test for the award of three years’ future maintenance.
We affirm as respects maintenance but otherwise reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Since other grounds of reversal urged by the respondent were not reached by that court, the case is remanded to it for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
41 Stat. 1007, 46 U. S. C. § 688.
The majority quoted from Martin v. United Fruit Co., 272 F. 2d 347, as follows: “ 'Finally, we reject the plaintiff’s contention that the trial court committed error in not permitting the jury to determine whether the placement of the hinge at the bottom of the dead-light was an improper method of ship construction so as to make the vessel unseaworthy. Surely this is a technical matter in which an expert knowledge of nautical architecture is required in order to form an intelligent judgment. Since no expert testimony was introduced, it was correct- to exclude this matter from the jury’s consideration.’ ” 293 F. 2d, at 123. The majority also quoted from Fatovic v. Nederlandsch-Ameridaansche Stoomvaart, Maatschappij, 275 F. 2d 188, in which the question was whether a stopping arrangement could feasibly be made part of a ton-and-a-half boom to keep it from swinging freely: “ 'In any event, the question was one of nautical architecture about which jurors lack the knowledge to form an intelligent judgment in the absence of expert testimony. Martin .... Since there was no expert testimony on the matter, it should not have been submitted to the jury.’ ” 293 F. 2d, at 123-124. Whatever may have required that the jury have the aid of expert testimony in those cases, no showing is made of the necessity here.
Compare Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Watson, 190 U. S. 287, 290, in which there may have been peculiar difficulties impeding installation of any truly effective safety device.
27 Stat. 531, 45 U. S. C. § 4.
Although it was later held that the Safety Appliance Act has no room for the doctrine of equivalent, substitute devices, St. Joseph & Grand Island R. Co. v. Moore, 243 U. S. 311, the authority of Spokane on jury competence is unimpaired.
The value of an expert’s testimony to explain what the best safety device might be is clear, but the question here is simply whether some such device should have been provided. Zinnel v. United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp., 10 F. 2d 47, 48. Nor would expert testimony about customary equippage be essential, Pure Oil Co. v. Snipes, 293 F. 2d 60, 71; nor, even if offered, would it have concluded the questions of unseaworthiness or negligence. Wabash R. Co. v. McDaniels, 107 U. S. 454, 460-461; Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Richardson, 91 U. S. 454, 469-470; The T. J. Hooper, 60 F. 2d 737; Kennair v. Mississippi Shipping Co., 197 F. 2d 605; June T., Inc., v. King, 290 F. 2d 404.
Although the law favors the aid of experts if the problem is not one “upon which the lay or uneducated mind is capable of forming a judgment,” Milwaukee & St. P. R. Co. v. Kellogg, 94 U. S. 469, 472, if the matter is only arguably beyond common experience, expert testimony will be admitted with care. The rule reflects the consideration of avoidance of unnecessarily prolonged trials and attendant expense and confusion. Winans v. New York & Erie R. Co., 21 How. 88, 100-101; and see Thorn v. Worthing Skating Rink Co. (1876), reported in Plimpton v. Spiller, 6 Ch. D. 412, footnote at 415-418 (1877).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 involves a custody dispute between the mother and father of a minor child. Their dispute has reached this Court because the state courts of Florida and Georgia have reached conflicting results in assigning custody of the child.
On March 8, 1979, petitioner, the mother, filed an action in Florida state court seeking custody of her son. On April 18, 1979, the Florida court entered a judgment granting her custody. On March 23., 1979, respondent, the father, filed an action in Georgia state court also seeking custody. On June 21, 1979, he was awarded custody by the Georgia court. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed that decision. 245 Ga. 650, 266 S. E. 2d 463.
The mother then filed a petition for writ of certiorari in this Court, raising just one question: “Does Article IV, § 1 of the United States Constitution, demand that Georgia . . . give full faith and credit to a Florida decree rendered immediately prior to Georgia’s acceptance of unqualified jurisdiction?” Petitioner alleged that she had properly raised this federal question in the Georgia courts. Respondent filed a brief in opposition to the petition for certiorari in which he argued that the Full Faith and Credit Clause must give way to the “best interests” of the child in a child custody proceeding. At no point in his brief in opposition did respondent dispute petitioner’s contention that the federal issue had been properly raised below, nor did respondent contend that there was some other jurisdictional bar that would prevent this Court from reaching the question raised in the petition.
Under our Rule 19.1, we no longer require, and in fact disfavor, the filing of the lower court record prior to action by this Court on a petition for certiorari. We are, therefore, largely dependent upon the assertions made by the parties as to what that record will demonstrate concerning the manner in which a federal question was raised below. Because petitioner forthrightly asserted that the federal question had been raised and this assertion was not disputed by respondent, we assumed that there would be no jurisdictional problem in reaching the issue raised by the petition, and we granted certiorari. 449 U. S. 819. It has become clear, however, that the federal question was not raised below and that we are without jurisdiction in this case. We must therefore dismiss without reaching the merits.
Because this case comes to this Court from a state court, the relevant jurisdictional statute is 28 U. S. C. § 1257. As applied to the circumstances of this case, that statute requires that in the state courts petitioner have “specially set up or claimed under the Constitution . . . of . . . the United States” that right which she now seeks to have this Court enforce. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3). Similarly our Rule 21.1 (h) requires the petitioner to “specify the stage in the proceedings, both in the court of the first instance and in the appellate court, at which the federal questions sought to be reviewed were raised; the method or manner of raising them and the way in which they were passed upon by the court.” Our examination of the record convinces us that petitioner failed properly to raise or preserve a claim under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution in the Georgia courts.
We note first that nowhere in the opinion of the Georgia Supreme Court is any federal question mentioned, let alone expressly passed upon. Nor is any federal issue mentioned by the dissenting opinion in that court. This Court has frequently stated that when “the highest state court has failed to pass upon a federal question, it will be assumed that the omission was due to want of proper presentation in the state courts, unless the aggrieved party in this Court can affirmatively show the contrary.” Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 582 (1969); see also Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U. S. 40, 50, n. 11 (1974); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284, 290, n. 3 (1973); Bailey v. Anderson, 326 U. S. 203, 206-207 (1945). Petitioner argues that the record of this case rebuts this assumption because it demonstrates that she did raise the federal question. Therefore, in her view the State Supreme Court must be understood as having implicitly rejected her federal claim.
Although petitioner did use the phrase “full faith and credit” at several points in the proceedings below, nowhere did she cite to the Federal Constitution or to any cases relying on the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution. In her amended motion to dismiss in the Georgia trial court, petitioner added the following contention: “Plaintiff herein continues to act contrary to the order of the Superior Court of Berrine County, entered September 22, 1977, and also is acting in violation of the April 18, 1979, order of the circuit court of Alachua County, Florida . . . which order should be accorded full faith and credit by this court, as it was.made pursuant to relevant Florida law, as stated above.” Also, in petitioner’s enumeration of errors to the Georgia Supreme Court, she stated that “the [c]ourt erred in failing to find a Florida decree of April 18, 1979, a valid order in a prior pending action, give such full faith and credit, enforce it by ordering Plaintiff to comply with it in all respects, and dismiss this action.”
It is a long-settled rule that the jurisdiction of this Court to re-examine the final judgment of a state court can arise only if the record as a whole shows either expressly or by clear implication that the federal claim was adequately pre-sen ted in the state system. New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63, 67 (1928); Oxley Stave Co. v. Butler County, 166 U. S. 648, 655 (1897). Petitioner argues that since the Georgia Constitution has no full faith and credit clause, there can be no doubt that the above references in the record were to the Federal Constitution and therefore that her federal claim was properly presented. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4. We are unpersuaded. In fact, we find it far more likely that petitioner was referring to state law.
The Georgia Supreme Court understood this case to concern primarily the requirements of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act: “This case calls for an interpretation of certain provisions of Georgia’s Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, Code Ann. § 74-501, et seq.” That Act has been adopted by both Georgia and Florida. Section 74-514 of that Act, as codified by Georgia, states:
“The courts of this State shall recognize and enforce an initial or modification decree of a court of another state which had assumed jurisdiction under statutory provisions substantially in accordance with this Chapter, or which was made under factual circumstances meeting the jurisdictional standards of the Chapter, so long as this decree has not been modified in accordance with jurisdictional standards substantially similar to those of this Chapter.” Ga. Code § 74^514 (1979).
Interpreting the meaning of this section is obviously a matter of Georgia state law, but a litigant could plausibly refer to it as a statutory full faith and credit requirement. The record supports the view that it was so understood in this case, by both the courts and the parties.
At the trial court hearing, petitioner discussed the Florida decree but did not invoke the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution. Rather, petitioner argued that in failing to make the Georgia court aware of the previous decree, respondent had violated the terms of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act: “[W]hile all this was going on in Florida, [respondent] turned right around and filed an action here, never informed the [c]ourt here that he had done it; never made any of the disclosures that he’s supposed to make under Georgia law [the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act], and never made any response to that whatsoever.” Tr. 8. The appellate briefs of the parties to the Georgia Supreme Court similarly argued the application of the Act to the facts of this case. As noted above, the State Supreme Court apparently did not believe that any federal issue was presented. Finally, petitioner did not claim in her petition for rehearing before the Georgia Supreme Court that the court’s failure to reach the federal claim, which petitioner now contends was raised before that court, was error. She did, however, argue that the failure of the Georgia courts to dismiss the action was error under the Act.
We cannot conclude on this record that petitioner raised the federal claim that she now presents to this Court at any point in the state-court proceedings. Thus, we confront in this case the same problem that arose in Cardinale v. Louisiana, 394 U. S. 437, 438 (1969): “Although certiorari was granted to consider this question, . . . the sole federal question argued here has never been raised, preserved, or passed upon in the state courts below.” Citing a long history of cases, we stated there that “[t]he Court has consistently refused to decide federal constitutional issues raised here for the first time on review of state court decisions.” Ibid. We have had several occasions to repeat this rule since then, Tacon v. Arizona, 410 U. S. 351, 352 (1973); Moore v. Illinois, 408 U. S. 786, 799 (1972); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 658, n. 10 (1972); Hill v. California, 401 U. S. 797 (1971); University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 283 (1978) (opinion of Powell, J.), and we see no reason to deviate from it now.
It is appropriate to emphasize again, see Cardinale v. Louisiana, supra, at 439, that there are powerful policy considerations underlying the statutory requirement and our own rule that the federal challenge to a state statute or other official act be presented first to the state courts. These considerations strongly indicate that we should apply this general principle with sufficient rigor to make reasonably certain that we entertain cases from state courts only where the record clearly shows that the federal issue has been properly raised below.
In the first place, although the States are sovereign entities, they are bound along with their officials, including their judges, by the Constitution and the federal statutory law. Principles of comity in our federal system require that the state courts be afforded the opportunity to perform their duty, which includes responding to attacks on state authority based on the federal law, or, if the litigation is wholly private, construing and applying the applicable federal requirements. As the Court has elsewhere observed, this principal of comity requires
“a proper respect for state functions, a recognition of the fact that the entire country is made up of a Union of separate state governments, and a continuance of the belief that the National Government will fare best if the States and their institutions are left free to perform their separate functions in their separate ways.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 44 (1971).
The principal of comity that stands behind the “properly-raised-federal-question” doctrine is similar to the principle that stands behind the exhaustion-of-state-remedies doctrine applicable to federal habeas corpus review of the constitutional claims of state prisoners. We have described the latter doctrine as one based on “federal-state comity,” Picard v. Connor, 404 U. S. 270, 275 (1971), and have described its function as reflecting
“ “an accommodation of our federal system designed to give the State the initial “opportunity to pass upon and correct” alleged violations of its prisoners’ federal rights.’ We have consistently adhered to this federal policy, for 'it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation.’ ” Ibid, (citations omitted).
There are also very practical reasons for insisting that federal issues be presented first in the state-court system. The requirement affords the parties the opportunity to develop the record necessary for adjudicating the issue. It permits the state courts to exercise their authority, which federal courts, including this one, do not have at least to the same extent, to construe state statutes so as to avoid or obviate federal constitutional challenges such as vagueness and over-breadth. The rule also insures that if there are independent and adequate state grounds that would pretermit the federal issue, they will be identified and acted upon in an authoritative manner. Finally, if the parties to state-court litigation are required to present their federal claims in the state tribunals in the first instance, those issues will be adjudicated in the state courts where necessary to dispose of the case. In most instances, such a judgment will be supported by an opinion that may well obviate any reason for our giving plenary consideration to the case. In terms of our own workload, this is a very substantial matter.
For all of these reasons, we, as well as litigants seeking to bring cases here from the state courts, should take care to comply with the jurisdictional statute and our rules. Although it would avoid uncertainty and the expenditure of much time and effort if litigants identified in the state courts precisely the provisions of the Federal Constitution or the federal statute on which they rely, we have not insisted on such inflexible specificity. The inevitable result is that at times there have been differences of opinion as to whether the state courts have been afforded a fair opportunity to address the federal question that is sought to be presented here. At the minimum, however, there should be no doubt from the record that a claim under a federal statute or the Federal. Constitution was presented in the state courts and that those courts were apprised of the nature or substance of the federal claim at the time and in the manner required by the state law. Otherwise, we cannot be sufficiently sure, when the state court whose judgment is being reviewed has not addressed the federal question that is later presented here, that the issue was actually presented and silently resolved by the state court against the petitioner or the appellant in this Court.
Because petitioner failed to raise her federal claim in the state proceedings and the Georgia Supreme Court failed to rule on a federal issue, we conclude that we are without jurisdiction in this case. Accordingly, the writ is dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
So ordered.
Respondent also argued that the Georgia court properly assumed jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. This is purely a question of state law not properly subject to review in this Court.
Because — as will be discussed infra — the federal issue was not addressed by the Georgia Supreme Court, it may have been better practice on our part to call for the record before acting on the petition for certiorari.
In petitioner’s brief to the Georgia Supreme Court she devoted one sentence to this issue: “In such circumstances, Appellant asserts, the decree entered in Florida should have been recognized as a final order subject to full faith and credit.” Brief for Respondent 3. This lower court brief is not a part of the record, but even if it were it would not suffice to establish that petitioner’s claim was based on the Federal Constitution.
Even if, as a matter of federal law, petitioner had properly raised her federal question, we might still confront here an independent state procedural ground barring our consideration of the federal issue. Rule 45 of the Rules of the Georgia Supreme Court states: “Any enumerated error which is not supported by argument or citation of authority shall be deemed abandoned.” Ga. Code §2A-4545 (Supp. 1980). The Georgia court has held that failure to include citations of authority to support enumerated errors will bar review of those errors in the State Supreme Court. Watts v. Mitchell, 227 Ga. 247, 179 S. E. 2d 774 (1971). The Georgia Supreme Court failed to discuss or even mention petitioner’s full faith and credit claim. Petitioner has not demonstrated that the failure of the Georgia Supreme Court to reach the federal issue was not grounded on an application of this rule. Since we conclude that the federal claim was not properly presented, we need not reach any conclusion about application of this state-court rule.
See, e. g., Wood v. Georgia, 450 U. S. 261 (1981); Vachon v. New Hampshire, 414 U. S. 478 (1974); Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U. S. 454 (1960); Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63 (1928).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 |
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Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the trial at issue here, respondent was convicted of making material false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of a federal agency, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1001. The question presented is whether it was constitutional for the trial judge to refuse to submit the question of “materiality” to the jury.
I
In the 1980’s, respondent engaged in a number of real estate transactions financed by loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), an agency within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).. Respondent would purchase rental housing, renovate it, obtain an inflated appraisal, and sell it to a “straw buyer” (a friend or relative), for whom respondent would arrange an FHA-insured mortgage loan. Then, as prearranged, respondent would repurchase the property (at a small profit to the straw buyer) and assume the mortgage loan. Twenty-nine of these ventures went into default.
Respondent was charged by federal indictment with, among other things, multiple counts of making false statements on federal loan documents in violation of 18 U. S. C. §1001. Two of these counts charged that respondent had made false statements on HUD/FHA form 92800-5 by knowingly inflating the appraised value of the mortgaged property. The other false-statement counts charged that respondent had made misrepresentations on HUD/FHA form HUD-1, the settlement form used in closing the sales of the properties. Line 303 of this form requires disclosure of the closing costs to be paid or received by the borrower/buyer and the seller. The forms executed by respondent showed that the buyer was to pay some of the closing costs, whereas in fact he, the seller, had arranged to pay all of them. To prove the materiality of these false statements, the Government offered the testimony of several persons charged with administering FHA/HUD programs, who explained why the requested information was important.
At the close of the evidence, the United States District Court for the District of Montana instructed the jury that, to convict respondent, the Government was required to prove, inter alia, that the alleged false statements were material to the activities and decisions of HUD. But, the court further instructed, “[t]he issue of materiality ... is not submitted to you for your decision but rather is a matter for the decision of the court. You are instructed that the statements charged in the indictment are material statements.” App. 24, 29. The jury convicted respondent of the §1001 charges.
A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed these convictions because Circuit precedent dictated that materiality in a §1001 prosecution be decided by the jury. 997 F. 2d 1267 (1993). On rehearing en banc, the Court of Appeals stood by this precedent. It held that taking the question of materiality from the jury denied respondent a right guaranteed by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. 28 F. 3d 943 (1994). We granted certiorari. 513 U. S. 1071 (1995).
II
Section 1001 of Title 18 provides:
“Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
It is uncontested that conviction under this provision requires that the statements be “material” to the Government inquiry, and that “materiality” is an element of the offense that the Government must prove. The parties also agree on the definition of “materiality”: The statement must have “a natural tendency to influence, or [be] capable of influencing, the decision of the decisionmaking body to which it was addressed.” Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759, 770 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted). The question for our resolution is whether respondent was entitled to have this element of the crime determined by the jury.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that no one will be deprived of liberty without “due process of law”; and the Sixth, that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” We have held that these provisions require criminal convictions to rest upon a jury determination that the defendant is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U. S. 275, 277-278 (1993). The right to have a jury make the ultimate determination of guilt has an impressive pedigree. Blackstone described “trial by jury” as requiring that “the truth of every accusation, whether preferred in the shape of indictment, information, or appeal, should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of [the defendant’s] equals and neighbors ....” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 343 (1769) (emphasis added). Justice Story wrote that the “trial by jury” guaranteed by the Constitution was “generally understood to mean ... a trial by a jury of twelve men, impartially selected, who must unanimously concur in the guilt of the accused before a legal conviction can be had” 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 541, n. 2 (4th ed. 1873) (emphasis added and deleted). This right was designed “to guard against a spirit of oppression and tyranny on the part of rulers,” and “was from very early times insisted on by our ancestors in the parent country, as the great bulwark of their civil and political- liberties.” Id., at 540-541. See also Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 151-154 (1968) (tracing the history of trial by jury).
Ill
Thus far, the resolution of the question before us seems simple. The Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to demand that a jury find him guilty of all the elements of the crime with which he is charged; one of the elements in the present case is materiality; respondent therefore had a right to have the jury decide materiality. To escape the force of this logic, the Government offers essentially three arguments. Having conceded the minor premise — that materiality is an element of the offense — the Government argues first, that the major premise is flawed; second, that (essentially) a page of history is worth a volume of logic, and uniform practice simply excludes the element of materiality from the syllogism; and third, that stare decisis requires the judgment here to be reversed.
A
As to the first, the Government’s position is that “materiality,” whether as a matter of logic or history, is a “legal” question, and that although we have sometimes spoken of “requiring the jury to decide ‘all the elements of a criminal offense,’ e. g., Estelle v. McGuire, [502 U. S. 62, 69] (1991); see Victor v. Nebraska, [511 U. S. 1, 5] (1994); Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 210 (1977), the principle actually applies to only the factual components of the essential elements.” Brief for United States 33 (emphasis added). The Government claims that this understanding of the jury’s role dates back to Sparf v. United States, 156 U. S. 51 (1895), and is reaffirmed by recent decisions of this Court.
By limiting the jury’s constitutionally prescribed role to “the factual components of the essential elements” the Government surely does not mean to concede that the jury must pass upon all elements that contain some factual component, for that test is amply met here. Deciding whether a statement is “material” requires the determination of at least two subsidiary questions of purely historical fact: (a) “what statement was made?” and (b) “what decision was the agency trying to make?” The ultimate question: (c) “whether the statement was material to the decision,” requires applying the legal standard of materiality (quoted above) to these historical facts. What the Government apparently argues is that the Constitution requires only that (a) and (b) be determined by the jury, and that (c) may be determined by the judge. We see two difficulties with this. First, the application-of-legal-standard-to-fact sort of question posed by (c), commonly called a “mixed question of law and fact,” has typically been resolved by juries. See J. Thayer, Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at Common Law 194, 249-250 (1898). Indeed, our cases have recognized in other contexts that the materiality inquiry, involving as it does “delicate assessments of the inferences a ‘reasonable [decisionmaker]’ would draw from a given set of facts and the significance of those inferences to him,... [is] peculiarly on[e] for the trier of fact.” TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426 U. S. 438, 450 (1976) (securities fraud); McLanahan v. Universal Ins. Co., 1 Pet. 170, 188-189, 191 (1828) (materiality of false statements in insurance applications).
The second difficulty with the Government’s position is that it has absolutely no historical support. If it were true, the lawbooks would be full of cases, regarding materiality and innumerable other “mixed-law-and-fact” issues, in which the criminal jury was required to come forth with “findings of fact” pertaining to each of the essential elements, leaving it to the judge to apply the law to those facts and render the ultimate verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty.” We know of no such case. Juries at the time of the framing could not be forced to produce mere “factual findings,” but were entitled to deliver a general verdict pronouncing the defendant’s guilt or innocence. Morgan, A Brief History of Special Verdicts and Special Interrogatories, 32 Yale L. J. 575, 591 (1922). See also G. Clementson, Special Verdicts and Special Findings by Juries 49 (1905); Alschuler & Deiss, A Brief History of the Criminal Jury in the United States, 61 U. Chi. L. Rev. 867, 912-913 (1994). Justice Chase’s defense to one of the charges in his 1805 impeachment trial was that “he well knows, that it is the right of juries in criminal cases, to give a general verdict of acquittal, which cannot be set aside on account of its being contrary to law, and that hence results the power of juries, to decide on the law as well as on the facts, in all criminal cases. This power he holds to be a sacred part of our legal privileges . . . .” IS. Smith & T. Lloyd, Trial of Samuel Chase 34 (1805).
Sparf, supra, the case on which the Government relies, had nothing to do with the issue before us here. The question there was whether the jury could be deprived of the power to determine, not only historical facts, not only mixed questions of fact and law, but pure questions of law in a criminal case. As the foregoing quotation from Justice Chase suggests, many thought the jury had such power. See generally Alschuler & Deiss, supra, at 902-916. We decided that it did not. In criminal cases, as in civil, we held, the judge must be permitted to instruct the jury on the law and to insist that the jury follow his instructions. 156 U. S., at 105-106. But our decision in no way undermined the historical and constitutionally guaranteed right of criminal defendants to demand that the jury decide guilt or innocence on every issue, which includes application of the law to the facts. To the contrary, Justice Harlan, writing for the Court, explained the many judicial assertions of the jury’s right to determine both law and fact as expressions of “the principle, that when the question is compounded of law and fact, a general verdict, ex necessitate, disposes of the case in hand, both as to law and fact.” Id., at 90 (emphasis in original). He gave as an example the 1807 treason trial of Aaron Burr in which Chief Justice Marshall charged the jury that “ ‘levying war is an act compounded of law and fact; of which the jury, aided by the court must judge. . . . [And] hav[ing] now heard the opinion of the court on the law of the case[,3 [t]hey will apply that law to the facts, and will find a verdict of guilty or not guilty as their own consciences may direct.’ ” Id., at 67 (quoting 2 Burr’s Trial 548, 550 (D. Robertson ed. 1875)) (emphasis in original). Other expressions of the same principle abound. See United States v. Battiste, 24 F. Cas. 1042, 1043 (No. 14,545) (CC Mass. 1835) (Story, J., sitting as Circuit Justice) (the jury’s general verdict is “necessarily compounded of [both] law and fact”). As Thayer wrote at the end of the 19th century: “From the beginning ... it was perceived that any general verdict, such as . . . not guilty, involved a conclusion of law, and that the jury did, in a sense, in such cases answer a question of law.” Thayer, supra, at 253.
The more modern authorities the Government cites also do not support its concept of the criminal jury as mere fact-finder. Although each contains language discussing the jury’s role as factfinder, see Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U. S. 275 (1993); Court of Ulster Cty. v. Allen, 442 U. S. 140, 156 (1979); Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 206 (1977); In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970), each also confirms that the jury’s constitutional responsibility is not merely to determine the facts, but to apply the law to those facts and draw the ultimate conclusion of guilt or innocence. The point is put with unmistakable clarity in Allen, which involved the constitutionality of statutory inferences and presumptions. Such devices, Allen said, can help
“the trier of fact to determine the existence of an element of the crime — that is, an ‘ultimate’ or ‘elemental’ fact — from the existence of one or more ‘evidentiary’ or ‘basic’ facts .... Nonetheless, in criminal cases, the ultimate test of any device’s constitutional validity in a given case remains constant: the device must not undermine the factfinder’s responsibility at trial, based on evidence adduced by the State, to find the ultimate facts beyond a reasonable doubt.” Allen, supra, at 156.
See also Sullivan, supra, at 277 (“The right [to jury trial] includes, of course, as its most important element, the right to have the jury, rather than the judge, reach the requisite finding of ‘guilty’”); Patterson, supra, at 204; Winship, supra, at 361, 363.
B
The Government next argues that, even if the jury is generally entitled to pass on all elements of a crime, there is a historical exception for materiality determinations in perjury prosecutions. We do not doubt that historical practice is relevant to what the Constitution means by such concepts as trial by jury, see Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 276-277 (1856); Holland v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 474, 481 (1990), and it is precisely historical practice that we have relied on in concluding that the jury must find all the elements. The existence of a unique historical exception to this principle — and an exception that reduces the power of the jury precisely when it is most important, i. e., in a prosecution not for harming another individual, but for offending against the Government itself— would be so extraordinary that the evidence for it would have to be convincing indeed. It is not so.
The practice of having courts determine the materiality of false statements in perjury prosecutions is neither as old, nor as uniform, as the Government suggests. In England, no pre-Revolution cases appear to have addressed the question, and the judges reached differing results when the issue finally arose in the mid-19th century. Compare Queen v. Lavey, 3 Car. & K. 26, 30, 175 Eng. Rep. 448, 450 (Q. B. 1850) (materiality is a jury question), Queen v. Goddard, 2 F. & F. 361, 175 Eng. Rep. 1096 (1861) (same), with Queen v. Courtney, 5 Ir. C. L. 434, 439 (Ct. Crim. App. 1856) (dictum) (materiality is a question for the judge); Queen v. Gibbon, Le. & Ca. 109, 113-114, 169 Eng. Rep. 1324, 1326 (1861) (same). It was not until 1911,120 years after the adoption of our Bill of Rights, that the rule the Government argues for was finally adopted in England — not by judicial decision but by Act of Parliament. See Perjury Act of 1911, § 1(6), 1 & 2 Geo. V, ch. 6.
Much more importantly, there was also no clear practice of having the judge determine the materiality question in this country at or near the time the Bill of Rights was adopted. The Government cites Power v. Price, 16 Wend. 450 (N. Y. 1836), as “[t]he earliest reported case on the question” whether “materiality in perjury prosecutions is a question for the court rather than the jury,” claiming that there “New York’s highest court held that a trial judge had correctly reserved the question of materiality to itself.” Brief for United States 18. Power held nothing even close to this. Power was not a perjury case; indeed, it was not even a criminal prosecution. It was a civil action in which Price sued Power for the slander of imputing to him the crime of perjury. The Court of Appeals held that Price did not need to prove the materiality of the alleged false statement in order to make out a prima facie case; but that Power could raise immateriality as an affirmative defense negating intent to impute perjury. 16 Wend., at 455-456. It then said that the trial court “was clearly right in instructing the jury that the testimony given on the former trial was proved to be material,” since “it merely decided a question of law, arising upon the proof of facts as to which there was no dispute or contrariety of testimony.” Id., at 456. But the courts’ power to resolve mixed-law-and-fact questions in civil cases is not at issue here; civil and criminal juries’ required roles are obviously not identical, or else there could be no directed verdicts for civil plaintiffs. The other early case relied upon by the Government, Steinman v. McWilliams, 6 Pa. 170, 177-178 (1847), another slander case, is inapt for the same reason. The earliest American case involving the point that we have been able to find places the Government itself in opposition to its position here. In United States v. Cowing, 25 F. Cas. 680, 681 (No. 14,880) (CC DC 1835), the United States argued that materiality in a perjury prosecution was a matter for the jury’s consideration, citing an unpublished decision of the General Court of Virginia. The federal court, however, did not address the issue.
State and federal cases appear not to have addressed the question until the latter part of the 19th century, at which time they do not display anything like the “virtual unanimity” claimed by the Government. Brief for United States 18. Some of the opinions cited by the Government, asserting that materiality was a question of “law” for the judge, appear to have involved either demurrers to the indictment or appeals from convictions in which the case for materiality was so weak that no reasonable juror could credit it — so that even on our view of the matter the case should not have gone to the jury. (The prosecution’s failure to provide minimal evidence of materiality, like its failure to provide minimal evidence of any other element, of course raises a question of “law” that warrants dismissal.) See, e. g., United States v. Shinn, 14 F. 447, 452 (CC Ore. 1882); United States v. Singleton, 54 F. 488, 489 (SD Ala. 1892); United States v. Bedgood, 49 F. 54, 60 (SD Ala. 1891); Nelson v. State, 32 Ark. Rep. 192, 195 (1877). And some of the other cited cases involve the convicted defendant’s claim that materiality should not have been decided by the jury, so that even if the issue was not one of the prosecution’s failure to make a threshold case, it did not arise in a context in which the defendant’s right to jury trial was at issue. See, e. g., Cothran v. State, 39 Miss. 541, 547 (1860); State v. Williams, 30 Mo. 364, 367 (1860); State v. Lewis, 10 Kan. 157, 160 (1872); People v. Lem You, 97 Cal. 224, 228-230, 32 P. 11, 12 (1893); Thompson v. People, 26 Colo. 496, 504, 59 P. 51, 54-55 (1899); Barnes v. State, 15 Ohio C. C. 14, 25-26 (1897).
Even assuming, however, that all the Government’s last-half-of-the-19th-century cases fully stand for the proposition that the defendant has no right to jury determination of materiality, there are cases that support the other view. See Commonwealth v. Grant, 116 Mass. 17, 20 (1874); Lawrence v. State, 2 Tex. Crim. 479, 483-484 (1877); State v. Spencer, 45 La. Ann. 1, 11-12, 12 So. 135, 138 (1893); Young v. People, 134 Ill. 37, 42, 24 N. E. 1070, 1071 (1890) (approving the treatment of materiality as “a mixed question of law and fact, and thus one for the jury”). At most there had developed a division of authority on the point, as the treatise writers of the period amply demonstrate. Bishop in 1872 took the position that “[p]ractically,... the whole subject is to be passed upon by the jury, under instructions from the judge, as involving, like most other cases, mixed questions of law and of fact.” 2 J. Bishop, Commentaries on Law of Criminal Procedure § 935, p. 508 (2d ed.). May’s 1881 treatise reported that “[w]hether materiality is a question of law for the court or of fact for a jury, is a point upon which the authorities are about equally divided.” J. May, Law of Crimes § 188, p. 205. Greenleaf, writing in 1883, sided with Bishop (“It seems that the materiality of the matter assigned is a question for the jury”), 3 S. Greenleaf, Law of Evidence § 195, p. 189, n. (b) (14th ed.) — but two editions later, in 1899, said that the question was one for the judge, 3 S. Greenleaf, Law of Evidence § 195, p. 196, n. 2 (16th ed.).
In sum, we find nothing like a consistent historical tradition supporting the proposition that the element of materiality in perjury prosecutions is to be decided by the judge. Since that proposition is contrary to the uniform general understanding (and we think the only understanding consistent with principle) that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require conviction by a jury of all elements of the crime, we must reject those cases that have embraced it. Though uniform postratification practice can shed light upon the meaning of an ambiguous constitutional provision, the practice here is not uniform, and the core meaning of the constitutional guarantees is unambiguous.
C
The Government’s final argument is that the principle of stare decisis requires that we deny respondent’s constitutional claim, citing our decision in Sinclair v. United States, 279 U. S. 263 (1929). That case is not controlling in the strictest sense, since it involved the assertion of a Sixth Amendment right to have the jury determine, not “materiality” under § 1001, but rather “pertinency” under that provision of Title 2 making it criminal contempt of Congress to refuse to answer a “question pertinent to [a] question under [congressional] inquiry,” Rev. Stat. § 102, 2 U. S. C. § 192. The two questions are similar, however, and the essential argument made by respondent here was made by appellant in that case, who sought reversal of his conviction because of the trial court’s failure to submit the question of pertinency to the jury: “[I]t has been said over and over again, that every essential ingredient of the crime must be proven to the satisfaction of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.” Brief for Appellant in Sinclair v. United States, O. T. 1928, No. 555, p. 109; 279 U. S., at 277 (argument for appellant). Though we did not address the constitutional argument explicitly, we held that the question of pertinency was “rightly decided by the court as one of law.” Id., at 298. And tying the case even closer to the present one was our dictum that pertinency “is not essentially different from . . . materiality of false testimony,” which “when an element in the crime of perjury, is one for the court.” Ibid. Thus, while Sinclair is not strictly controlling, it is fair to say that we cannot hold for respondent today while still adhering to the reasoning and the holding of that case.
But the reasoning of Sinclair has already been repudiated in a number of respects. The opinion rested upon the assumption that “pertinency” is a pure question of law — that is, it does “not depend upon the probative value of evidence.” Ibid. We contradicted that assumption in Deutch v. United States, 367 U. S. 456 (1961), reversing a conviction under § 192 because “the Government at the trial failed to carry its burden of proving the pertinence of the questions.” Id., at 469. Though it had introduced documentary and testimonial evidence “to show the subject of the subcommittee’s inquiry,” it had failed to provide evidence to support the conclusion that the petitioner’s false statement was pertinent to that subject.
Our holding in Sinclair rested also upon the assertion that “[i]t would be incongruous and contrary to well-established principles to leave the determination of [the] matter [of perti-nency] to a jury,” 279 U. S., at 299, citing ICC v. Brimson, 154 U. S. 447, 489 (1894), and Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U. S. 135 (1920). Both the cases cited to support that assertion have since been repudiated. Brimson’s holding that no right to jury trial attaches to criminal contempt proceedings was overruled in Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194, 198-200 (1968). Horning’s holding that it was harmless error, if error at all, for a trial judge effectively to order the jury to convict, see 254 U. S., at 138, has been proved an unfortunate anomaly in light of subsequent cases. See Quercia v. United States, 289 U. S. 466, 468, 472 (1933); Bihn v. United States, 328 U. S. 633, 637-639 (1946).
Other reasoning in Sinclair, not yet repudiated, we repudiate now. It said that the question of pertinency “may be likened to those concerning relevancy at the trial of issues in court,” which “is uniformly held [to be] a question of law” for the court. 279 U. S., at 298. But how relevancy is treated for purposes of determining the admissibility of evidence says nothing about how relevancy should be treated when (like “pertinence” or “materiality”) it is made an element of a criminal offense. It is commonplace for the same mixed question of law and fact to be assigned to the court for one purpose, and to the jury for another. The question of probable cause to conduct a search, for example, is resolved by the judge when it arises in the context of a motion to suppress evidence obtained in the search; but by the jury when it is one of the elements of the crime of depriving a person of constitutional rights under color of law, see 18 U. S. C. §§241-242. Cf. United States v. McQueeney, 674 F. 2d 109, 114 (CA1 1982); United States v. Barker, 546 F. 2d 940, 947 (CADC 1976).
That leaves as the sole prop for Sinclair its reliance upon the unexamined proposition, never before endorsed by this Court, that materiality in perjury cases (which is analogous to pertinence in contempt cases) is a question of law for the judge. But just as there is nothing to support Sinclair except that proposition, there is, as we have seen, nothing to support that proposition except Sinclair. While this perfect circularity has a certain esthetic appeal, it has no logic. We do not minimize the role that stare decisis plays in our jurisprudence. See Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172 (1989). That role is somewhat reduced, however, in the case of a procedural rule such as this, which does not serve as a guide to lawful behavior. See Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 828 (1991). It is reduced all the more when the rule is not only procedural but rests upon an interpretation of the Constitution. See ibid. And we think stare decisis cannot possibly be controlling when, in addition to those factors, the decision in question has been proved manifestly erroneous, and its underpinnings eroded, by subsequent decisions of this Court. Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U. S. 477, 480-481 (1989); Andrews v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 406 U. S. 320 (1972).
The Government also claims stare decisis benefit from our decision in Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759 (1988), which held that, in appellate review of a District Court (non-jury) denaturalization proceeding, the appellate court’s newly asserted standard of materiality could be applied to the facts by the appellate court itself, rather than requiring remand to the District Court for that application. Id., at 772. But as we have observed, the characterization of a mixed question of law and fact for one purpose does not govern its characterization for all purposes. It is hard to imagine questions more diverse than, on the one hand, whether an appellate court must remand to a district court for a determination of materiality in a denaturalization proceeding (Kungys) and, on the other hand, whether the Constitution requires the finding of the element of materiality in a criminal prosecution to be made by the jury (the present case). It can be argued that Kungys itself did not heed this advice, since it relied upon both our prior decision in Sinclair, see 485 U. S., at 772, and a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit holding that materiality in a § 1001 prosecution is a question of “ ‘law’ ” for the court, ibid. (quoting United States v. Abadi, 706 F. 2d 178, 180, cert. denied, 464 U. S. 821 (1983)). But the result in Kungys could be thought to follow a fortiori from the quite different cases of Sinclair and Abadi, whereas nonentitlement under the Sixth Amendment to a jury determination cannot possibly be thought to follow a fortiori from Kungys. In any event, Kungys assuredly did not involve an adjudication to which the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial attaches, see Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9 (1913), and hence had no reason to explore the constitutional ramifications of Sinclair and Abadi, as we do today. Whatever support it gave to the validity of those decisions was obiter dicta, and may properly be disregarded.
* * *
The Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, his guilt of every element of the crime with which he is charged. The trial judge’s refusal to allow the jury to pass on the “materiality” of Gaudin’s false statements infringed that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The “beyond a reasonable doubt” point is not directly at issue in the present case, since it is unclear what standard of proof the District Court applied in making its determination of materiality, and since the Ninth Circuit’s reversal of the District Court’s judgment did not rest upon the standard used but upon the failure to submit the question to the jury. It is worth noting, however, that some courts which regard materiality as a “legal” question for the judge do not require the higher burden of proof. See, e. g., United States v. Gribben, 984 F. 2d 47, 51 (CA2 1993); United States v. Chandler, 752 F. 2d 1148, 1151 (CA6 1985).
We held in Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970), that the 12-person requirement to which Story referred is not an indispensable component of the right to trial by jury. But in so doing we emphasized that the jury’s determination of ultimate guilt is indispensable. The “essential feature of a jury,” we said, is “the interposition between the accused and his accuser of the commonsense judgment of a group of laymen . . . [in] that group’s determination of guilt or innocence.” Id., at 100. See also Apo- daca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404 (1972) (plurality opinion) (applying similar analysis to conclude that jury unanimity is not constitutionally required).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that a prison disciplinary hearing which forfeited “good time” credits of respondent John Real was conducted in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because there did not appear in the administrative record of that hearing a statement of reasons as to why the disciplinary board refused to allow respondent to call witnesses whom he had requested. Real v. Superintendent, Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Walpole, 390 Mass. 399, 456 N. E. 2d 1111 (1983). We granted certiorari, 469 U. S. 814 (1984), to review this judgment because it seemed to us to go further than our pronouncement on this subject in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974). While we agree with the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that prison officials at some point state their reason for refusing to call witnesses requested by an inmate at a disciplinary hearing, we disagree with that court that such reasons or support for reasons must be placed in writing or otherwise exist as a part of the administrative record at the disciplinary hearing. We vacate the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court, and remand the case to that court.
In 1981 respondent John Real was an inmate at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Walpole. In December of that year he was working in the prison metal shop and heard a commotion in an adjacent office. He entered the office and observed another prisoner fighting with a corrections officer. A second corrections officer attempted to break up the fight, and ordered respondent and other inmates who were watching to disperse immediately. Respondent did not depart, and another corrections officer escorted him to his cell.
One week later respondent was charged with three violations of prison regulations as a result of this imbroglio. He notified prison officials, on a form provided for that purpose, that he wished to call four witnesses at the hearing which would be held upon these charges: two fellow inmates, the charging officer, and the officer who was involved in the fight. A hearing was held on the charges in February 1982. At this hearing the charging officer appeared and testified against respondent, but the board declined to call the other witnesses requested by respondent. Respondent was advised of no reason for the denial of his request to call the other witnesses, and apparently whatever record there may be of this disciplinary proceeding does not indicate the board’s reason for declining to call the witnesses. The board found respondent guilty as charged, and after an administrative appeal in which penalties were reduced, respondent received the sanction of 25 days in isolation and the loss of 150 days of good-time credits.
Respondent challenged these sanctions by seeking a writ of habeas corpus in the Massachusetts trial court. That court sustained respondent’s claim that petitioner Joseph Ponte, a Superintendent of the M. C. I. at Walpole, had deprived him of that due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because no reasons whatsoever were advanced by petitioner in court as to why respondent was not allowed to call the requested witnesses at the hearing.
On appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, this judgment was affirmed but for different reasons. That court discussed our decision in Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, and noted that it “[l]eft unresolved . . . the question whether the Federal due process requirements impose a duty on the board to explain, in any fashion, at the hearing or later, why witnesses were not allowed to testify.” 390 Mass., at 405, 456 N. E. 2d, at 1115. The court concluded that there must be some support in the “administrative record” to justify a decision not to call witnesses, and that the administrative record in this case was barren of any such support. Because of its conclusion, the court declared that the Massachusetts regulations governing the presentation of proof in disciplinary hearings, Mass. Admin. Code, Tit. 103, §430.14 (1978) were unconstitutional as to this point, because those regulations did not require that the administrative record contain facts or reasons supporting the board’s denial of an inmate’s witness request. 390 Mass., at 405-407, 456 N. E. 2d, at 1116, citing Hayes v. Thompson, 637 F. 2d 483, 487-489 (CA7 1980).
Petitioner does not dispute that respondent possessed a “liberty” interest, by reason of the provisions of Massachusetts state law, affording him “good time” credits, an interest which could not be taken from him in a prison disciplinary hearing without the minimal safeguards afforded by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The touchstone of due process is freedom from arbitrary governmental action, Wolff, 418 U. S., at 558, but “[pjrison disciplinary proceedings are not part of a criminal prosecution, and the full panoply of rights due a defendant in such proceedings does not apply.” Id., at 556. Chief among the due process minima outlined in Wolff was the right of an inmate to call and present witnesses and documentary evidence in his defense before the disciplinary board. We noted in Wolff and repeated in Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U. S. 308 (1976), that ordinarily the right to present evidence is basic to a fair hearing, but the inmate’s right to present witnesses is necessarily circumscribed by the penological need to provide swift discipline in individual cases. This right is additionally circumscribed by the very real dangers in prison life which may result from violence or intimidation directed at either other inmates or staff. We described the right to call witnesses as subject to the “mutual accommodation between institutional needs and objectives and the provisions of the Constitution . . . .” Baxter, supra, at 321, citing Wolff, supra, at 556.
Thus the prisoner’s right to call witnesses and present evidence in disciplinary hearings could be denied if granting the request would be “unduly hazardous to institutional safety or correctional goals.” Wolff, supra, at 566; Baxter, supra, at 321. See also Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U. S. 5, 9, and n. 6 (1980). As we stated in Wolff:
“Prison officials must have the necessary discretion to keep the hearing within reasonable limits and to refuse to call witnesses that may create a risk of reprisal or undermine authority, as well as to limit access to other inmates to collect statements or to compile other documentary evidence. Although we do not prescribe it, it would be useful for the [disciplinary board] to state its reasons for refusing to call a witness, whether it be for irrelevance, lack of necessity, or the hazards presented in individual cases.” 418 U. S., at 566.
See Baxter, supra, at 321. Notwithstanding our suggestion that the board give reasons for denying an inmate’s witness request, nowhere in Wolff or Baxter did we require the disciplinary board to explain why it denied the prisoner’s request, nor did we require that those reasons otherwise appear in the administrative record.
Eleven years of experience since our decision in Wolff does not indicate to us any need to now “prescribe” as constitutional doctrine that the disciplinary board must state in writing at the time of the hearing its reasons for refusing to call a witness. Nor can we conclude that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment may only be satisfied if the administrative record contains support or reasons for the board’s refusal. We therefore disagree with the reasoning of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in this case. But we also disagree with petitioner’s intimation, Brief for Petitioner 53, that courts may only inquire into the reasons for denying witnesses when an inmate points to “substantial evidence” in the record that shows prison officials had ignored our requirements set forth in Wolff. We further disagree with petitioner’s contention that an inmate may not successfully challenge the board unless he can show a pattern or practice of refusing all witness requests. Nor do we agree with petitioner that “across-the-board” policies denying witness requests are invariably proper. Brief for Petitioner 53-55, n. 9.
The question is exactly that posed by the Supreme Judicial Court in its opinion: “whether the Federal due process requirements impose a duty on the board to explain, in any fashion, at the hearing or later, why witnesses were not allowed to testify.” 390 Mass., at 405, 456 N. E. 2d, at 1115. We think the answer to that question is that prison officials may be required to explain, in a limited manner, the reason why witnesses were not allowed to testify, but that they may do so either by making the explanation a part of the “administrative record” in the disciplinary proceeding, or by presenting testimony in court if the deprivation of a “liberty” interest is challenged because of that claimed defect in the hearing. In other words, the prison officials may choose to explain their decision at the hearing, or they may choose to explain it “later.” Explaining the decision at the hearing will of course not immunize prison officials from a subsequent court challenge to their decision, but so long as the reasons are logically related to preventing undue hazards to “institutional safety or correctional goals,” the explanation should meet the due process requirements as outlined in Wolff.
We have noted in Wolff, supra, and in Baxter, supra, that prison disciplinary hearings take place in tightly controlled environments peopled by those who have been unable to conduct themselves properly in a free society. Many of these persons have scant regard for property, life, or rules of order, Wolff, 418 U. S., at 561-562, and some might attempt to exploit the disciplinary process for their own ends. Id., at 563. The requirement that contemporaneous reasons for denying witnesses and evidence be given admittedly has some appeal, and it may commend itself to prison officials as a matter of choice: recollections of the event will be fresher at the moment, and it seems a more lawyerlike way to do things. But the primary business of prisons is the supervision of inmates, and it may well be that those charged with this responsibility feel that the additional administrative burdens which would be occasioned by such a requirement detract from the ability to perform the principal mission of the institution. While some might see an advantage in building up a sort of “common law of the prison” on this subject, others might prefer to deal with later court challenges on a case-by-case basis. We hold that the Constitution permits either approach.
But to hold that the Due Process Clause confers a circumscribed right on the inmate to call witnesses at a disciplinary hearing, and then conclude that no explanation need ever be vouched for the denial of that right, either in the disciplinary proceeding itself or if that proceeding be later challenged in court, would change an admittedly circumscribed right into a privilege conferred in the unreviewable discretion of the disciplinary board. We think our holding in Wolff meant something more than that. We recognized there that the right to call witnesses was a limited one, available to the inmate “when permitting him to do so will not be unduly hazardous to institutional safety or correctional goals.” Id., at 566. We further observed that “[p]rison officials must have the necessary discretion to keep the hearing within reasonable limits and to refuse to call witnesses that may create a risk of reprisal or undermine authority, as well as to limit, access to other inmates to collect statements or to compile other documentary evidence.” Ibid.
Given these significant limitations on an inmate’s right to call witnesses, and given our further observation in Wolff that “[w]e should not be too ready to exercise oversight and put aside the judgment of prison administrators,” ibid., it may be that a constitutional challenge to a disciplinary hearing such as respondent’s in this case will rarely, if ever, be successful. But the fact that success may be rare in such actions does not warrant adoption of petitioner’s position, which would in effect place the burden of proof on the inmate to show why the action of the prison officials in refusing to call witnesses was arbitrary or capricious. These reasons are almost by definition not available to the inmate; given the sort of prison conditions that may exist, there may be a sound basis for refusing to tell the inmate what the reasons for denying his witness request are.
Indeed, if prison security or similar paramount interests appear to require it, a court should allow at least in the first instance a prison official’s justification for refusal to call witnesses to be presented to the court in camera. But there is no reason for going further, and adding another weight to an already heavily weighted scale by requiring an inmate to produce evidence of which he will rarely be in possession, and of which the superintendent will almost always be in possession. See United States v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 355 U. S. 253, 256, n. 5 (1957); Campbell v. United States, 365 U. S. 85, 96 (1961); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 332 (1966).
Respondent contends that he is entitled to an affirmance even though we reject the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s holding that §340.14(6) is unconstitutional. Respondent argues that the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the trial court on two independent grounds: (1) the trial court’s simple finding that petitioner’s failure to rebut the allegations in respondent’s complaint entitled respondent to relief; and (2) the unconstitutionality of §340.14(6) because due process requires administrative record support for denial of witnesses. We think that the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed only on the second ground, and that is the issue for which we granted certiorari. This Court’s Rule 21.1(a); see also Rule 15.1(a). Respondent is of course entitled to urge affirmance of the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court on a ground not adopted by that court, but whether the Supreme Judicial Court would have affirmed the judgment of the trial court on the reasoning we set forth today is, we think, too problematical for us to decide. It is a question best left to that court.
The judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Powell took no part in the decision of this case.
Massachusetts Admin. Code, Tit. 103, § 430.14 (1978), provides in part:
“(4) If the inmate requests the presence of the reporting officer . . . the reporting officer shall attend the hearing except when the chairman determines in writing that the reporting officer is unavailable for prolonged period of time [sic] as a result of illness or other good cause. . . .
“(5) The inmate shall be allowed but shall not be compelled to make an oral statement or to present a written statement in his own defense or in mitigation of punishment.
“(6) The inmate shall be allowed to question the reporting officer, to question other witnesses, to call witnesses in his defense, or to present other evidence, when permitting him to do so will not be unduly hazardous to institutional safety or correctional goals. The factors that the chairman may consider when ruling on an inmate’s questioning of witnesses, offer of other evidence, or request to call witnesses shall include, but shall not be limited to, the following:
“(a) Relevance
“(b) Cumulative testimony
“(c) Necessity
“(d) Hazards presented by an individual case.
“(7) the inmate shall be allowed to present relevant, non-cumulative documentary evidence in his defense.”
Justice MARSHALL’S dissent maintains that a rule requiring contemporaneous reasons which are not made available to the prisoner is the only-one permitted by the United States Constitution. If indeed this rule is as beneficial to all concerned as the dissent claims, we may eventually see it universally adopted without the necessity of constitutionally commanding it. But we think that, as we indicate in this opinion, there are significant arguments in favor of allowing a State to follow either the approach advocated by the dissent or the approach described in this opinion. While the dissent seems to criticize our alternative as one which forces inmates to go to court to learn the basis for witness denials, it is difficult if not impossible to see how inmates under the dissent’s approach which requires contemporaneous reasons kept under seal would be able to get these reasons without the same sort of court proceeding.
We think the dissent’s approach would very likely lead to an increasing need for lawyers attached to each prison in order to advise the correctional officials; words such as “irrelevant” or “cumulative,” offered by the dissent as possible bases for contemporary denials, post, at 517, are essentially lawyer’s words. We think that the process of preparing contemporary written reasons for exclusion of testimony is very likely to require more formality and structure than a practice which requires bringing in an attorney only when a lawsuit is filed. The former may be ideally suited to a heavily populated State of relatively small area such as Massachusetts, but the latter may be more desirable in a sparsely populated State of large area such as Nevada. We think the Constitution permits either alternative.
The record in this case is exceedingly thin, and shows that some confusion existed at trial concerning respondent’s habeas petition seeking review of the February 1982 disciplinary hearing and another unrelated petition arising out of a 1980 disciplinary hearing. The trial court also apparently granted incomplete relief, which was only corrected 10 months later by another judge who then stayed the relief. Moreover, the Supreme Judicial Court did not just affirm the trial court, but remanded to permit petitioner, at his option, to conduct another disciplinary hearing. Given the state of this record, we think it wise to remand for further proceedings.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Like many other States, Connecticut requires nonresidents of the State who are enrolled in the state university system to pay tuition and other fees at higher rates than residents of the State who are so enrolled. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 10-329 (b) (Supp. 1969), as amended by Public Act No. 5, § 122 (June Sess. 1971). The constitutional validity of that requirement is not at issue in the case before us. What is at issue here is Connecticut’s statutory definition of residents and nonresidents for purposes of the above provision.
Section 126 (a) (2) of Public Act No. 5, amending § 10-329 (b), provides that an unmarried student shall be classified as a nonresident, or “out of state,” student if his “legal address for any part of the one-year period immediately prior to his application for admission at a constituent unit of the state system of higher education was outside of Connecticut.” With respect to married students, § 126 (a)(3) of the Act provides that such a student, if living with his spouse, shall be classified as “out of state” if his “legal address at the time of his application for admission to- such a unit was outside of Connecticut.” These classifications are permanent and irrebuttable for the whole time that the student remains at the university, since § 126 (a) (5) of the Act commands that: “The status of a student, as established at the time of his application for admission at a constituent unit of the state system of higher education under the provisions of this section, shall be his status for the entire period of his attendance at such constituent unit.” The present case concerns the constitutional validity of this conclusive and unchangeable presumption of nonresident status from the fact that, at the time of application for admission, the student, if married, was then living outside of Connecticut, or, if single, had lived outside the State at some point during the preceding year.
One appellee, Margaret Marsh Kline, is an undergraduate student at the University of Connecticut. In May 1971, while attending college in California, she became engaged to Peter Kline, a lifelong Connecticut resident. Because the Klines wished to reside in Connecticut after their marriage, Mrs. Kline applied to the University of Connecticut from California. In late May, she was accepted and informed by the University that she would be considered an in-state student. On June 26, 1971, the appellee and Peter Kline were married in California, and soon thereafter took up residence in Storrs, Connecticut, where they have established a permanent home. Mrs. Kline has a Connecticut driver’s license, her car is registered in Connecticut, and she is registered as a Connecticut voter. In July 1971, Public Act No. 5 went into effect. Accordingly, the appellant, Director of Admissions at the University of Connecticut, irreversibly classified Mrs. Kline as an out-of-state student, pursuant to § 126 (a) (3) of that Act. As a consequence, she was required to pay $150 tuition and a $200 nonresident fee for the first semester, whereas a student classified as a Connecticut resident paid no tuition; and upon registration for the second semester, she was required to pay $425 tuition plus another $200 nonresident fee, while a student classified as a Connecticut resident paid only $175 tuition.
The other appellee, Patricia Catapano, is an unmarried graduate student at the same University. She applied for admission from Ohio in January 1971, and was accepted in February of that year. In August 1971, she moved her residence from Ohio to Connecticut and registered as a full-time student at the University. Like Mrs. Kline, she has a Connecticut driver’s license, her car is registered in Connecticut, and she is registered as a Connecticut voter. Pursuant to § 126 (a) (2) of the 1971 Act, the appellant classified her permanently as an out-of-state student. Consequently, she, too, was required to pay $150 tuition and a $200 nonresident fee for her first semester, and $425 tuition plus a $200 nonresident fee for her second semester.
Appellees then brought suit in the District Court pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, contending that they were bona fide residents of Connecticut, and that § 126 of Public Act No. 5, under which they were classified as nonresidents for purposes of their tuition and fees, infringed their rights to due process of law and equal protection of the laws, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. After the convening of a three-judge District Court, that court unanimously held §§ 126 (a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(5) unconstitutional, as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, and enjoined the appellant from enforcing those sections. 346 F. Supp. 526 (1972). The court also found that before the commencement of the spring semester in 1972, each appellee was a bona fide resident of Connecticut; and it accordingly ordered that the appellant refund to each of them the amount of tuition and fees paid in excess of the amount paid by resident students for that semester. On December 4, 1972, we noted probable jurisdiction of this appeal. 409 U. S. 1036.
The appellees do not challenge, nor did the District Court invalidate, the option of the State to classify students as resident and nonresident students, thereby obligating nonresident students to pay higher tuition and fees than do bona fide residents. The State’s right to make such a classification is unquestioned here. Rather, the appellees attack Connecticut’s irreversible and irre-buttable statutory presumption that because a student’s legal address was outside the State at the time of his application for admission or at some point during the preceding year, he remains a nonresident for as long as he is a student there. This conclusive presumption, they say, is invalid in that it allows the State to classify as “out-of-state students” those who are, in fact, bona fide residents of the State. The appellees claim that they have a constitutional right to controvert that presumption of nonresidence by presenting evidence that they are bona fide residents of Connecticut. The District Court agreed: “Assuming that it is permissible for the state to impose a heavier burden of tuition and fees on non-resident than on resident students, the state may not classify as 'out of state students' those who do not belong in that class.” 346 F. Supp., at 528. We affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Statutes creating permanent irrebuttable presumptions have long been disfavored under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U. S. 312 (1932), the Court was faced with a constitutional challenge to a federal statute that created a conclusive presumption that gifts made within two years prior to the donor's death were made in contemplation of death, thus requiring payment by his estate of a higher tax. In holding that this irrefutable assumption was so arbitrary and unreasonable as to deprive the taxpayer of his property without due process of law, the Court stated that it had “held more than once that a statute creating a presumption which operates to deny a fair opportunity to rebut it violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id., at 329. See, e. g., Schlesinger v. Wisconsin, 270 U. S. 230 (1926); Hoeper v. Tax Comm’n, 284 U. S. 206 (1931). See also Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, 468-469 (1943); Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6, 29-53 (1969). Cf. Turner v. United States, 396 U. S. 398, 418-419 (1970).
The more recent case of Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535 (1971), involved a Georgia statute which provided that if an uninsured motorist was involved in an accident and could not post security for the amount of damages claimed, his driver’s license must be suspended without any hearing on the question of fault or responsibility. The Court held that since the State purported to be concerned with fault in suspending a driver’s license, it could not, consistent with procedural due process, conclusively presume fault from the fact that the uninsured motorist was involved in an accident, and could not, therefore, suspend his driver’s license without a hearing on that crucial factor.
Likewise, in Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645 (1972), the Court struck down, as violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Illinois’ irrebut-table statutory presumption that all unmarried fathers are unqualified to raise their children. Because of that presumption, the statute required the State, upon the death of the mother, to take custody of all such illegitimate children, without providing any hearing on the father’s parental fitness. It may be, the Court said, “that most unmarried fathers are unsuitable and neglectful parents. . . . But all unmarried fathers are not in this category; some are wholly suited to have custody of their children.” Id., at 654. Hence, the Court held that the State could not conclusively presume that any individual unmarried father was unfit to raise his children; rather, it was required by the Due Process Clause to provide a hearing on that issue. According to the Court, Illinois “insists on presuming rather than proving Stanley’s unfitness solely because it is more convenient to presume than to prove. Under the Due Process Clause that advantage is insufficient to justify refusing a father a hearing . . . .” Id., at 658.
The same considerations obtain here. It may be that most applicants to Connecticut’s university system who apply from outside the State or within a year of living out of State have no real intention of becoming Connecticut residents and will never do so. But it is clear that not all of the applicants from out of State inevitably fall in this category. Indeed, in the present case, both appellees possess many of the indicia of Connecticut residency, such as year-round Connecticut homes, Connecticut drivers’ licenses, car registrations, voter registrations, etc.; and both were found by the District Court to have become bona fide residents of Connecticut before the 1972 spring semester. Yet, under the State’s statutory scheme, neither was permitted any opportunity to demonstrate the bona fides of her Connecticut residency for tuition purposes, and neither will ever have such an opportunity in the future so long as she remains a student.
The State proffers three reasons to justify that permanent irrebuttable presumption. The first is that the State has a valid interest in equalizing the cost of public higher education between Connecticut residents and nonresidents, and that by freezing a student’s residential status as of the time he applies, the State ensures that its bona fide in-state students will receive their full subsidy. The State’s objective of cost equalization between bona fide residents and nonresidents may well be legitimate, but basing the bona fides of residency solely on where a student lived when he applied for admission to the University is using a criterion wholly unrelated to that objective. As is evident from the situation of the appellees, a student may be a bona fide resident of Connecticut even though he applied to the University from out of State. Thus, Connecticut’s conclusive presumption of nonresidence, instead of ensuring that only its bona fide residents receive their full subsidy, ensures that certain of its bona fide residents, such as the ap-pellees, do not receive their full subsidy, and can never do so while they remain students.
Second, the State argues that even if a student who applied to the University from out of State may at some point become a bona fide resident of Connecticut, the State can nonetheless reasonably decide to favor with the lower rates only its established residents, whose past tax contributions to the State have been higher. According to the State, the fact that established residents or their parents have supported the State in the past justifies the conclusion that applicants from out of State — who are presumed not to be such established residents — may be denied the lower rates, even if they have become bona fide residents.
Connecticut’s statutory scheme, however, makes no distinction on its face between established residents and new residents. Rather, through § 122, the State purports to distinguish, for tuition purposes, between residents and nonresidents by granting the lower rates to the former and denying them to the latter. In these circumstances, the State cannot now seek to justify its classification of certain bona fide residents as nonresidents, on the basis that their Connecticut residency is “new.”
Moreover, § 126 would not always operate to effectuate the State’s asserted interest. For it is not at all clear that the conclusive presumption required by that section prevents only “new” residents, rather than “established” residents, from obtaining the lower tuition rates. For example, a student whose parents were lifelong residents of Connecticut, but who went to college at Harvard, established a legal address there, and applied to the University of Connecticut’s graduate school during his senior year, would be permanently classified as an “out of state student,” despite his family’s status as “established” residents of Connecticut. Similarly, the appellee Kline may herself be a “new” resident of Connecticut; but her husband is an established, lifelong resident, whose past tax contribution to the State, under the State’s theory, should entitle his family to the lower rates. Conversely, the State makes no attempt to ensure that those students to whom it does grant in-state status are “established” residents of Connecticut. Any married person, for instance, who moves to Connecticut before applying to the University would be considered a Connecticut resident, even if he has lived there only one day. Thus, even in terms of the State’s own asserted interest in favoring established residents over new residents, the provisions of § 126 are so arbitrary as to constitute a denial of due process of law.
The third ground advanced to justify § 126 is that it provides a degree of administrative certainty. The State points to its interest in preventing out-of-state students from coming to Connecticut solely to obtain an education and then claiming Connecticut residence in order to secure the lower tuition and fees. The irrebutta-ble presumption, the State contends, makes it easier to separate out students who come to the State solely for its educational facilities from true Connecticut residents, by eliminating the need for an individual determination of the bona fides of a person who lived out of State at the time of his application. Such an individual determination, it is said, would not only be an expensive administrative burden, but would also be very difficult to make, since it is hard to evaluate when bona fide residency exists. Without the conclusive presumption, the State argues, it would be almost impossible to prevent out-of-state students from claiming a Connecticut residence merely to obtain the lower rates.
In Stanley v. Illinois, supra, however, the Court stated that “the Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency.” 405 U. S., at 656. The State’s interest in administrative ease and certainty cannot, in and of itself, save the conclusive presumption from invalidity under the Due Process Clause where there are other reasonable and practicable means of establishing the pertinent facts on which the State’s objective is premised. In the situation before us, reasonable alternative means for determining bona fide residence are available. Indeed, one such method has already been adopted by Connecticut; after § 126 was invalidated by the District Court, the State established reasonable criteria for evaluating bona fide residence for purposes of tuition and fees at its university system. These criteria, while perhaps more burdensome to apply than an irre-buttable presumption, are certainly sufficient to prevent abuse of the lower, in-state rates by students who come to Connecticut solely to obtain an education.
In sum, since Connecticut purports to be concerned with residency in allocating the rates for tuition and fees in its university system, it is forbidden by the Due Process Clause to deny an individual the resident rates on the basis of a permanent and irrebuttable presumption of nonresidence, when that presumption is not necessarily or universally true in fact, and when the State has reasonable alternative means of making the crucial determination. Rather, standards of due process require that the State allow such an individual the opportunity to present evidence showing that he is a bona fide resident entitled to the in-state rates. Since § 126 precluded the appellees from ever rebutting the presumption that they were nonresidents of Connecticut, that statute operated to deprive them of a significant amount of their money without due process of law.
We are aware, of course, of the special problems involved in determining the bona fide residence of college students who come from out of State to attend that State’s public university. Our holding today should in no wise be taken to mean that Connecticut must classify the students in its university system as residents, for purposes of tuition and fees, just because they go to school there. Nor should our decision be construed to deny a State the right to impose on a student, as one element in demonstrating bona fide residence, a reasonable durational residency requirement, which can be met while in student status. We fully recognize that a State has a legitimate interest in protecting and preserving the quality of its colleges and universities and the right of its own bona fide residents to attend such institutions on a preferential tuition basis.
We hold only that a permanent irrebuttable presumption of nonresidence — the means adopted by Connecticut to preserve that legitimate interest — is violative of the Due Process Clause, because it provides no opportunity for students who applied from out of State to demonstrate that they have become bona fide Connecticut residents. The State can establish such reasonable criteria for in-state status as to make virtually certain that students who are not, in fact, bona fide residents of the State, but who have come there solely for educational purposes, cannot take advantage of the in-state rates. Indeed, as stated above, such criteria exist; and since § 126 was invalidated, Connecticut, through an official opinion of its Attorney General, has adopted one such reasonable standard for determining the residential status of a student. The Attorney General’s opinion states:
“In reviewing a claim of in-state status, the issue becomes essentially one of domicile. In general, the domicile of an individual is his true, fixed and permanent home and place of habitation. It is the place to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning. This general statement, however, is difficult of application. Each individual case must be decided on its own particular facts. In reviewing a claim, relevant criteria include year-round residence, voter registration, place of filing tax returns, property ownership, driver’s license, car registration, marital status, vacation employment, etc.”
Because we hold that the permanent irrebuttable presumption of nonresidence created by subsections (a)(2), (a) (3), and (a) (5) of Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 10-329 (b) (Supp. 1969), as amended by Public Act No. 5, § 126 (June Sess. 1971), violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Section 122 of that Act provides that “the board of trustees of The University of Connecticut shall fix fees for tuition of not less than three hundred fifty dollars for residents of this State and not less than eight hundred fifty dollars for nonresidents . . . .” Pursuant to this statute, the University promulgated regulations fixing the tuition per semester as follows:
Fall semester Spring semester
1971-72 1972, and thereafter
None $175.00 In-state student
$150.00 $425.00 Out-of-state student
In addition, out-of-state students must pay a $200 nonresident fee per semester.
See n. 1, supra.
While the case was pending in the District Court, the Connecticut Legislature passed a bill relating to tuition payments by nonresidents, House Bill No. 5302, which would have repealed the particular portions of the statute that were under constitutional attack. On May 18, 1972, however, the Governor of Connecticut vetoed that bill.
Moreover, in Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965), the Court held that a permanent irrebuttable presumption of nonresidence violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That case involved a provision of the Texas Constitution which prohibited any member of the Armed Forces who entered the service as a resident of another State and then moved his home to Texas during the course of his military duty, from ever satisfying the residence requirement for voting in Texas elections, so long as he remained a member of the Armed Forces. The effect of that provision was to create a conclusive presumption that all servicemen who moved to Texas during their military service, even if they became bona fide residents of Texas, nonetheless remained nonresidents for purposes of voting. The Court held that “[b]y forbidding a soldier ever to controvert the presumption of non-residence, the Texas Constit ution imposes an invidious discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id., at 96. See als o Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 349-352 (1972); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969).
See n. 1, supra.
But even if we accepted the State’s argument that its statutory scheme operates to apportion tuition rates on the basis of old and new residency, that justification itself would give rise to grave problems under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For in Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, the Court rejected the contention that a challenged classification could be sustained as an attempt to distinguish between old and new residents on the basis of the contribution they have made to the community through past payment of taxes. That reasoning, the Court stated, “would logically permit the State to bar new residents from schools, parks, and libraries or deprive them of police and fire protection. Indeed it would permit the State to apportion all benefits and services according to the past tax contributions of its citizens. The Equal Protection Clause prohibits such an apportionment of state services.” 394 U. S., at 632-633. Cf. Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S., at 96; Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S., at 354.
See infra, at 454.
Cf. Carrington v. Rash, supra, at 95-96; Dunn v. Blumstein, supra, at 349-352; Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, at 636.
In Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F. Supp. 234 (Minn. 1970), the District Court upheld a regulation of the University of Minnesota providing that no student could qualify as a resident for tuition purposes unless he had been a bona fide domiciliary of the State for at least a year immediately prior thereto. This Court affirmed summarily. 401 U. S. 985 (1971). Minnesota’s one-year durational residency requirement, however, differed in an important respect from the permanent irrebuttable presumption at issue in the present case. Under the regulation involved in Stams, a student who applied to the University from out of State could rebut the presumption of nonresidency, after having lived in the State for one year, by presenting sufficient other evidence to show bona fide domicile within Minnesota. In other words, residence within the State for one year, whether or not in student status, was merely one element which Minnesota required to demonstrate bona fide domicile. By contrast, the Connecticut statute prevents a student who applied to the University from out of State, or within a year of living out of State, from ever rebutting the presumption of nonresidence during the entire time that he remains a student, no matter how long he has been a bona fide resident of the State for other purposes. Under Minnesota’s durational residency requirement, a student could qualify for in-state rates by living within the State for a year in student status; whereas under Connecticut’s scheme, a person who applied from out of State can never so qualify so long as he remains in student status. See also Kirk v. Board of Regents of Univ. of California, 273 Cal. App. 2d 430, 78 Cal. Rptr. 260 (1969), appeal dismissed, 396 U. S. 554 (1970).
Opinion of the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut Regarding Non-Resident Tuition, Sept. 6, 1972 (unreported).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
To protect the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, we have held that the police must terminate interrogation of an accused in custody if the accused requests the assistance of counsel. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 474 (1966). We reinforced the protections of Miranda in Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U. S. 477, 484-485 (1981), which held that once the accused requests counsel, officials may not reinitiate questioning “until counsel has been made available” to him. The issue in the case before us is whether Edwards’ protection ceases once the suspect has consulted with an attorney.
Petitioner Robert Minnick and fellow prisoner James Dyess escaped from a county jail in Mississippi and, a day later, broke into a mobile home in search of weapons. In the course of the burglary they were interrupted by the arrival of the trailer's owner, Ellis Thomas, accompanied by Lamar Lafferty and Lafferty’s infant son. Dyess and Minnick used the stolen weapons to kill Thomas and the senior Lafferty. Minnick’s story is that Dyess murdered one victim and forced Minnick to shoot the other. Before the escapees could get away, two young women arrived at the mobile home. They were held at gunpoint, then bound hand and foot. Dyess and Minnick fled in Thomas’ truck, abandoning the vehicle in New Orleans. The fugitives continued to Mexico, where they fought, and Minnick then proceeded alone to California. Minnick was arrested in Lemon Grove, California, on a Mississippi warrant, some four months after the murders.
The confession at issue here resulted from the last interrogation of Minnick while he was held in the San Diego jail, but we first recount the events which preceded it. Minnick was arrested on Friday, August 22, 1986. Petitioner testified that he was mistreated by local police during and after the arrest. The day following the arrest, Saturday, two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents came to the jail to interview him. Petitioner testified that he refused to go to the interview, but was told he would “have to go down or else.” App. 45. The FBI report indicates that the agents read petitioner his Miranda warnings, and that he acknowledged he understood his rights. He refused to sign a rights waiver form, however, and said he would not answer “very many” questions. Minnick told the agents about the jailbreak and the flight, and described how Dyess threatened and beat him. Early in the interview, he sobbed “[i]t was my life or theirs,” but otherwise he hesitated to tell what happened at the trailer. The agents reminded him he did not have to answer questions without a lawyer present. According to the report, “Minnick stated ‘Come back Monday when I have a lawyer,’ and stated that he would make a more complete statement then with his lawyer present.” App. 16. The FBI interview ended.
After the FBI interview, an appointed attorney met with petitioner. Petitioner spoke with the lawyer on two or three occasions, though it is not clear from the record whether all of these conferences were in person.
On Monday, August 25, Deputy Sheriff J. C. Denham of Clarke County, Mississippi, came to the San Diego jail to question Minnick. Minnick testified that his jailers again told him he would “have to talk” to Denham and that he “could not refuse.” Id., at 45. Denham advised petitioner of his rights, and petitioner again declined to sign a rights waiver form. Petitioner told Denham about the escape and then proceeded to describe the events at the mobile home. According to petitioner, Dyess jumped out of the mobile home and shot the first of the two victims, once in the back with a shotgun and once in the head with a pistol. Dyess then handed the pistol to petitioner and ordered him to shoot the other victim, holding the shotgun on petitioner until he did so. Petitioner also said that when the two girls arrived, he talked Dyess out of raping or otherwise hurting them.
Minnick was tried for murder in Mississippi. He moved to suppress all statements given to the FBI or other police officers, including Denham. The trial court denied the motion with respect to petitioner’s statements to Denham, but suppressed his other statements. Petitioner was convicted on two counts of capital murder and sentenced to death.
On appeal, petitioner argued that the confession to Den-ham was taken in violation of his rights to counsel under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected the claims. With respect to the Fifth Amendment aspect of the case, the court found “the Edwards bright-line rule as to initiation” inapplicable. 551 So. 2d 77, 83 (1988). Relying on language in Edwards indicating that the bar on interrogating the accused after a request for counsel applies “‘until counsel has been made available to him,’” ibid., quoting Edwards v. Arizona, supra, at 484-485, the court concluded that “[s]ince counsel was made available to Minnick, his Fifth Amendment right to counsel was satisfied.” 551 So. 2d, at 83. The court also rejected the Sixth Amendment claim, finding that petitioner waived his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when he spoke with Denham. Id., at 83-85. We granted certiorari, 495 U. S. 903 (1990), and, without reaching any Sixth Amendment implications in the case, we decide that the Fifth Amendment protection of Edwards is not terminated or suspended by consultation with counsel.
In Miranda v. Arizona, supra, at 474, we indicated that once an individual in custody invokes his right to counsel, interrogation “must cease until an attorney is present”; at that point, “the individual must have an opportunity to confer with the attorney and to have him present during any subsequent questioning.” Edwards gave force to these admonitions, finding it “inconsistent with Miranda and its progeny for the authorities, at their instance, to reinterrogate an accused in custody if he has clearly asserted his right to counsel.” 451 U. S., at 485. We held that “when an accused has invoked his right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation, a valid waiver of that right cannot be established by showing only that he responded to further police-initiated custodial interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights.” Id., at 484. Further, an accused who requests an attorney, “having expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police.” Id., at 484-485.
Edwards is “designed to prevent police from badgering a defendant into waiving his previously asserted Miranda rights.” Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U. S. 344, 350 (1990). See also Smith v. Illinois, 469 U. S. 91, 98 (1984). The rule ensures that any statement made in subsequent interrogation is not the result of coercive pressures. Edwards conserves judicial resources which would otherwise be expended in making difficult determinations of voluntariness, and implements the protections of Miranda in practical and straightforward terms.
The merit of the Edwards decision lies in the clarity of its command and the certainty of its application. We have confirmed that the Edwards rule provides “ ‘clear and unequivocal’ guidelines to the law enforcement profession.” Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U. S. 675, 682 (1988). Cf. Moran v. Burbine, 475 U. S. 412, 425-426 (1986). Even before Edwards, we noted that Miranda’s “relatively rigid requirement that interrogation must cease upon the accused’s request for an attorney . . . has the virtue of informing police and prosecutors with specificity as to what they may do in conducting custodial interrogation, and of informing courts under what circumstances statements obtained during such interrogation are not admissible. This gain in specificity, which benefits the accused and the State alike, has been thought to outweigh the burdens that the decision in Miranda imposes on law enforcement agencies and the courts by requiring the suppression of trustworthy and highly probative evidence even though the confession might be voluntary under traditional Fifth Amendment analysis.” Fare v. Michael C., 442 U. S. 707, 718 (1979). This pre-Edwards explanation applies as well to Edwards and its progeny. Arizona v. Roberson, supra, at 681-682.
The Mississippi Supreme Court relied on our statement in Edwards that an accused who invokes his right to counsel “is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him . . . .” 451 U. S., at 484-485. We do not interpret this language to mean, as the Mississippi court thought, that the protection of Edwards terminates once counsel has consulted with the suspect. In context, the requirement that counsel be “made available” to the accused refers to more than an opportunity to consult with an attorney outside the interrogation room.
In Edwards, we focused on Miranda's instruction that when the accused invokes his right to counsel, “the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present,” 384 U. S., at 474 (emphasis added), agreeing with Edwards’ contention that he had not waived his right “to have counsel present during custodial interrogation.” 451 U. S., at 482 (emphasis added). In the sentence preceding the language quoted by the Mississippi Supreme Court, we referred to the “right to have counsel present during custodial interrogation,” and in the sentence following, we again quoted the phrase “ ‘interrogation must cease until an attorney is present’” from Miranda. 451 U. S., at 484-485 (emphasis added). The full sentence relied on by the Mississippi Supreme Court, moreover, says: “We further hold that an accused, such as Edwards, having expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police.” Ibid. (emphasis added).
Our emphasis on counsel’s presence at interrogation is not unique to Edwards. It derives from Miranda, where we said that in the cases before us “[t]he presence of counsel. . . would be the adequate protective device necessary to make the process of police interrogation conform to the dictates of the [Fifth Amendment] privilege. His presence would insure that statements made in the government-established atmosphere are not the product of compulsion.” 384 U. S., at 466. See Fare v. Michael C., supra, at 719. Our cases following Edwards have interpreted the decision to mean that the authorities may not initiate questioning of the accused in counsel’s absence. Writing for a plurality of the Court, for instance, then-JusTiCE Rehnquist described the holding of Edwards to be “that subsequent incriminating statements made without [Edwards’] attorney present violated the rights secured to the defendant by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.” Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U. S. 1039, 1043 (1983) (emphasis added). See also Arizona v. Roberson, supra, at 680 (“The rule of the Edwards case came as a corollary to Miranda’s admonition that ‘[i]f the individual states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present’ ”); Shea v. Louisiana, 470 U. S. 51, 52 (1985) (“In Edwards v. Arizona, . . . this Court ruled that a criminal defendant’s rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated by the use of his confession obtained by police-instigated interrogation — without counsel present — after he requested an attorney”). These descriptions of Edwards’ holding are consistent with our statement that “[preserving the integrity of an accused’s choice to communicate with police only through counsel is the essence of Edwards and its progeny.” Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U. S. 285, 291 (1988). In our view, a fair reading of Edwards and subsequent cases demonstrates that we have interpreted the rule to bar police-initiated interrogation unless the accused has counsel with him at the time of questioning. Whatever the ambiguities of our earlier cases on this point, we now hold that when counsel is requested, interrogation must cease, and officials may not reinitiate interrogation without counsel present, whether or not the accused has consulted with his attorney.
We consider our ruling to be an appropriate and necessary application of the Edwards rule. A single consultation with an attorney does not remove the suspect from persistent attempts by officials to persuade him to waive his rights, or from the coercive pressures that accompany custody and that may increase as custody is prolonged. The case before us well illustrates the pressures, and abuses, that may be concomitants of custody. Petitioner testified that though he resisted, he was required to submit to both the FBI and the Denham interviews. In the latter instance, the compulsion to submit to interrogation followed petitioner’s unequivocal request during the FBI interview that questioning cease until counsel was present. The case illustrates also that consultation is not always effective in instructing the suspect of his rights. One plausible interpretation of the record is that petitioner thought he could keep his admissions out of evidence by refusing to sign a formal waiver of rights. If the authorities had complied with Minnick’s request to have counsel present during interrogation, the attorney could have corrected Minnick’s misunderstanding, or indeed counseled him that he need not make a statement at all. We decline to remove protection from police-initiated questioning based on isolated consultations with counsel who is absent when the interrogation resumes.
The exception to Edwards here proposed is inconsistent with Edwards’ purpose to protect the suspect’s right to have counsel present at custodial interrogation. It is inconsistent as well with Miranda, where we specifically rejected respondent’s theory that the opportunity to consult with one’s attorney would substantially counteract the compulsion created by custodial interrogation. We noted in Miranda that “[e]ven preliminary advice given to the accused by his own attorney can be swiftly overcome by the secret interrogation process. Thus the need for counsel to protect the Fifth Amendment privilege comprehends not merely a right to consult with counsel prior to questioning, but also to have counsel present during any questioning if the defendant so desires.” 384 U. S., at 470 (citation omitted).
The exception proposed, furthermore, would undermine the advantages flowing from Edwards’ “clear and unequivocal” character. Respondent concedes that even after consultation with counsel, a second request for counsel should reinstate the Edwards protection. We are invited by this formulation to adopt a regime in which Edwards’ protection could pass in and out of existence multiple times prior to arraignment, at which point the same protection might reattach by virtue of our Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, see Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U. S. 625 (1986). Vagaries of this sort spread confusion through the justice system and lead to a consequent loss of respect for the underlying constitutional principle.
In addition, adopting the rule proposed would leave far from certain the sort of consultation required to displace Edwards. Consultation is not a precise concept, for it may encompass variations from a telephone call to say that the attorney is en route, to a hurried interchange between the attorney and client in a detention facility corridor, to a lengthy in-person conference in which the attorney gives full and adequate advice respecting all matters that might be covered in further interrogations. And even with the necessary scope of consultation settled, the officials in charge of the case would have to confirm the occurrence and, possibly, the extent of consultation to determine whether further interrogation is permissible. The necessary inquiries could interfere with the attorney-client privilege.
Added to these difficulties in definition and application of the proposed rule is our concern over its consequence that the suspect whose counsel is prompt would lose the protection of Edwards, while the one whose counsel is dilatory would not. There is more than irony to this result. There is a strong possibility that it would distort the proper conception of the attorney’s duty to the client and set us on a course at odds with what ought to be effective representation.
Both waiver of rights and admission of guilt are consistent with the affirmation of individual responsibility that is a principle of the criminal justice system. It does not detract from this principle, however, to insist that neither admissions nor waivers are effective unless there are both particular and systemic assurances that the coercive pressures of custody were not the inducing cause. The Edwards rule sets forth a specific standard to fulfill these purposes, and we have de-dined to confine it in other instances. See Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U. S. 675 (1988). It would detract from the efficacy of the rule to remove its protections based on consultation with counsel.
Edwards does not foreclose finding a waiver of Fifth Amendment protections after counsel has been requested, provided the accused has initiated the conversation or discussions with the authorities; but that is not the case before us. There can be no doubt that the interrogation in question was initiated by the police; it was a formal interview which petitioner was compelled to attend. Since petitioner made a specific request for counsel before the interview, the police-initiated interrogation was impermissible. Petitioner’s statement to Denham was not admissible at trial.
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III, and IV, and an opinion with respect to Parts II and V
The questions presented are whether Terry Williams’ constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel as defined in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), was violated, and whether the judgment of the Virginia Supreme Court refusing to set aside his death sentence “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III). We answer both questions affirmatively.
I
On November 8,1985, Harris Stone was found dead in his residence on Henry Street in Danville, Virginia. Finding no indication of a struggle, local officials determined that the •cause of death was blood alcohol poisoning, and the case was considered closed. Six months after Stone’s death, Terry Williams, who was then incarcerated in the “I” unit of the city jail for an unrelated offense, wrote a letter to the police stating that he had killed “'that man down on Henry Street’” and also stating that he “'did it’” to that '“lady down on West Green Street’ ” and was “'very sorry.’ ” The letter was unsigned, but it closed with a reference to “I cell.” App. 41. The police readily identified Williams as its author, and, on April 25,1986, they obtained several statements from him. In one Williams admitted that, after Stone refused to lend him “ 'a couple of dollars,’ ” he had killed Stone with a mattock and taken the money from his wallet. Id., at 4. In September 1986, Williams was convicted of robbery and capital murder.
At Williams' sentencing hearing, the prosecution proved that Williams had been convicted of armed robbery in 1976 and burglary and grand larceny in 1982. The prosecution also introduced the written confessions that Williams had made in April. The prosecution described two auto thefts and two separate violent assaults on elderly victims perpetrated after the Stone murder. On December 4, 1985, Williams had started a fire outside one victim's residence before attacking and robbing him. On March 5,1986, Williams had brutally assaulted an elderly woman on West Green Street— an incident he had mentioned in his letter to the police. That confession was particularly damaging because other evidence established that the woman was in a “vegetative state” and not expected to recover. Id., at 60. Williams had also been convicted of arson for setting a fire in the jail while awaiting trial in this case. Two expert witnesses employed by the State testified that there was a “high probability” that Williams would pose a serious continuing threat to society. Id., at 89.
The evidence offered by Williams’ trial counsel at the sentencing hearing consisted of the testimony of Williams’ mother, two neighbors, and a taped excerpt from a statement by a psychiatrist. One of the neighbors had not been previously interviewed by defense counsel, but was noticed by counsel in the audience during the proceedings and asked to testify on the spot. The three witnesses briefly described Williams as a “nice boy” and not a violent person. Id., at 124. The recorded psychiatrist’s testimony did little more than relate Williams’ statement during an examination that in the course of one of his earlier robberies, he had removed the bullets from a gun so as not to injure anyone.
In his cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses, Williams’ counsel repeatedly emphasized the fact that Williams had initiated the contact with the police that enabled them to solve the murder and to identify him as the perpetrator of the recent assaults, as well as the car thefts. In closing argument, Williams’ counsel characterized Williams’ confessional statements as “dumb,” but asked the jury to give weight to the fact that he had “turned himself in, not on one crime but on four... that the [police otherwise] would not have solved.” Id., at 140. The weight of defense counsel’s closing, however, was devoted to explaining that it was difficult to find a reason why the jury should spare Williams’ life.
The jury found a probability of future dangerousness and unanimously fixed Williams’ punishment at death. The trial judge concluded that such punishment was “proper” and “just” and imposed the death sentence. Id., at 154. The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. Williams v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 168, 360 S. E. 2d 361 (1987), cert. denied, Williams v. Virginia, 484 U. S. 1020 (1988). It rejected Williams’ argument that when the trial judge imposed sentence, he failed to give mitigating weight to the fact that Williams had turned himself in. 234 Va., at 181-182, 360 S. E. 2d, at 369-370.
State Habeas Corpus Proceedings
In 1988 Williams filed for state collateral relief in the Danville Circuit Court. The petition was subsequently amended, and the Circuit Court (the same judge who had presided over Williams’ trial and sentencing) held an eviden-tiary hearing on Williams’ claim that trial counsel had been ineffective. Based on the evidence adduced after two days of hearings, Judge Ingram found that Williams’ conviction was valid, but that his trial attorneys had been ineffective during sentencing. Among the evidence reviewed that had not been presented at trial were documents prepared in connection with Williams’ commitment when he was 11 years old that dramatically described mistreatment, abuse, and neglect during his early childhood, as well as testimony that he was “borderline mentally retarded,” had suffered repeated head injuries, and might have mental impairments organic in origin. App. 528-529, 595. The habeas hearing also revealed that the same experts who had testified on the State’s behalf at trial believed that Williams, if kept in a “structured environment,” would not pose a future danger to society. Id., at 313-314.
Counsel’s failure to discover and present this and other significant mitigating evidence was “below the range expected of reasonable, professional competent assistance of counsel.” Id., at 424. Counsel's performance thus “did not measure up to the standard required under the holding of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), and [if it had,] there is a reasonable probability that the result of the sentencing phase would have been different.” Id., at 429. Judge Ingram therefore recommended that Williams be granted a rehearing on the sentencing phase of his trial.
The Virginia Supreme Court did not accept that recommendation. Williams v. Warden, 254 Va. 16, 487 S. E. 2d 194 (1997). Although it assumed, without deciding, that trial counsel had been ineffective, id., at 23-26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 198, 200, it disagreed with the trial judge’s conclusion that Williams had suffered sufficient prejudice to warrant relief. Treating the prejudice inquiry as a mixed question of law and fact, the Virginia Supreme Court accepted the factual determination that available evidence in mitigation had not been presented at the trial, but held that the trial judge had misapplied the law in two respects. First, relying on our decision in Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364 (1993), the court held that it was wrong for the trial judge to rely “ ‘on mere outcome determination’ ” when assessing prejudice, 254 Va., at 23, 487 S. E. 2d, at 198 (quoting Lockhart, 506 U. S., at 369). Second, it construed the trial judge’s opinion as having “adopted a per se approach” that would establish prejudice whenever any mitigating evidence was omitted. 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200.
The court then reviewed the prosecution evidence supporting the “future dangerousness” aggravating circumstance, reciting Williams’ criminal history, including the several most recent offenses to which he had confessed. In comparison, it found that the excluded mitigating evidence— which it characterized as merely indicating “that numerous people, mostly relatives, thought that defendant was nonviolent and could cope very well in a structured environment,” ibid. — “barely would have altered the profile of this defendant that was presented to the jury,” ibid. On this basis, the court concluded that there was no reasonable possibility that the omitted evidence would have affected the jury’s sentencing recommendation, and that Williams had failed to demonstrate that his sentencing- proceeding was fundamentally unfair.
Federal Habeas Corpus Proceedings
Having exhausted his state remedies, Williams sought a federal writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. III). After reviewing the state habeas hearing transcript and the state courts’ findings of fact and conclusions of law, the federal trial judge agreed with the Virginia trial judge: The death sentence was constitutionally infirm.
After noting that the Virginia Supreme Court had not addressed the question whether trial counsel’s performance at the sentencing hearing fell below the range of competence demanded of lawyers in criminal cases, the judge began by addressing that issue in detail. He identified five categories of mitigating evidence that counsel had failed to introduce, and he rejected the argument that counsel’s failure to conduct an adequate investigation had been a strategic decision to rely almost entirely on the fact that Williams had voluntarily confessed.
According to Williams’ trial counsel’s testimony before the state habeas court, counsel did not fail to seek Williams’ juvenile and social services records because he thought they would be counterproductive, but because counsel erroneously believed that “ ‘state law didn’t permit it.’ ” App. 470. Counsel also acknowledged in the course of the hearings that information about Williams’ childhood would have been important in mitigation. And counsel’s failure to contact a potentially persuasive character witness was likewise not a conscious strategic choice, but simply a failure to return that witness’ phone call offering his service. Id., at 470-471. Finally, even if counsel neglected to conduct such an investigation at the time as part of a tactical decision, the District Judge found, tactics as a matter of reasonable performance could not justify the omissions.
Turning to the prejudice issue, the judge determined that there was “ ‘a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.’ Strickland, 466 U. S. at 694.” Id., at 473. He found that the Virginia Supreme Court had erroneously assumed that Lockhart had modified the Strickland standard for determining prejudice, and that it had made an important error of fact in discussing its finding of no prejudice. Having introduced his analysis of Williams’ claim with the standard of review applicable on habeas appeals provided by 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (1994 ed., Supp. Ill), the judge concluded that those errors established that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law” within the meaning of § 2254(d)(1).
The Federal Court of Appeals reversed. 163 F. 3d 860 (CA4 1998). It construed § 2254(d)(1) as prohibiting the grant of habeas corpus relief unless the state court “‘decided the question by interpreting or applying the relevant precedent in a manner that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable.’ ” Id., at 865 (quoting Green v. French, 143 F. 3d 865, 870 (CA4 1998)). Applying that standard, it could not say that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision on the prejudice issue was an unreasonable application of the tests developed in either Strickland or Lockhart, It explained that the evidence that Williams presented a future danger to society was “simply overwhelming,” 163 F. 3d, at 868, it endorsed the Virginia Supreme Court’s interpretation of Lockhart, 163 F. 3d, at 869, and it characterized the state court’s understanding of the facts in this case as “reasonable,” id., at 870.
We granted certiorari, 526 U. S. 1050 (1999), and now reverse.
II
In 1867, Congress enacted a statute providing that federal courts “shall have power to grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States...Act of Feb. 5, 1867, ch. 28, § 1,14 Stat. 385. Over the years, the federal habeas corpus statute has been repeatedly amended, but the scope of that jurisdictional grant remains the same. It is, of course, well settled that the fact that constitutional error occurred in the proceedings that led to a state-court conviction may not alone be sufficient reason for concluding that a prisoner is entitled to the remedy of habeas. See, e. g., Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976); Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993). On the other hand, errors that undermine confidence in the fundamental fairness of the state adjudication certainly justify the issuance of the federal writ. See, e. g., Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 311-314 (1989) (quoting Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667, 692-694 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part), and quoting Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509, 544 (1982) (Stevens, J., dissenting)). The deprivation of the right to the effective assistance of counsel recognized in Strickland is such an error. Strickland, 466 U. S., at 686, 697-698.
The warden here contends that federal habeas corpus relief is prohibited by the amendment to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed., Supp. Ill), enacted as a part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The relevant portion of that amendment provides:
“(d) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim—
“(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States....”
In this case, the Court of Appeals applied the construction of the amendment that it had adopted in its earlier opinion in Green v. French, 143 F. 3d 865 (CA4 1998). It read the amendment as prohibiting federal courts from issuing the writ unless:
“(a) the state court decision is in ‘square conflict’ with Supreme Court precedent that is controlling as to law and fact or (b) if no such controlling decision exists, ‘the state court’s resolution of a question of pure law rests upon an objectively unreasonable derivation of legal principles from the relevant [Sjupreme [Cjourt precedents, or if its decision rests upon an objectively unreasonable application. of established principles to new facts,’” 163 F. 3d, at 865 (quoting Green, 143 F. 3d, at 870).
Accordingly, it held that a federal court may issue habeas relief only if “ ‘the state courts have decided the question by interpreting or applying the relevant precedent in a manner that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable,’ ” 163 F. 3d, at.865
We are convinced that that interpretation of the amendment is incorrect. It would impose a test for determining when a legal rule is clearly established that simply cannot be squared with the real practice of decisional law. It would apply a standard for determining the “reasonableness” of state-court decisions that is not contained in the statute itself, and that Congress surely did not intend. And it would wrongly require the federal courts, including this Court, to defer to state judges’ interpretations of federal law.
As the Fourth Circuit would have it, a state-court judgment is “unreasonable” in the face of federal law only if all reasonable jurists would agree that the state court was unreasonable. Thus, in this case, for example, even if the Virginia Supreme Court misread our opinion in Lockhart, we could not grant relief unless we believed that none of the judges who agreed with the state court’s interpretation of that ease was a “reasonable jurist.” But the statute says nothing about “reasonable judges,” presumably because all, or virtually all, such judges occasionally commit error; they make decisions that in retrospect may be characterized as “unreasonable.” Indeed, it is most unlikely that Congress would deliberately impose such a requirement of unanimity on federal judges. As Congress is acutely aware, reasonable lawyers and lawgivers regularly disagree with one another. Congress surely did not intend that the views of one such judge who might think that relief is not warranted in a particular case should always have greater weight than the contrary, considered judgment of several other reasonable judges.
The inquiry mandated by the amendment relates to the way in which a federal habeas court exercises its duty to decide constitutional questions; the amendment does not alter the underlying grant of jurisdiction in § 2254(a), see n. 7, supra. When federal judges exercise their federal-question jurisdiction under the “judicial Power” of Article III of the Constitution, it is “emphatically the province and duty” of those judges to “say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). At the core of this power is the federal courts’ independent responsibility — independent from its coequal branches in the Federal Government, and independent from the separate authority of the several States — to interpret federal law. A construction of AEDPA that would require the federal courts to cede this authority to the courts of the States would be inconsistent with the practice that federal judges have traditionally followed in discharging their duties under Article III of the Constitution. If Congress had intended to require such an important change in the exercise of our jurisdiction, we believe it would have spoken with much greater clarity than is found in the text of AEDPA.
This basic premise informs our interpretation of both parts of § 2254(d)(1): first, the requirement that the determinations of state courts be tested only against “clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” and second, the prohibition, on the issuance of the writ unless the state court’s decision is “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,” that clearly established law. We address each part in turn.
The “clearly established law” requirement
In Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), we held that the petitioner was not entitled to federal habeas relief because he was relying on a rule of federal law that had not been announced until after his state conviction became final. The antiretroactivity rule recognized in Teague, which prohibits reliance on “new rules,” is the functional equivalent of a statutory provision commanding exclusive reliance on “clearly established law.” Because there is no reason to believe that Congress intended to require federal courts to ask both whether a rule sought on habeas is “new” under Teague— which remains the law — and also whether it is “clearly established” under AEDPA, it seems safe to assume that Congress had congruent concepts in mind. It is perfectly clear that AEDPA codifies Teague to the extent that Teague requires federal habeas courts to deny relief that is contingent upon a rule of law not clearly established at the time the state conviction became final.
Teague’s core principles are therefore relevant to our construction of this requirement. Justice Harlan recognized the “inevitable difficulties” that come with “attempting ‘to determine whether a particular decision has really announced a “new” rule at all or whether it has simply applied a well-established constitutional principle to govern a ease which is closely analogous to those which have been previously considered in the prior case law.’” Mackey, 401 U. S., at 695 (quoting Desist v. United States, 394 U. S. 244, 263 (1969)). But Teague established some guidance for making this determination, explaining that a federal habeas court operates within the bounds of comity and finality if it applies a rule “dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final.” 489 U. S., at 301 (emphasis deleted). A rule that “breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the States or the Federal Government,” ibid., falls outside this universe of federal law
To this, AEDPA has added, immediately following the “clearly established law” requirement, a clause limiting the area of relevant law to that “determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III). If this Court has not broken sufficient legal ground to establish an asked-for constitutional principle, the lower federal courts cannot themselves establish such a principle with clarity sufficient to satisfy the AEDPA bar. In this respect, we agree with the Seventh Circuit that this clause “extends the principle of Teague by limiting the source of doctrine on which a federal court may rely in addressing the application for a writ.” Lindh v. Murphy, 96 F. 3d 856, 869 (1996). As that court explained:
“This is a retrenchment from former practice, which allowed the United States courts of appeals to rely on their own jurisprudence in addition to that of the Supreme Court. The novelty in this portion of § 2254(d)(1) is not the ‘contrary to’ part but the reference to ‘Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States’ (emphasis added). This extends the principle of Teague [v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989),] by limiting the source of doctrine on which a federal court may rely in addressing the application for a writ. It does not, however, purport to limit the federal courts’ independent interpretive authority with respect to federal questions.” Ibid.
A rule that fails to satisfy the foregoing criteria is barred by Teague from application on collateral review, and, similarly, is not available as a basis for relief in a habeas case to which AEDPA applies.
In the context of this case, we also note that, as our precedent interpreting Teague has demonstrated, rules of law may be sufficiently clear for habeas purposes even when they are expressed in terms of a generalized standard rather than- as a bright-line rule. As Justice Kennedy has explained:
“If the rule in question is one which of necessity requires a case-by-case examination of the evidence, then we can tolerate a number of specific applications without saying that those applications themselves create a new rule.... Where the beginning point is a rule of this general application, a rule designed for the specific purpose of evaluating a myriad of factual contexts, it will be the infrequent case that yields a result so novel that it forges a new rule, one not dictated by precedent.” Wright v. West, 505 U. S. 277, 308-309 (1992) (opinion concurring in judgment).
Moreover, the determination whether or not a rule is clearly established at the time a state court renders its final judgment of conviction is a question as to which the “federal courts must make an independent evaluation.” Id., at 305 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment); accord, id:, at 307 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment).
It has been urged, in contrast, that we should read Teague and its progeny to encompass a broader principle of deference requiring federal courts to “validate] ‘reasonable, good-faith interpretations’ of the law” by' state courts. Brief for California et al. as Amici Curiae 6 (quoting Butler v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 414 (1990)). The position has been bolstered with references to our statements elucidating the “new rule” inquiry as one turning on whether “reasonable jurists” would agree the rule was not clearly established. Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 234 (1990). This presumption of deference was in essence the position taken by three Members of this Court in Wright, 505 U. S., at 290-291 (opinion of Thomas, J.) (“[A] federal habeas court'must defer to the state court’s decision rejecting the claim unless that decision is patently unreasonable’ ”) (quoting Butler, 494 U. S., at 422 (Brennan, J., dissenting)).
Teague, however, does not extend this far. The often repeated language that Teague endorses “reasonable, good-faith interpretations” by state courts is an explanation of policy, not a statement of law. The Teague cases reflect this Court’s view that habeas corpus is not to be used as a second criminal trial, and federal courts are not to run roughshod over the considered findings and judgments of the state courts that conducted the original trial and heard the initial appeals. On the contrary, we have long insisted that federal habeas courts attend closely to those considered decisions, and give them full effect when their findings and judgments are consistent with federal law. See Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U. S. 99, 107-116 (1995). But as Justice O’Connor explained in Wright:
“[T]he duty of the federal court in evaluating whether a rule is 'new’ is not the same as deference;... Teague does not direct federal courts to spend less time or effort scrutinizing the existing federal law, on the ground that they can assume the state courts interpreted it properly....
“[T]he maxim that federal courts should ‘give great weight to the considered conclusions of a coequal state judiciary’... does not mean that we have held in the past that federal courts must presume the correctness of a state court’s legal conclusions on habeas, or that a state court’s incorrect legal determination has ever been allowed to stand because it was reasonable. We have always held that federal courts, even on habeas, have an independent obligation to say what the law is.” 505 U. S., at 305 (opinion concurring in judgment).
We are convinced that in the phrase, “clearly established law,” Congress did not intend to modify that independent obligation.
The “contrary to, or an unreasonable application of” requirement
The message that Congress intended to convey by using the phrases “contrary to” and “unreasonable application of” is not entirely clear. The prevailing view in the Circuits is that the former phrase requires de novo review of “pure” questions of law and the latter requires some sort of “reason-ability” review of so-called mixed questions of law and fact. See, e. g., Neelley v. Nagle, 138 F. 3d 917 (CA11 1998); Drinkard v. Johnson, 97 F. 3d 751 (CA5 1996); Lindh v. Murphy, 96 F. 3d 856 (CA7 1996) (en banc), rev’d on other grounds, 521 U. S. 320 (1997).
We are not persuaded that the phrases define two mutually exclusive categories of questions. Most constitutional questions that arise in habeas corpus proceedings — and therefore most “decisions” to be made — require the federal judge to apply a rule of law to a set of facts, some of which may be disputed and some undisputed. For example, an erroneous conclusion that particular circumstances established the voluntariness of a confession, or that there exists a conflict of interest when one attorney represents multiple defendants, may well be described either as “contrary to” or as an “unreasonable application of” the governing rule of law. Cf. Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 116 (1985); Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 341-342 (1980). In constitutional adjudication, as in the common law, rules of law often develop incrementally as earlier decisions are applied to new factual situations. See Wright, 505 U. S., at 307 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). But rules that depend upon such. elaboration are hardly less lawlike than those that establish a bright-line test.
Indeed, our pre-AEDPA efforts to distinguish questions of fact, questions of law, and “mixed questions,” and to create an appropriate standard of habeas review for each, generated some not insubstantial differences of opinion as to which issues of law fell into which category of question, and as to which standard of review applied to each. See Thompson, 516 U. S., at 110-111 (acknowledging “'that the Court has not charted an entirely clear course in this area’ ” and that “the proper characterization of a question as one of fact or law is sometimes slippery”) (quoting Miller, 474 U. S., at 113). We thus think the Fourth Circuit was correct when it attributed the lack of clarity in the statute, in part, to the overlapping meanings of the phrases “contrary to” and “unreasonable application of.” See Green, 143 F. 3d, at 870.
The statutory text likewise does not obviously prescribe a specific, recognizable standard of review for dealing with either phrase. Significantly, it does not use any term, such as “de novo” or “plain error,” that would easily identify a familiar standard of review. Rather, the text is fairly read simply as a command that a federal court not issue the ha-beas writ unless the state court was wrong as a matter of law or unreasonable in its application of law in a given case. The suggestion that a wrong state-court “decision” — a legal judgment rendered “after consideration of facts, and... law,” Black’s Law Dictionary 407 (6th ed. 1990) (emphasis added) — may no longer be redressed through habeas (because it is unreachable under the “unreasonable application” phrase) is based on a mistaken insistence that the § 2254(d)(1) phrases have not only independent, but mutually exclusive, meanings. Whether or not a federal court can issue the writ “under [the] 'unreasonable application’ clause,” the statute is clear that habeas may issue under § 2254(d)(1) if a state-court “decision” is “contrary to... clearly established Federal law.” We thus anticipate that there will be a variety of cases, like this one, in which both phrases may be implicated.
Even though we cannot conclude that the phrases establish “a body of rigid rules,” they do express a “mood” that the Federal Judiciary must respect. Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474, 487 (1951). In this respect, it seems clear that Congress intended federal judges to attend with the utmost care to state-court decisions, including all of the reasons supporting their decisions, before concluding that those proceedings were infected by constitutional error sufficiently serious to warrant the issuance of the writ. Likewise, the statute in a separate provision provides for the habeas remedy when a state-court decision “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. Ill) (emphasis added). While this provision is not before us in this case, it provides relevant context for our interpretation of § 2254(d)(1); in this respect,-it bolsters our conviction that federal habeas courts must make as the starting point of their analysis the state courts’ determinations of fact, including that aspect of a “mixed question” that rests on a finding of fact. AEDPA plainly sought to ensure a level of “deference to the determinations of state courts,” provided those determinations did not conflict with federal law or apply federal law in an unreasonable way. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-518, p. Ill (1996). Congress wished to curb delays, to prevent “retrials” on federal habeas, and to give effect to state convictions to the extent possible under law. When federal courts are able to fulfill these goals within the bounds of the law, AEDPA instructs them to do so.
On the other hand, it is significant that the word “deference” does not appear in the text of the statute itself. Neither the legislative history nor the statutory text suggests any difference in the so-called “deference” depending on which of the two phrases is implicated. Whatever “deference” Congress had in mind with respect to both phrases, it surely is not a requirement that federal courts actually defer to a state-court application of the federal law that is, in the independent judgment of the federal court, in error. As Judge Easterbrook noted with respect to the phrase “contrary to”:
“Section 2254(d) requires us to give state courts’ opinions a respectful reading, and to listen carefully to their conclusions, but when the state court addresses a legal question, it is the law 'as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States’ that prevails.” Lindh, 96 F. 3d, at 869.
Our disagreement with the Court about the precise meaning of the phrase “contrary to,” and the word “unreasonable,” is, of course, important, but should affect only a narrow category of cases. The simplest and first definition of “contrary to” as a phrase is “in conflict with.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 285 (1983). In this sense, we think the phrase surely capacious enough to include a finding that the state-court “decision” is simply “erroneous” or wrong. (We hasten to add that even “diametrically different” from, or “opposite” to, an established federal law would seem to include “decisions” that are wrong in light of that law.) And there is nothing in the phrase “contrary to” — as the Court appears to agree — that implies anything less than independent review by the federal courts. Moreover, state-court decisions that do not “conflict” with federal law will rarely be “unreasonable” under either the Court’s reading of the statute or ours. We all agree that state-court judgments must be upheld unless, after the closest examination of the state-court judgment, a federal court is firmly convinced that a federal constitutional right has been violated. Our difference is as to the cases in which, at first blush, a state-court judgment seems entirely reasonable, but thorough analysis by a federal court produces a firm conviction that that judgment is infected by constitutional error. In our view, such an erroneous judgment is “unreasonable” within the meaning of the Act even though that conclusion was not immediately apparent.
In sum, the statute directs federal courts to attend to every state-court judgment with utmost care, but it does not require them to defer to the opinion of every reasonable state-court judge on the content of federal law. If, after carefully weighing all the reasons for accepting a state court’s judgment, a federal court is convinced that a prisoner’s custody — or, as in this case, his sentence of death — violates the Constitution, that independent judgment should prevail. Otherwise the federal “law as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” might be applied by the federal courts one way in Virginia and another way in California. In
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, all States and political subdivisions covered by § 4 of the Act must submit any proposed change affecting voting, for preclearance by the Attorney General or the District Court for the District of Columbia. At issue in this appeal is whether a county board of education in a covered State must seek approval of a rule requiring its employees to take unpaid leaves of absence while they campaign for elective office. Resolution of this question necessitates two related inquiries: first, whether a rule governing leave for employee candidates is a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” within the meaning of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act; and second, whether a county school board is a “political subdivision” within the purview of the Act.
I
The facts in this case are not in dispute. Appellee, a Negro, is employed as Assistant Coordinator of Student Personnel Services by appellant Dougherty County Board of Education (Board). In May 1972, he announced his candidacy for the Georgia House of Representatives. Less than a month later, on June 12, 1972, the Board adopted Rule 58 without seeking prior federal approval. Rule 58 provides:
“POLITICAL OFFICE. Any employee of the school system who becomes a candidate for any elective political office, will be required to take a leave of absence, without pay, such leave becoming effective upon the qualifying for such elective office and continuing for the duration of such political activity, and during the period of service in such office, if elected thereto.”
Appellee qualified as a candidate for the Democratic primary in June 1972, and was compelled by Rule 58 to take a leave of absence without pay. After his defeat in the August primary, appellee was reinstated. Again in June 1974, he qualified as a candidate for the Georgia House and was forced to take leave. He was successful in both the August primary and the November general election. Accordingly, his leave continued through mid-November 1974. Appellee took a third leave of absence in June 1976, when he qualified to run for re-election. When it became clear in September that he would be unopposed in the November 1976 election, appellee was reinstated. As a consequence of those mandatory leaves, appellee lost pay in the amount of $2,810 in 1972, $4,780 in 1974, and $3,750 in 1976.
In June 1976, appellee filed this action in the Middle District of Georgia alleging that Rule 58 was a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” adopted by a covered entity and therefore subject to the preclearance requirements of § 5 of the Act. Appellee averred that he was the first Negro in recent memory, perhaps since Reconstruction, to run for the Georgia General Assembly from Dougherty County. The Board did not contest this fact, and further acknowledged that it was aware of no individual other than appellee who had run for public office while an employee of the Dougherty County Board of Education.
On cross motions for summary judgment, the three-judge District Court held that Rule 58 should have been submitted for federal approval before implementation. 431 F. Supp. 919 (1977). In so ruling, the court correctly declined to decide the ultimate question that the Attorney General or the District of Columbia court would face on submission of the Rule for preclearance under § 5 — whether the change in fact had a discriminatory purpose or effect. See Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379, 383-385 (1971). Rather, the District Court confined its review to the preliminary issue whether Rule 58 had the “potential” for discrimination and hence was subject to § 5. Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526, 534 (1973). In concluding that the Rule did have such potential, the District Court interpreted Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969), and Georgia v. United States, supra, to mandate preclearance of any modification by a covered State or political subdivision “which restricts the ability of citizens to run for office.” 431 F. Supp., at 922. The court reasoned that Rule 58 was such a modification because:
“By imposing a financial loss on [Board] employees who choose to become candidates, [the Rule] makes it more difficult for them to participate in the democratic process and, consequently, restricts the field from which the voters may select their representatives.” Ibid.
The District Court therefore enjoined enforcement of Rule 58 pending compliance with the preclearance requirements of § 5. We noted probable jurisdiction. 435 U. S. 921 (1978). Since we find Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra, and United States v. Board of Comm’rs of Sheffield, 435 U. S. 110 (1978), dispositive of the issues presented in this appeal, we affirm.
II
Section 5 provides that whenever a covered State or political subdivision “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,” it may not implement that change until it either secures a determination from the District Court for the District of Columbia 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” or submits the change to the Attorney General and he interposes no objection within 60 days. 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (emphasis added). Although §14 (c)(1) expansively defines the term “voting” to “include all action necessary to make a vote effective,” 79 Stat. 445, 42 U. S. C. § 1973Í (c)(1), the Act itself nowhere amplifies the meaning of the phrase “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting.” Accordingly, in our previous constructions of § 5, we have sought guidance from the history and purpose of the Act.
A
This Court first considered the scope of the critical language of § 5 in Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969), involving consolidated appeals in three cases from Mississippi and one from Virginia. After canvassing the legislative history of the Act, we concluded that Congress meant “to reach any state enactment which altered the election law of a covered State in even a minor way.” 393 U. S.,. at 566. Conceived after “nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment,” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 328 (1966), the Voting Rights Act was, as Allen emphasized, “aimed at the subtle, as well as the obvious, state regulations which have the effect of denying citizens their right to vote because of their race.” 393 U. S., at 565 (footnote omitted). To effectuate the “articulated purposes of the legislation,” id., at 570, the Allen Court held that the phrase “standard, practice, or procedure” must be given the “broadest possible scope,” id., at 567, and construed it to encompass candidate qualification requirements. Id., at 570 (Whitley v. Williams, companion case decided with Allen, supra). The Court concluded that any enactment which burdens an independent candidate by “increasing the difficulty for [him] to gain a position on the general election ballot” is subject to § 5 since such a measure could “undermine the effectiveness” of voters who wish to elect nonaffiliated representatives. 393 U. S., at 565.
In subsequent cases interpreting § 5, we have consistently adhered to the principles of broad construction set forth in Allen. In Hadnott v. Amos, 394 U. S. 358 (1969), this Court held that an Alabama statute requiring independent candidates to declare their intention to seek office two months earlier than under prior procedures imposed “increased barriers” on candidacy and therefore warranted § 5 scrutiny. Id., at 366. Similarly, in contexts other than candidate qualification, we have interpreted § 5 expansively to mandate preclearance for changes in the location of polling places, Perkins v. Matthews, supra; alterations of municipal boundaries, Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358 (1975); Petersburg v. United States, 410 U. S. 962 (1973), summarily aff’g 354 F. Supp. 1021 (DC 1972); Perkins v. Matthews, supra; and reapportionment and redistricting plans, Georgia v. United States, supra.
Had Congress disagreed with this broad construction of § 5, it presumably would have clarified its intent when re-enacting the statute in 1970 and 1975. Yet, as this Court observed in Georgia v. United States, “[a]fter extensive deliberations in 1970 on bills to extend the Voting Rights Act, during which the Allen case was repeatedly discussed, the Act was extended for five years, without any substantive modification of § 5.” 411 U. S., at 533 (footnote omitted). Again in 1975, both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, in recommending extension of the Act, noted with approval the “broad interpretations to the scope of Section 5” in Allen and Perkins v. Matthews. S. Rep. No. 94-295, p. 16 (1975) (hereinafter S. Rep.); H. R. Rep. No. 94-196, p. 9 (1975) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.). Confirming the view of this Court, the Committee Reports stated, without qualification, that “[s]ection 5 of the Act requires review of all voting changes prior to implementation by the covered jurisdictions.” S. Rep. 15; H. R. Rep. 8 (emphasis added).
The Attorney General’s regulations, in force since 1971, reflect an equally inclusive understanding of the reach of § 5. They provide that “[a] 11 changes affecting voting, even though the change appears to be minor or indirect,” must be submitted for prior approval. 28 CFR § 51.4 (a) (1977). More particularly, the regulations require preclearance of “[a]ny alteration affecting the eligibility of persons to become or remain candidates or obtain a position on the ballot in primary or general elections or to become or remain officeholders.” §51.4 (c)(4). Pursuant to these regulations, the Attorney General, after being apprised of Rule 58, requested its submission for § 5 clearance. Given the central role of the Attorney General in formulating and implementing § 5, this interpretation of its scope is entitled to particular deference. United States v. Board of Comm’rs of Sheffield, 435 U. S., at 131; Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S., at 391. See Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S., at 536-539.
B
Despite these consistently expansive constructions of § 5, appellants contend that the Attorney General and District Court erred in treating Rule 58 as a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” rather than as simply “a means of getting a full days work for a full days pay — nothing more and nothing less.” Brief for Appellants 20. In appellants’ view, Congress did not intend to subject all internal personnel measures affecting political activity to federal superintendence.
The Board mischaracterizes its policy. Rule 58 is not a neutral personnel practice governing all forms of absenteeism. Rather, it specifically addresses the electoral process, singling out candidacy for elective office as a disabling activity. Although not in form a filing fee, the Rule operates in precisely the same fashion. By imposing substantial economic disincentives on employees who wish to seek elective office, the Rule burdens entry into elective campaigns and, concomitantly, limits the choices available to Dougherty County voters. Given the potential loss of thousands of dollars by employees subject to Rule 58, the Board’s policy could operate as a more substantial inhibition on entry into the elective process than many of the filing-fee changes involving only hundreds of dollars to which the Attorney General has successfully interposed objections. That Congress was well aware of these objections is apparent from the Committee Reports supporting extension of the Act in 1975. S. Rep. 16-17; H. R. Rep. 10.
In Georgia v. United States, we observed that “[s]ection 5 is not concerned with a simple inventory of voting procedures, but rather with the reality of changed practices as they affect Negro voters.” 411 U. S., at 531. The reality here is that Rule 58’s impact on elections is no different from that of many of the candidate qualification changes for which we have previously required preclearance. See Hadnott v. Amos, 394 U. S. 358 (1969); Allen, 393 U. S., at 551. Moreover, as a practical matter, Rule 58 implicates the political process to the same extent as do other modifications that this Court and Congress have recognized § 5 to encompass, such as changes in the location of polling places, Perkins v. Matthews, and alterations in the procedures for casting a write-in vote, Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra.
We do not, of course, suggest that all constraints on employee political activity affecting voter choice violate § 5. Presumably, most regulation of political involvement by public employees would not be found to have an invidious purpose or effect. Yet the same could be said of almost all changes subject to § 5. According to the most recent figures available, the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division processes annually some 1,800 submissions involving over 3,100 changes and interposes objections to less than 2%. Attorney General Ann. Rep. 159-160 (1977). Approximately 91% of these submissions receive clearance without further exchange of correspondence. Tr. of Oral Arg. 53. Thus, in determining if an enactment triggers § 5 scrutiny, the question is not whether the provision is in fact innocuous and likely to be approved, but whether it has a potential for discrimination. See Georgia v. United States, supra, at 534; Perkins v. Matthews, supra, at 383-385; Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra, at 555-556, n. 19, 558-559, 570-571.
Without intimating any views on the substantive question of Rule 58’s legitimacy as a nonracial personnel measure, we believe that the circumstances surrounding its adoption and its effect on the political process are sufficiently suggestive of the potential for discrimination to demonstrate the need for preclearance. Appellee was the first Negro in recent years to seek election to the General Assembly from Dougherty County, an area with a long history of racial discrimination in voting. Less than a month after appellee announced his candidacy, the Board adopted Rule 58, concededly without any prior experience of absenteeism among employees seeking office. That the Board made its mandatory leave-of-absence requirement contingent on candidacy rather than on absence during working hours underscores the Rule’s potential for inhibiting participation in the electoral process.
Plainly, Rule 58 erects “increased, barriers” to candidacy as formidable as the filing date changes at issue in Hadnott v. Amos, supra, at 366 (2 months), and Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra, at 551 (20 days). To require preclearance of Rule 58 follows directly from our previous recognition that § 5 must be given “the broadest possible scope,” Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra, at 567, encompassing the “subtle, as well as the obvious,” forms of discrimination. 393 U. S., at 565. Informed by similarly expansive legislative and administrative understandings of the perimeters of § 5, we hold that obstacles to candidate qualification such as the Rule involved here are “standard [s], practice [s], or procedure's] with respect to voting.”
Ill
Section 5 applies to all changes affecting voting made by “political subdivision [s]” of States designated for coverage pursuant to § 4 of the Act. Although acknowledging that the Board is a political subdivision under state law, appellants contend that it does not meet the definition of that term as employed in the Voting Rights Act. They rely on § 14 (c) (2) of the Act, 79 Stat. 445, 42 U. S. C. § 19731 (c)(2), which defines “political subdivision” as
“any county or parish, except that where registration for voting is not conducted under the supervision of a county or parish, the term shall include any other subdivision of a State which conducts registration for voting.”
Because the Board is neither a county, parish, nor entity which conducts voter registration, appellants maintain that it does not come within the purview of § 5.
This contention is squarely foreclosed by our decision last Term in United States v. Board of Comm’rs of Sheffield, 435 U. S. 110 (1978). There, we expressly rejected the suggestion that the city of Sheffield was beyond the ambit of § 5 because it did not itself register voters and hence was not a political subdivision as the term is defined in § 14 (c) (2) of the Act. Rather, the “language, structure, history, and purposes of the Act persuade [d] us that § 5, like the constitutional provisions it is designed to implement, applies to all entities having power over any aspect of the electoral process within designated jurisdictions . . . 435 U. S., at 118. Accordingly, we held that once a State has been designated for coverage, § 14 (c)(2)'s definition of political subdivision has no “operative significance in determining the reach of § 5.” 435 U. S., at 126.
Appellants attempt to distinguish Sheffield on the ground that the Board, unlike the city of Sheffield, does not itself conduct elections. Since the Board has no direct responsibilities in conjunction with the election of public officials, appellants argue that it does not “exercise control” over the voting process, id., at 127, and is not therefore subject to §5.
Sheffield provides no support for such a cramped reading of the term “control.” Our concern there was that covered jurisdictions could obviate the necessity for preclearance of voting changes by the simple expedient of “allowing local entities that do not conduct voter registration to control critical aspects of the electoral process.” 435 U. S., at 125. We thus held that the impact of a change on the elective process, rather than the adopting entity’s registration responsibilities, was dispositive of the question of § 5. coverage. Here, as the discussion in Part II, supra, indicates, a political unit with no nominal electoral functions can nonetheless exercise power over the process by attaching a price tag to candidate participation. Appellants’ analysis would hence achieve what Sheffield sought to avert; it would enable covered jurisdictions to circumvent the Act by delegating power over candidate qualification to local entities that do not conduct elections or voter registration. A State or political subdivision, by de jacto delegation, “thereby could achieve through its instru-mentalities what it could not do itself without preclearance.” 435 U. S., at 139 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment). If only those governmental units with official electoral obligations actuate the preclearance requirements of § 5, the Act would be “nullified] ... in a large number of its potential applications.” 435 U. S., at 125 (footnote omitted).
Nothing in the language or purpose of the Act compels such an anomalous result. By its terms, § 5 requires preclearance whenever a political subdivision within a covered State adopts a change in a standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting. No requirement that the subdivision itself conduct elections is stated in § 5 and none is fairly implied. As this Court has observed, § 5 of the Voting Rights Act reflects Congress’ firm resolve to end “the blight of racial discrimination in voting, which has infected the electoral process in parts of our country for nearly a century.” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 308. Whether a subdivision adopting a potentially discriminatory change has some nominal electoral functions bears no relation to the purpose of § 5. That provision directs attention to the impact of a change on the electoral process, not to the duties of the political subdivision that adopted it. To make coverage under § 5 turn on whether the State has confided in the Dougherty County Board of Education some formal responsibility for the conduct of elections, when the Board clearly has the power to affect candidate participation in those elections, would serve no purpose consonant with the objectives of the federal statutory scheme.
Nor would appellants’ interpretation of § 5 comport with any ascertainable congressional intent. The legislative history of the 1975 extension, the statute which is controlling here, leaves no doubt but that Congress intended all electoral changes by political entities in covered jurisdictions to trigger federal scrutiny. Both the supporters and opponents of the proposed extension appear to have shared the common understanding that under § 5 no covered jurisdiction may enforce a change affecting voting without obtaining prior approval. See Hearings on S. 407 et al. before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 75-76 (1975) (testimony of Arthur Flemming, Chairman of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights) (e. g., § 5 applies “to changes in voting laws, practices, and procedures that affect every stage of the political process”) ; Hearings on H. R. 939 et al. before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 19 (1975) (testimony of Arthur Flemming); 121 Cong. Rec. 23744 (1975) (remarks of Sen. Stennis) (“Any changes, so far as election officials [are] concerned, which [are] made in precincts, county districts, school districts, municipalities, or State legislatures . . . [have] to be submitted”); id., at 24114 (remarks of Sen. Allen). Moreover, both the House and Senate Committees and witnesses at the House and Senate hearings referred to § 5’s past and prospective application to school districts. See, e. g., 121 Cong. Rec. 23744 (1975) (remarks of Sen. Stennis); Hearings on S. 407, supra, at 467-470 (testimony of George Korbel, EEOC Regional Attorney); Hearings on H. R. 939, supra, at 387-390 (testimony of George Korbel); S. Rep. 27-28; H. R. Rep. 19-20. Yet none of these discussions suggests that direct supervision of elections by a school board is a prerequisite to its coverage under the Act. To the contrary, a fair reading of the legislative history compels the conclusion that Congress was determined in the 1975 extension of the Act to provide some mechanism for coping with all potentially discriminatory enactments whose source and forms it could not anticipate but whose impact on the electoral process could be significant. Rule 58 is such a change.
Because we conclude that Rule 58 is a standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting enacted by an entity subject to § 5, the judgment of the District Court is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Stewart dissents for the reasons expressed in Part I of the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Powell.
79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c. Section 5 provides in part:
“Whenever a State or political subdivision with respect to which the prohibitions set forth in [§ 4 (a) of the Act] based upon determinations made under the first sentence of [§ 4 (b) of the Act] 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, . . . 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. . . .”
79 Stat. 438, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973b. Georgia has been designated a covered jurisdiction pursuant to §4. 30 Fed. Reg. 9897 (1965).
The Solicitor General and counsel for appellants advise us that appellee was also on unpaid leave during his participation in the annual 214-month sittings of the Georgia General Assembly in 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 4 n. Ip Tr. of Oral Arg. 6. Appellee did not challenge this application of Rule 58 below. We therefore do not consider whether preclearance is required for a policy governing mandatory leaves during the interval in which an employee is actually absent due to legislative responsibilities.
Jurisdiction was predicated on 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, 28 U. S. C. § 2284, and 28 U. S. C. § 1343. See Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 554-563 (1969).
For example, we noted that Attorney General Katzenbach, who played a substantial role in drafting the Act, testified that the term “practice” in § 5 “was intended to be all-inclusive . . . .” Hearings on S. 1564 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 192 (1965), quoted in Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra, at 566-567, and n. 31.
The protean strategies of racial discrimination that led Congress to adopt the Voting Rights Act have been often discussed by this Court, see United States v. Board of Comm’rs of Sheffield, 435 U. S. 110, 118-121 (1978); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 308-315, and need not be reviewed here.
Shortly before the commencement of this litigation, counsel for appellee brought Rule 58 to the attention of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Two and one-half months after appellee filed his complaint, Assistant Attorney General Pottinger informed the Superintendent of the Dougherty County School System that Rule 58 should be submitted for preclearance. Appellants made no response.
See U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After 134-137 (1975) {e. g., $360 fee for Commissioner in Mobile, Alabama, in 1973; $818 fee for Mayor in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1973).
In addition, the Committees relied heavily on findings by the United States Commission on Civil Rights in The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After, supra, at 131-142, a document which reviewed at some length the barriers to qualification, including fifing fees, faced by minority candidates. See S. Rep. 21, 24; H. R. Rep. 12, 16.
As this Court has recognized in its decisions invalidating certain filing-fee schemes under the Fourteenth Amendment, “we would ignore reality” were we not to acknowledge that a financial barrier to candidacy “falls with unequal weight on voters, as well as candidates,” since it “tends to deny some voters the opportunity to vote for a candidate of their choosing.” Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134, 144 (1972) (filing fees of $1,424.60 for County Commissioner, $1,000 for Commissioner of General Land Office, and $6,300 for County Judge). See also Lubin v. Panish, 415 U. S. 709 (1974) (filing fee of $701.60 for County Supervisor).
For a review of voting rights litigation in the city of Albany, the county seat of Dougherty County containing 80% of its population, see Paige v. Gray, 399 F. Supp. 459, 461-463 (MD Ga. 1975), vacated in part, 538 F. 2d 1108 (CA5 1976), on remand, 437 F. Supp. 137, 149-158 (MD Ga. 1977).
The dissent suggests, post, at 53, that Rule 58 is directed only toward barring “the expenditure of public funds to support the candidacy of an employee whose time and energies may be devoted to campaigning, rather than counseling schoolchildren.” Insofar as the Board is concerned about its employees’ failure to discharge their contractual obligations while standing for office, it has a variety of means to vindicate its interest. The Board may, for example, prescribe regulations governing absenteeism, or may terminate or suspend the contracts of employees who willfully neglect their professional responsibilities. See Ga. Code § 32-2101c (1975); Ransum v. Chattooga County Board of Education, 144 Ga. App. 783, 242 S. E. 2d 374 (1978). What it may not do is adopt a rule that explicitly and directly burdens the electoral process without preclearance.
See Ga. Code §§32-901, 23-1716 (1975); Campbell v. Red Bud Consolidated School Dist., 186 Ga. 541, 548, 198 S. E. 225, 229 (1938); Ty Ty Consolidated School Dist. v. Colquitt Lumber Co., 153 Ga. 426, 427, 112 S. E. 561 (1922).
Section 4 (a) makes continued coverage under the Act turn on whether discriminatory tests or devices have been used “anywhere in the territory” of a State or political subdivision for a prescribed number of years. 79 Stat. 438, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973b (a). In Sheffield, we concluded that the territorial reach of the substantive requirements of § 5 was meant to be coterminous with the jurisdictional provisions of §4 (a). 435 U. S., at 120-129.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this case is-whether a criminal defendant was denied his constitutional right to a fair trial when, at his trial with five codefendants, the customary courtroom security force was suppleménted by four uniformed state troopers sitting in the first row of the spectators’ section.
I
On August 14, 1975, nine masked men entered the Bonded Vault Co. in Providence, Rhode Island, robbed several employees at gunpoint, broke into most of the safe-deposit boxes in the vault, and escaped with approximately $4 million in cash and valuables. In January 1976, respondent and eight others were indicted in Providence County Superior Court for that crime. After a hearing in Superior Court, respondent and five of his alleged accomplices were ordered held without bail in the custody of the Warden of the State’s Adult Correctional Institution.
In April 1976, respondent and his five codefendants were brought to trial in Superior Court before Associate Justice Anthony A. Giannini. Upon entering the courtroom, respondent’s counsel noted the presence of four uniformed state troopers, sitting in the first row of the spectators’ section; the officers were not far behind, but were separated by the “bar” from, the seats assigned to the defendants for the duration of the trial. Counsel immediately complained to the judge that “the defendants would object to uniformed police, uniformed state police, sitting in the court as a display of ‘strength’ in the presence of the jury.” Tr. 48-49. While counsel observed that he would have no objection to the use of any number of plainclothed security personnel, he argued that the presence of uniformed officers would suggest to the jury that defendants were of “bad character.” Id., at 48. Justice Giannini replied that the troopers were present because the Committing Squad, which usually supplied courtroom security personnel in such cases, was overextended at that time. Noting that he had not personally requested the assistance of the troopers, the judge agreed to see whether they might be made to wear civilian clothes for their future appearances in the courtroom.
The following week, Justice Giannini announced that he had “received a report that it is not practical, both from an organization point of view and also from a contractual point of view with the union representing the state troopers,” for the four troopers to dress in civilian clothes. Id., at 71. In the face of these constraints and in view of the need for adequate security, the justice ruled that the troopers could remain in the courtroom, in full uniform. He noted that because the troopers would be seated behind the bar, defendants would in no way be prejudiced. The next day, denying defendants’ motion for reconsideration, Justice Giannini asserted that though he himself had not made the decision to deploy the troopers, he thought defendants “overly sensitive” to the danger of prejudice. Id., at 84. At any rate, the justice went on, an examination of prospective jurors would reveal whether they were likely to draw adverse inference from the troopers’ presence, and would thereby guarantee the rights of the defendants. Jury selection began.
In the meantime, respondent sought interlocutory review in the Rhode Island Supreme Court of Justice Giannini’s ruling. After initially declining review, the Supreme Court read a transcript of the ruling and granted respondent’s petition. Noting that “[t]he presence of armed, uniformed police officers acting as a security force in criminal courtrooms in this jurisdiction is a departure from the practice usually found in the trial courts, of this state,” the court concluded: “The trial justice may not delegate responsibility that is his to the so-called security committee or its advisors. The presence of the State Police is a decision that must be resolved solely by the trial justice after consideration of all relevant factors.” State v. Byrnes, 116 R. I. 925, 927, 357 A. 2d 448, 449 (1976).
Upon the State’s request, Justice Giannini conducted a hearing at which the first witness was Captain Robert Me-lucci, the principal officer of the Committing Squad, the group charged with maintaining courtroom security during the trials of defendants in pretrial detention. He testified that, because of other commitments in the courthouse, the force of 12 officers available for deployment in the building was insufficient to maintain the preferred ratio of 2 officers to every defendant in this six-defendant trial. Since any ratio approaching one-to-one posed a “security risk,” Tr. 120, and he could spare only six officers for respondent’s trial, Captain Melucci had contacted the Superior Court’s presiding justice and informed him of the need for additional security personnel. As a result, Captain Melucci testified, additional help had been sought from the State Police.
The next witness, Major Lionel Benjamin, Executive Officer of the Rhode Island State Police, explained that any time his force was charged with transporting prisoners from the Adult Correctional Institution to the courthouse and maintaining custody during trial, he was contractually obligated to use officers from the uniformed division. That same contract with the Fraternal Order of Police, according to Major Benjamin, precluded him from asking members of the uniformed division to perform their duties in civilian clothing. The Major went on to note that even were there no contractual bar, the force’s plainclothes detective division lacked the personnel to provide security for the duration of respondent’s trial. He concluded by saying that if the court required his troopers to wear civilian clothes, he would withdraw them. Id., at 161.
After completing jury selection, Justice Giannini gave his final ruling on respondent’s motion. He noted that “if these defendants were admitted to bail, there would be no state policemen and there would be no committing squad officers in this courtroom.” Id., at 229. But bail having been denied, it became the responsibility of the Warden and the Committing Squad to maintain custody of the detainees. The justice found that because the Committing Squad lacked the resources, the necessary level of security could be ensured only with the help of the uniformed troopers. Having held the presence of the troopers “justified by the evidence,” Justice Giannini considered whether the presence of the troopers had prejudiced the defendants. He observed that of the 54 prospective jurors who had not been struck before they were asked about the troopers, 51 had responded that the troopers’ presence “created no inference of guilt with regard to the defendants in their mind”; the remaining 3 had not precisely addressed the question. Id., at 230-231. When asked to speculate why the troopers were present, many had given a vague response as to the need for security. In view of the voir dire responses, the justice concluded that the presence of the troopers would not affect defendants’ ability to receive a fair trial.
The trial lasted more than two months and ended with verdicts acquitting three defendants and convicting respondent and two others. On appeal, the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed the convictions. State v. Byrnes, 433 A. 2d 658 (1981). With respect to respondent’s objection to the troopers, the court concluded:
“[T]he trial justice gave a reasoned and careful consideration of the issues raised by the presence of the uniformed troopers and, after consideration of all relevant factors, found that the presence of the troopers in no way prejudiced defendants. We have read the record, and we find no reason whatsoever to fault his conclusion.” Id., at 663.
Respondent then brought this habeas proceeding in Federal District Court. After certain procedural complications not relevant here, the District Court for the District of Rhode Island entertained the petition and rejected all the claims therein. With respect to respondent’s objection to the presence of the troopers throughout the trial, the court held: “Less totalitarian alternatives appear to have been explored and rejected on rational grounds. The security measures approved here, extreme though they might have been, did not, under the totality of the circumstances, deny due process or equal protection to the petitioner.” 581 F. Supp. 990, 998 (1984).
The Court of Appeals, however, reversed this dismissal. 749 F. 2d 961 (CA1 1984). Seizing upon the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s observation that the presence of uniformed and armed troopers had been an “extraordinary” event, the Court of Appeals concluded that Justice Giannini had failed to consider whether the particular circumstances of respondent’s trial had called for such measures.
“Rather, with no threats shown to safety, he balanced nothing, but simply indicated a fear that since the defendants had not been bailed, they might flee from the courtroom. There was no evidence even suggesting any unusual likelihood of this; nor had anything whatever made ‘manifest’ the ‘necessity for heightened security.’ As for the exploration of less ‘totalitarian alternatives,’ the exploration was limited, notwithstanding defendants’ suggestions, to inquiring whether regular commitment officers were available without inconveniencing the Presiding Justice, and whether the union contract permitted the state police to appear out of uniform and unarmed.” Id., at 964.
Dismissing the trial judge’s reliance on jurors’ voir dire responses to rebut any suggestion of prejudice to respondent, the Court of Appeals asserted: “Even if all jurors had indicated an unreserved opinion that the troopers’ presence would not affect them, such expression, on a case as extreme as this, where there was no need to rely on it, is totally unacceptable.” Id., at 965. The court ordered that the writ of habeas corpus be granted.
We granted certiorari, 472 U. S. 1026 (1985), and now reverse.
II
A
Central to the right to a fair trial, guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, is the principle that “one accused of a crime is entitled to have his guilt or innocence determined solely on the basis of the evidence introduced at trial, and not on grounds of official suspicion, indictment, continued custody, or other circumstances not adduced as proof at trial.” Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U. S. 478, 485 (1978). This does not mean, however, that every practice tending to single out the accused from everyone else in the courtroom must be struck down. Recognizing that jurors are quite aware that the defendant appearing before them did not arrive there by choice or happenstance, we have never tried, and could never hope, to eliminate from trial procedures every reminder that the State has chosen to marshal its resources against a defendant to punish him for allegedly criminal conduct. To guarantee a defendant’s due process rights under ordinary circumstances, our legal system has instead placed primary reliance on the adversary system and the presumption of innocence. When defense counsel vigorously represents his client’s interests and the trial judge assiduously works to impress jurors with the need to presume the defendant’s innocence, we have trusted that á fair result can be obtained.
Our faith in the adversary system and in jurors’ capacity to adhere to the trial judge’s instructions has never been absolute, however. We have recognized that certain practices pose such a threat to the “fairness of the factfinding process” that they must be subjected to “close judicial scrutiny.” Estelle v. Williams, 425 U. S. 501, 503-504 (1976). Thus, in Estelle v. Williams, we noted that where a defendant is forced to wear prison clothes when appearing before the jury, “the constant reminder of the accused’s condition implicit in such distinctive, identifiable attire may affect a juror’s judgment.” Id., at 504-505. Since no “essential state policy” is served by compelling a defendant to dress in this manner, id., at 505, this Court went no further and concluded that the practice is unconstitutional. This close scrutiny of inherently prejudicial practices has not always been fatal, however. In Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337 (1970), the Court emphasized that a defendant may be prejudiced if he appears before the jury bound and gagged. “Not only is it possible that the sight of shackles and gags might have a significant effect on the jury’s feelings about the defendant, but the use of this technique is itself something of an affront to the very dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings that the judge is seeking to uphold.” Id., at 344. Yet the Court nonetheless observed that in certain extreme situations, “binding and gagging might possibly be the fairest and most reasonable way to handle” a particularly obstreperous and disruptive defendant. Ibid.
B
The first issue to be considered here is thus whether the conspicuous, or at least noticeable, deployment of security personnel in a courtroom during trial is the sort of inherently prejudicial practice that, like shackling, should be permitted only where justified by an essential state interest specific to each trial. We do not believe that it is.
The chief feature that distinguishes the use- of identifiable security officers from courtroom practices we might find inherently prejudicial is the wider range of inferences that a juror might reasonably draw from the officers’ presence. While shackling and prison clothes are unmistakable indications of the need to separate a defendant from the community at large, the presence of guards at a defendant’s trial need not be interpreted as a sign that he is particularly dangerous or culpable. Jurors may just as easily believe that the officers are there to guard against disruptions emanating from outside the courtroom or to ensure that tense courtroom exchanges do not erupt into violence. Indeed, it is entirely possible that jurors will not infer anything at all from the presence of the guards. If they are placed at some distance from the accused, security officers may well be perceived more as elements of an impressive drama than as reminders of the defendant’s special status. Our society has become inured to the presence of armed guards in most public places; they are doubtless taken for granted so long as their numbers or weaponry do not suggest particular official concern or alarm. See Hardee v. Kuhlman, 581 F. 2d 330, 332 (CA2 1978).
To be sure, it is possible that the sight of a security force within the courtroom might under certain conditions “create the impression in the minds of the jury that the defendant is dangerous or untrustworthy.” Kennedy v. Cardwell, 487 F. 2d 101, 108 (CA6 1973), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 959 (1974). However, “reason, principle, and common human experience,” Williams, supra, at 504, counsel against a presumption that any use of identifiable security guards in the courtroom is inherently prejudicial. In view of the variety of ways in which such guards can be deployed, we believe that a case-by-case approach is more appropriate.
I — I I — I 1 — I
A
The courtroom security force in this case consisted of four uniformed state troopers, two Deputy Sheriffs, and six Committing Squad officers. Though respondent does not concede that the deployment of the uniformed Committing Squad officers was proper, his focus at every stage of his habeas proceedings has been exclusively on the prejudice he attributes to the four state troopers. The only question we need answer is thus whether the presence of these four uniformed and armed officers was so inherently prejudicial that respondent was thereby denied his constitutional right to a fair trial.
The Court of Appeals was correct to find that Justice Giannini’s assessment of jurors’ states of mind cannot be dispos-itive here. If “a procedure employed by the State involves such a probability that prejudice will result that it is deemed inherently lacking in due process,” Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532, 542-543 (1965), little stock need be placed in jurors’ claims to the contrary. See Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S. 333, 351-352 (1966); Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 728 (1961). Even though a practice may be inherently prejudicial, jurors will not necessarily be fully conscious of the effect it will have on their attitude toward the accused. This will be especially true when jurors are questioned at the very beginning of proceedings; at that point, they can only speculate on how they will feel after being exposed to a practice daily over the course of a long trial. Whenever a courtroom arrangement is challenged as inherently prejudicial, therefore, the question must be not whether jurors actually articulated a consciousness of some prejudicial effect, but rather whether “an unacceptable risk is presented of impermissible factors coming into play,” Williams, 425 U. S., at 505.
We do not minimize the threat that a roomful of uniformed and armed policemen might pose to a defendant’s chances of receiving a fair trial. See ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 15-3.1(c) (2d ed. 1980). But we simply cannot find an unacceptable risk of prejudice in the spectacle of four such officers quietly sitting in the first row of a courtroom’s spectator section. Even had the jurors been aware that the deployment of troopers was not common practice in Rhode Island, we cannot believe that the use of the the four troopers tended to brand respondent in their eyes “with an unmistakable mark of guilt.” Williams, supra, at 518 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Cf. Dorman v. United States, 140 U. S. App. D. C. 313, 327, 435 F. 2d 385, 397 (1970) (greater danger of prejudice if jury aware that arrangements are extraordinary). Four troopers are unlikely to have been taken as a sign of anything other than a normal official concern for the safety and order of the proceedings. Indeed, any juror who for some other reason believed defendants particularly dangerous might well have wondered why there were only four armed troopers for the six defendants.
We note, moreover, that even were we able to discern a slight degree of prejudice attributable to the troopers’ presence at respondent’s trial, sufficient cause for this level of security could be found in the State’s need to maintain custody over defendants who had been denied bail after an individualized determination that their presence at trial could not otherwise be ensured. Unlike a policy requiring detained defendants to wear prison garb, the deployment of troopers was intimately related to the State’s legitimate interest in maintaining custody during the proceedings and thus did not offend the Equal Protection Clause by arbitrarily discriminating against those unable to post bail or to whom bail had been denied. See Williams, supra, at 505-506.
B
The Court of Appeals rejected as wholly inadequate the reasons advanced by state authorities and accepted by Justice Giannini to explain why the four uniformed troopers had to be present at respondent’s trial. However, our task here is not to determine whether it might have been feasible for the State to have employed less conspicuous security measures in the courtroom. While, in our supervisory capacity, we might express a preference that officers providing courtroom security in federal courts not be easily identifiable by jurors as guards, we are much more constrained when reviewing a constitutional challenge to a state-court proceeding. All a federal court may do in such a situation is look at the scene presented to jurors and determine whether what they saw was so inherently prejudicial as to pose an unacceptable threat to defendant’s right to a fair trial; if the challenged practice is not found inherently prejudicial and if the defendant fails to show actual prejudice, the inquiry is over. Respondent has failed to carry his burden here.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Of the remaining three defendants, two were fugitives at the time of respondent’s trial, and the third appeared at that proceeding as a witness for the State.
Although the record could have been clearer on this point, all the colloquies in the record corroborate the statement, made by respondent’s counsel later in pretrial proceedings, that “sitting behind the defendants, taking the first row, vacating the first row where the spectators sit, are four uniformed state police guards, armed. ...” Tr. 80; see id., at 71-72. The troopers appear to have maintained this position throughout the course of the trial, although at times there might have been only three of them in the courtroom. See, e. g., id., at 109, 146.
The name of the Committing Squad has been changed to “Rhode Island state marshals.” 1976 R. I. Pub. Laws, ch. 259, § 1 (codified at R. I. Gen. Laws § 42-56-3) (1984 reenactment).
The only social science study to which respondent has pointed us addresses the effects of prison clothes and courtroom guards upon jury verdicts. Its tentative conclusion is that defendants clad in prison garb or accompanied by guards are more likely to be found guilty than unsupervised defendants wearing their own clothes. However, the study also found that favored treatment was accorded defendants who had both supervision and prison clothing. Fontaine & Kiger, The Effects of Defendant Dress and Supervision on Judgments of Simulated Jurors: An Exploratory Study, 2 Law and Human Behavior 63, 69-70 (1978). In view of these curious and concededly tentative results, we will, at least for now, rely on our own experience and common sense.
See, e. g., United States v. Jackson, 549 F. 2d 517, 526-527 (CA8), cert. denied sub nom. Muhammed v. United States, 430 U. S. 985 (1977); United States v. Clardy, 540 F. 2d 439, 442-443 (CA9), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 963 (1976); Kennedy v. Cardwell, 487 F. 2d 101, 109 (CA6 1973), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 959 (1974). See also N. Dorsen & L. Friedman, Disorder in the Court 249 (1973).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether § 502(a)(3) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 891, 29 U. S. C. § 1132(a)(3) (1994 ed.), authorizes this action by petitioners to enforce a reimbursement provision of an ERISA plan.
HH
Respondent Janette Knudson was rendered quadriplegic by a car accident in June 1992. Because her then-husband, respondent Eric Knudson, was employed by petitioner Earth Systems, Inc., Janette was covered by the Health and Welfare Plan for Employees and Dependents of Earth Systems, Inc. (Plan). The Plan covered $411,157.11 of Janette’s medical expenses, of which all except $75,000 was paid by petitioner Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. pursuant to a “stop-loss” insurance agreement with the Plan.
The Plan includes a reimbursement provision that is the basis for the present lawsuit. This provides that the Plan shall have “the right to recover from the [beneficiary] any payment for benefits” paid by the Plan that the beneficiary is entitled to recover from a third party. App. 58. Specifically, the Plan has “a first lien upon any recovery, whether by settlement, judgment or otherwise,” that the beneficiary receives from the third party, not to exceed “the amount of benefits paid [by the Plan] . . . [or] the amount received by the [beneficiary] for such medical treatment. . . .” Id,., at 58-59. If the beneficiary recovers from a third party and fails to reimburse the Plan, “then he will be personally liable to [the Plan] ... up to the amount of the first lien.” Id., at 59. Pursuant to an agreement between the Plan and Great-West, the Plan “assigned] to Great-West all of its rights to make, litigate, negotiate, settle, compromise, release or waive” any claim under the reimbursement provision. Id., at 45.
In late 1993, the Knudsons filed a tort action in California state court seeking to recover from Hyundai Motor Company, the manufacturer of the car they were riding in at the time of the accident, and other alleged tortfeasors. The parties to that action negotiated a $650,000 settlement, a notice of which was mailed to Great-West. This allocated $256,745.30 to a Special Needs Trust under Cal. Prob. Code Ann. §3611 (West 1991 and Supp. 1993) to provide for Janette’s medical care; $373,426 to attorney’s fees and costs; $5,000 to reimburse the California Medicaid program (MediCal); and $13,828.70 (the portion of the settlement attributable to past medical expenses) to satisfy Great-West’s claim under the reimbursement provision of the Plan.
The day before the hearing scheduled for judicial approval of the settlement, Great-West, calling itself a defendant and asserting that the state-court action involved federal claims related to ERISA, filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California a notice of removal pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1441 (1994 ed.). That court concluded that Great-West was not a defendant and could not remove the case, and therefore remanded to the state court, which approved the settlement. The state court’s order provided that the defendants would pay the settlement amount allocated to the Special Needs Trust directly to the trust, and the remaining amounts to respondents’ attorney, who, in turn, would tender checks to Medi-Cal and Great-West.
Great-West, however, never cashed the check it received from respondents’ attorney. Instead, at the same time that Great-West sought to remove the state-law tort action, it filed this action in the same federal court (the United States District Court for the Central District of California), seeking injunctive and declaratory relief under § 502(a)(3) to enforce the reimbursement provision of the Plan by requiring the Knudsons to pay the Plan $411,157.11 of any proceeds recovered from third parties. Great-West subsequently filed an amended complaint adding Earth Systems and the Plan as plaintiffs and seeking a temporary restraining order against continuation of the state-court proceedings for approval of the settlement. The District Court denied the temporary restraining order, a ruling that petitioners did not appeal. After the state court approved the settlement and the money was disbursed, the District Court granted summary judgment to the Knudsons. It held that the language of the Plan limited its right of reimbursement to the amount received by respondents from third parties for past medical treatment, an amount that the state court determined was $13,828.70. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed on different grounds. Judgt. order reported at 208 F. 3d 221 (2000). Citing FMC Medical Plan v. Owens, 122 F. 3d 1258 (CA9 1997), it held that judicially decreed reimbursement for payments made to a beneficiary of an insurance plan by a third party is not equitable relief and is therefore not authorized by § 502(a)(3). We granted certiorari. 531 U. S. 1124 (2001).
II
We have observed repeatedly that ERISA is a “ ‘comprehensive and reticulated statute,’ the product of a decade of congressional study of the Nation’s private employee benefit system.” Mertens v. Hewitt Associates, 508 U. S. 248, 251 (1993) (quoting Nachman Corp. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 446 U. S. 359, 361 (1980)). We have therefore been especially “reluctant to tamper with [the] enforcement scheme” embodied in the statute by extending remedies not specifically authorized by its text. Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U. S. 134, 147 (1985). Indeed, we have noted that ERISA’s “carefully crafted and detailed enforcement scheme provides ‘strong evidence that Congress did not intend to authorize other remedies that it simply forgot to incorporate expressly.’” Mertens, supra, at 254 (quoting Russell, supra, at 146-147).
Section 502(a)(3) authorizes a civil action:
“by a participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary (A) to enjoin any act or practice which violates . . . the terms of the plan, or (B) to obtain other appropriate equitable relief (i) to redress such violations or (ii) to enforce any provisions of . . . the terms of the plan.” 29 U. S. C. § 1132(a)(3) (1994 ed.).
As we explained in Mertens, “ ‘[e]quitable’ relief must mean something less than all relief.” 508 U. S., at 258, n. 8. Thus, in Mertens we rejected a reading of the statute that would extend the relief obtainable under § 502(a)(3) to whatever relief a court of equity is empowered to provide in the particular case at issue (which could include legal remedies that would otherwise be beyond the scope of the equity court’s authority). Such a reading, we said, would “limit the relief not at all” and “render the modifier [‘equitable’] superfluous.” Id., at 257-258. Instead, we held that the term “equitable relief” in § 502(a)(3) must refer to “those categories of relief that were typically available in equity . . . Id., at 256.
Here, petitioners seek, in essence, to impose personal liability on respondents for a contractual obligation to pay money — relief that was not typically available in equity. “A claim for money due and owing under a contract is ‘quintessentially an action at law.’” Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Wells, 213 F. 3d 398, 401 (CA7 2000) (Posner, J.). “Almost invariably . . . suits seeking (whether by judgment, injunction, or declaration) to compel the defendant to pay a sum of money to the plaintiff are suits for ‘money damages,’ as that phrase has traditionally been applied, since they seek no more than compensation for loss resulting from the defendant’s breach of legal duty.” Bowen v. Massachusetts, 487 U. S. 879, 918-919 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting). And “[m]oney damages are, of course, the classic form of legal relief.” Mertens, supra, at 255.
Nevertheless, petitioners, along with their amicus the United States, struggle to characterize the relief sought as “equitable” under the standard set by Mertens. We are not persuaded.
A
First, petitioners argue that they are entitled to relief under § 502(a)(3)(A) because they seek “to enjoin a[n] act or practice” — respondents’ failure to reimburse the Plan— “which violates . . . the terms of the plan.” But an injunction to compel the payment of money past due under a contract, or specific performance of a past due monetary obligation, was not typically available in equity. See, e.g., 3 Restatement (Second) of Contracts §359 (1979); 3 Dobbs § 12.8(2), at 199; 5A A. Corbin, Contracts § 1142, p. 119 (1964) (hereinafter Corbin). Those rare cases in which a court of equity would decree specific performance of a contract to transfer funds were suits that, unlike the present case, sought to prevent future losses that either were incalculable or would be greater than the sum awarded. For example, specific performance might be available to enforce an agreement to lend money “when the unavailability of alternative financing would leave the plaintiff with injuries that are difficult to value; or to enforce an obligor’s duty to make future monthly payments, after the obligor had consistently refused to make past payments concededly due, and thus threatened the obligee with the burden of bringing multiple damages actions.” Bowen, supra, at 918 (Scalia, J., dissenting). See also 3 Dobbs § 12.8(2), at 200; 5A Corbin §1142, at 117-118. Typically, however, specific performance of a contract to pay money was not available in equity.
Bowen v. Massachusetts, supra, upon which petitioners rely, is not to the contrary. We held in Bowen that the provision of the Administrative Procedure Act that precludes actions seeking “money damages” against federal agencies, 5 U. S. C. § 702, does not bar a State from seeking specific relief to obtain money to which it claims entitlement under the federal Medicaid statute, 42 U. S. C. § 1396b(d) (1994 ed. and Supp. V). Bowen “did not turn on distinctions between ‘equitable’ actions and other actions . . . but rather [on] what Congress meant by ‘other than money damages’ ” in the Administrative Procedure Act. Department of Army v. Blue Fox, Inc., 525 U. S. 255, 261 (1999). Furthermore, Bowen, unlike petitioners’ claim, did not deal with specific performance of a contractual obligation to pay past due sums. Rather, Massachusetts claimed not only that the Federal Government failed to reimburse it for past expenses pursuant to a statutory obligation, but that the method the Federal Government used to calculate reimbursements would lead to underpayments in the future. Thus, the suit was not merely for past due sums, but for an injunction to correct the method of calculating payments going forward. Bowen, supra, at 889. Bowen has no bearing on the unavailability of an injunction to enforce a contractual obligation to pay money past due.
B
Second, petitioners argue that their suit is authorized by § 502(a)(3)(B) because they seek restitution, which they characterize as a form of equitable relief. However, not all relief falling under the rubric of restitution is available in equity. In the days of the divided bench, restitution was available in certain cases at law, and in certain others in equity. See, e.g., 1 Dobbs §1.2, at 11; id,., §4.1(1), at 556; id., §4.1(3), at 564-565; id., §§ 42-4.3, at 570-624; 5 Corbin §1102, at 550; Muir, ERISA Remedies: Chimera or Congressional Compromise?, 81 Iowa L. Rev. 1, 36-37 (1995); Redish, Seventh Amendment Right to Jury Trial: A Study in the Irrationality of Rational Decision Making, 70 Nw. U. L. Rev. 486, 528 (1975). Thus, “restitution is a legal remedy when ordered in a case at law and an equitable remedy ... when ordered in an equity case,” and whether it is legal or equitable depends on “the basis for [the plaintiff’s] claim” and the nature of the underlying remedies sought. Reich v. Continental Casualty Co., 33 F. 3d 754, 756 (CA7 1994) (Posner, J.).
In cases in which the plaintiff “could not assert title or right to possession of particular property, but in which nevertheless he might be able to show just grounds for recovering money to pay for some benefit the defendant had received from him,” the plaintiff had a right to restitution at law through an action derived from the common-law writ of assumpsit. 1 Dobbs § 4.2(1), at 571. See also Muir, supra, at 37. In such cases, the plaintiff’s claim was considered legal because he sought “to obtain a judgment imposing a merely personal liability upon the defendant to pay a sum of money.” Restatement of Restitution § 160, Comment a, pp. 641-642 (1936). Such claims were viewed essentially as actions at law for breach of contract (whether the contract was actual or implied).
In contrast, a plaintiff could seek restitution in equity, ordinarily in the form of a constructive trust or an equitable lien, where money or property identified as belonging in good conscience to the plaintiff could clearly be traced to particular funds or property in the defendant’s possession. See 1 Dobbs § 4.3(1), at 587-588; Restatement of Restitution, supra, § 160, Comment a, at 641-642; 1 G. Palmer, Law of Restitution § 1.4, p. 17; § 3.7, p. 262 (1978). A court of equity could then order a defendant to transfer title (in the case of the constructive trust) or to give a security interest (in the case of the equitable lien) to a plaintiff who was, in the eyes of equity, the true owner. But where “the property [sought to be recovered] or its proceeds have been dissipated so that no product remains, [the plaintiff’s] claim is only that of a general creditor,” and the plaintiff “cannot enforce a constructive trust of or an equitable lien upon other property of the [defendant].” Restatement of Restitution, supra, § 215, Comment a, at 867. Thus, for restitution to lie in equity, the action generally must seek not to impose personal liability on the defendant, but to restore to the plaintiff particular funds or property in the defendant’s possession.
Here, the funds to which petitioners claim an entitlement under the Plan’s reimbursement provision — the proceeds from the settlement of respondents’ tort action — are not in respondents’ possession. As the order of the state court approving the settlement makes clear, the disbursements from the settlement were paid by two checks, one made payable to the Special Needs Trust and the other to respondents’ attorney (who, after deducting his own fees and costs, placed the remaining funds in a client trust account from which he tendered checks to respondents’ other creditors, Great-West and Medi-Cal). The basis for petitioners’ claim is not that respondents hold particular funds that, in good conscience, belong to petitioners, but that petitioners are contractually entitled to some funds for benefits that they conferred. The kind of restitution that petitioners seek, therefore, is not equitable — the imposition of a constructive trust or equitable lien on particular property — but legal — the imposition of personal liability for the benefits that they conferred upon respondents.
Admittedly, our cases have not previously drawn this fine distinction between restitution at law and restitution in equity, but neither have they involved an issue to which the distinction was relevant. In Mertens, we mentioned in dicta that “injunction, mandamus, and restitution” are categories of relief that were typically available in equity. 508 U. S., at 256 (emphasis added). Mertens, however, did not involve a claim for restitution at all; rather, we addressed the question whether a nonfiduciary who knowingly participates in the breach of a fiduciary duty imposed by ERISA is liable to the plan for compensatory damages. Id., at 249-250. Thus, as courts and commentators have noted, “all the [Supreme] Court meant [in Mertens and other cases] was that restitution, in contrast to damages, is a remedy commonly ordered in equity cases and therefore an equitable remedy in a sense in which damages, though occasionally awarded in equity cases, are not.” Reich v. Continental Casualty Co., 33 F. 3d, at 756. Mertens did not purport to change the well-settled principle that restitution is “not an exclusively equitable remedy,” and whether it is legal or equitable in a particular case (and hence whether it is authorized by § 502(a)(3)) remains dependent on the nature of the relief sought. 33 F. 3d, at 756. See also Muir, 81 Iowa L. Rev., at 36 (analyzing Mertens and explaining that “only equitable restitution will be available under Section 502(a)(3)”).
Likewise, in Harris Trust and Sav. Bank v. Salomon Smith Barney Inc., 530 U. S. 238 (2000), we noted that “an action for restitution against a transferee of tainted plan assets” is “appropriate equitable relief” within the meaning of § 502(a)(3). Id., at 253. While we did not expressly distinguish between legal and equitable restitution, the nature of the relief we described in Harris Trust — a claim to specific property (or its proceeds) held by the defendant — accords with the restitution we describe as equitable today. Id., at 250 (“The trustee or beneficiaries may then maintain an action for restitution of the property (if not already disposed of) or disgorgement of proceeds (if already disposed of) . . .” (emphasis added)); id., at 250-251 (“Whenever the legal title to property is obtained through means or under circumstances ‘which render it unconscientious for the holder of the legal title to retain and enjoy the beneficial interest, equity impresses a constructive trust on the property thus acquired in favor of the one who is truly and equitably entitled to the same ...” (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).
Justice Ginsburg’s dissent finds it dispositive that some restitutionary remedies were typically available in equity. In her view, the touchstone for distinguishing legal from equitable relief is the “substance of the relief requested,” post, at 228 — and since the “substantive” relief of restitution is typically available in equity, it is, she concludes, available under § 502(a)(3). It is doubtful, to begin with, that “restitution” — or at least restitution defined broadly enough to embrace those forms of restitution available at law — pertains to the substance of the relief rather than to the legal theory under which it is awarded. The “substance” of a money judgment is a compelled transfer of money; a money judgment/or restitution could be thought to identify a particular type of relief (rather than merely the theory on which relief is awarded) only if one were to limit restitution to the return of identifiable funds (or property) belonging to the plaintiff and held by the defendant — that is, to limit restitution to the form of restitution traditionally available in equity.
In any event, Justice Ginsburg’s approach, which looks only to the nature of the relief and not to the conditions that equity attached to its provision, logically leads to the same untenable conclusion reached by Justice Stevens’s dissent — which is that § 502(a)(3)(A)’s explicit authorization of injunction, which it identifies as a form of equitable relief, permits (what equity would never permit) an injunction against failure to pay a simple indebtedness — or, for that matter, an injunction against failure to pay punitive damages. The problem with that conclusion, of course, is that it renders the statute’s limitation of relief to “[injunction] . . . or other appropriate equitable relief” utterly pointless. It is easy to disparage the law-equity dichotomy as “an ancient classification,” post, at 224 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.), and an “obsolete distinctio[n],” post, at 222 (opinion of Stevens, J.). Like it or not, however, that classification and distinction has been specified by the statute; and there is no way to give the specification meaning — indeed, there is no way to render the unmistakable limitation of the statute a limitation at all— except by adverting to the differences between law and equity to which the statute refers. The dissents greatly exaggerate, moreover, the difficulty of that task. Congress felt comfortable referring to equitable relief in this statute — as it has in many others — precisely because the basic contours of the term are well known. Rarely will there be need for any more “antiquarian inquiry,” post, at 233-234 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.), than consulting, as we have done, standard current works such as Dobbs, Palmer, Corbin, and the Restatements, which make the answer clear. It is an inquiry, moreover, that we are accustomed to pursuing, and will always have to pursue, in other contexts. See, e.g., Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S. 308, 318 (1999) (powers of federal courts under the Judiciary Act’s grant of jurisdiction over “all . . . suits in equity”); Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 192 (1974) (scope of the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial “[i]n suits at common law”). What will introduce a high degree of confusion into congressional use (and lawyers’ understanding) of the statutory term “equity” is the rolling revision of its content contemplated by the dissents.
Justice Stevens finds it “difficult... to understand why Congress would not have wanted to provide recourse in federal court for the plan violation disclosed by the record in this ease,” post, at 223. It is, however, not our job to find reasons for what Congress has plainly done; and it is our job to avoid rendering what Congress has plainly done (here, limit the available relief) devoid of reason and effect. If, as Justice Ginsburg surmises, post, at 234, Congress meant to rule out nothing more than “compensatory and punitive damages,” it could simply have said that. That Congress sought to achieve this result by subtle reliance upon the dissenters’ novel and expansive view of equity is most implausible.
Respecting Congress’s choice to limit the relief available under § 502(a)(3) to “equitable relief” requires us to recognize the difference between legal and equitable forms of restitution. Because petitioners seek only the former, their suit is not authorized by § 502(a)(3).
c
Third, the United States, as petitioners’ amicus, argues that the common law of trusts provides petitioners with equitable remedies that allow them to bring this action under § 502(a)(3). Analogizing respondents to beneficiaries of a trust, the United States argues that a trustee could bring a suit to enforce an agreement by a beneficiary to pay money into a trust or to repay an advance made from the trust. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17-19 (citing Restatement (Second) of Trusts §§252, 255 (1959) (hereinafter Restatement of Trusts)). These trust remedies are simply inapposite. In Mertens, we rejected the claim that the special equity-court powers applicable to trusts define the reach of § 502(a)(3). Instead, we held that the term “equitable relief” in § 502(a)(3) must refer to “those categories of relief that were typically available in equity . . . .” 508 U. S., at 256. In any event, the cited sections of the Restatément, by their terms, merely allow a trustee to charge the beneficiary’s interest in the trust in order to capture money owed. See Restatement of Trusts § 252 (“If one of the beneficiaries of a trust contracts to pay money to the trustee to be held as part of the trust estate and he fails to make the payment, his beneficial interest is subject to a charge for the amount of his liability”); id., § 255 (“If the trustee makes an advance or loan of trust money to a beneficiary, the beneficiary’s interest is subject to a charge for the repayment of the amount advanced or lent”). These setoff remedies do not give the trustee a separate equitable cause of action for payment from other moneys.
I — » I — I
In the end, petitioners ask us to interpret § 502(a)(3) so as to prevent them “from being deprived of any remedy under circumstances where such a result clearly would be inconsistent with a primary purpose of ERISA,” namely, the enforcement of the terms of a plan. See Brief for Petitioners 30-31. We note, though it is not necessary to our decision, that there may have been other means for petitioners to obtain the essentially legal relief that they seek. We express no opinion as to whether petitioners could have intervened in the state-court tort action brought by respondents or whether a direct action by petitioners against respondents asserting state-law claims such as breach of contract would have been pre-empted by ERISA. Nor do we decide whether petitioners could have obtained equitable relief against respondents’ attorney and the trustee of the Special Needs Trust, since petitioners did not appeal the District Court’s denial of their motion to amend their complaint to add these individuals as codefendants.
We need not decide these issues because, as we explained in Mertens, “[e]ven assuming ... that petitioners are correct about the pre-emption of previously available state-court actions” or the lack of other means to obtain relief, “vague notions of a statute’s ‘basic purpose’ are nonetheless inadequate to overcome the words of its text regarding the specific issue under consideration.” 508 U. S., at 261. In the very same section of ERISA as § 502(a)(3), Congress authorized “a participant or beneficiary” to bring a civil action “to enforce his rights under the terms of the plan,” without reference to whether the relief sought is legal or equitable. 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B) (1994 ed.). But Congress did not extend the same authorization to fiduciaries. Rather, § 502(a)(3), by its terms, only allows for equitable relief. We will not attempt to adjust the “carefully crafted and detailed enforcement scheme” embodied in the text that Congress has adopted. Mertens, supra, at 254. Because petitioners are seeking legal relief — the imposition of personal liability on respondents for a contractual obligation to pay money— § 502(a)(3) doés not authorize this action. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
At oral argument, petitioners’ counsel argued that the injunction specifically authorized by § 502(a)(3)(A) need not be a form of equitable relief. Petitioners’ brief, however, conceded that the reference in § 502(a)(3)(B) to “other appropriate equitable relief” suggests that the relief authorized in § 502(a)(3)(A) “to enjoin any act or practice which violates ... the terms of [a] plan” is, itself, “appropriate equitable relief.” See Brief for Petitioners 15, n. 6 (emphasis added). In any event, injunction is inherently an equitable remedy, see, e. g., Reich v. Continental Casualty Co., 33 F. 3d 754, 756 (CA7 1994); 1 D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 1.2, p. 11 (2d ed. 1993) (hereinafter Dobbs), and statutory reference to that remedy must, absent other indication, be deemed to contain the limitations upon its availability that equity typically imposes. Without this rule of construction, a statutory limitation to injunctive relief would be meaningless, since any claim for legal relief can, with lawyerly inventiveness, be phrased in terms of an injunction. Here, of course, there is not only no contrary indication, but the positive indication in paragraph (B) that the injunction referred to in paragraph (A) is an equitable injunction.
There is a limited exception for an accounting for profits, a form of equitable restitution that is not at issue in this case. If, for example, a plaintiff is entitled to a constructive trust on particular property held by the defendant, he may also recover profits produced by the defendant’s use of that property, even if he cannot identify a particular res containing the profits sought to be recovered. See 1 Dobbs §4.3(1), at 588; id., § 4.3(5), at 608. Petitioners do not claim the profits (if any) produced by the proceeds from the state-court settlement, and are not entitled to the constructive trust in those proceeds that would support such a claim.
A Westlaw search discloses that the term “equitable relief” appears in 77 provisions of the United States Code.
In support of its argument that Congress intended all restitution to be “equitable relief” under § 502(a)(3), Justice Ginsburg’s dissent asserts that Congress has treated backpay, “a type of restitution,” post, at 230, as equitable for purposes of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The authorities of this Court cited for the proposition that backpay is a type of restitution are Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 197 (1974), and Teamsters v. Terry, 494 U. S. 558, 572 (1990). It is notable, however, that these cases do not say that since it is restitutionary, it is therefore equitable. Curtis, in fact, explicitly refuses to do so. 415 U. S., at 197 (“Whatever may be the merit of the ‘equitable’ characterization [of backpay] in Title VII cases ...” (footnote omitted)). And in Terry, while we noted that “we have characterized damages as equitable where they are restitution-ary,” 494 U. S., at 570, we did not (and could not) say that all forms of restitution are equitable.
Congress “treated [backpay] as equitable” in Title VII, post, at 230 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.), only in the narrow sense that it allowed backpay to be awarded together with equitable relief:
“[T]he court may ... order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to, reinstatement or hiring of employees, with or without back pay ... , or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(g)(l) (1994 ed.) (emphasis added).
If the referent of “other equitable relief” were “back pay,” it could be said, in a sense relevant here, that Congress “treated” backpay as equitable relief. In fact, however, the referent is “reinstatement or hiring of employees,” which is modified by the phrase “with or without back pay.” Curtis recognized that courts of appeals had treated Title VII backpay as equitable because § 2000e-5(g)(l) had made backpay “an integral part of an equitable remedy,” 415 U. S., at 197. See Grayson v. Wickes Corp., 607 F. 2d 1194, 1196 (CA7 1979) (Title VII backpay is “an integral part of the equitable remedy of reinstatement”); Harmon v. May Broadcasting Co., 583 F. 2d 410, 411 (CA8 1978) (same); Slack v. Havens, 522 F. 2d 1091, 1094 (CA9 1975) (same); Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 417 F. 2d 1122, 1125 (CA5 1969) (same).
The statement in Terry on which JUSTICE Ginsburg relies — that “Congress specifically characterized backpay under Title VII as a form of ‘equitable relief,'” 494 U. S., at 572 — is plainly inaccurate unless it is understood to mean that Title VII backpay was “specifically” made part of an equitable remedy. That is the only sense which the Terry discussion requires, and is reinforced by the immediately following citation of the portion of Curtis that called Title VII backpay “an integral part of an equitable remedy,” Curtis, supra, at 197. See Terry, supra, at 572. The restitution sought here by Great-West is not that, but a freestanding claim for money damages. Title VII has nothing to do with this case.
Varity Corp. v. Howe, 516 U. S. 489 (1996), upon which petitioners rely, is not to the contrary. In Varity Corp., we explained that § 502(a)(3) is a “‘catchall’ provisio[n]” that “act[s] as a safety net, offering appropriate equitable relief for injuries caused by violations that § 502 does not elsewhere adequately remedy.” Id., at 512. Thus, we concluded that § 502(a)(3) authorizes lawsuits by beneficiaries for individualized equitable relief for breach of fiduciary obligations, notwithstanding the petitioner’s argument that such relief is not “appropriate” because §§ 502(a)(2) and 409 of ERISA specifically address liability for breach of fiduciary duty and preclude individualized relief. Id., at 507-515. In Varity Corp., however, it was undisputed that respondents were seeking equitable relief, and the question was whether such relief was “appropriate” in light of the apparent lack of alternative remedies. Id., at 508. Varity Corp. did not hold, as petitioners urge us to conclude today, that § 502(a)(3) is a catchall provision that authorizes all relief that is consistent with ERISA’s purposes and is not explicitly provided elsewhere. To accept petitioners’ argument is to ignore the plain language of the statute, which provides fiduciaries with only equitable relief.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Circuits as to whether the defendant, who did not testify at trial, is entitled to review of the District Court’s ruling denying his motion to forbid the use of a prior conviction to impeach his credibility.
I
Petitioner was indicted on charges of conspiracy, and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§ 846 and 841(a)(1). During his trial in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, petitioner moved for a ruling to preclude the Government from using a 1974 state conviction to impeach him if he testified. There was no commitment by petitioner that he would testify if the motion were granted, nor did he make a proffer to the court as to what his testimony would be. In opposing the motion, the Government represented that the conviction was for a serious crime — possession of a controlled substance.
The District Court ruled that the prior conviction fell within the category of permissible impeachment evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 609(a). The District Court noted, however, that the nature and scope of petitioner’s trial testimony could affect the court’s specific evidentiary rulings; for example, the court was prepared to hold that the prior conviction would be excluded if petitioner limited his testimony to explaining his attempt to flee from the arresting officers. However, if petitioner took the stand and denied any prior involvement with drugs, he could then be impeached by the 1974 conviction. Petitioner did not testify, and the jury returned guilty verdicts.
II
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. 713 F. 2d 1236 (1983). The Court of Appeals refused to consider petitioner’s contention that the District Court abused its discretion in denying the motion in limine without making an explicit finding that the probative value of the prior conviction outweighed its prejudicial effect. The Court of Appeals held that when the defendant does not testify, the court will not review the District Court’s in limine ruling.
Some other Circuits have permitted review in similar situations; we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 466 U. S. 903 (1984). We affirm.
III
It is clear, of course, that had petitioner testified and been impeached by evidence of a prior conviction, the District Court’s decision to admit the impeachment evidence would have been reviewable on appeal along with any other claims of error. The Court of Appeals would then have had a complete record detailing the nature of petitioner’s testimony, the scope of the cross-examination, and the possible impact of the impeachment on the jury’s verdict.
A reviewing court is handicapped in any effort to rule on subtle evidentiary questions outside a factual context. This is particularly true under Rule 609(a)(1), which directs the court to weigh the probative value of a prior conviction against the prejudicial effect to the defendant. To perform this balancing, the court must know the precise nature of the defendant’s testimony, which is unknowable when, as here, the defendant does not testify.
Any possible harm flowing from a district court’s in limine ruling permitting impeachment by a prior conviction is wholly speculative. The ruling is subject to change when the case unfolds, particularly if the actual testimony differs from what was contained in the defendant’s proffer. Indeed even if nothing unexpected happens at trial, the district judge is free, in the exercise of sound judicial discretion, to alter a previous in limine ruling. On a record such as here, it would be a matter of conjecture whether the District Court would have allowed the Government to attack petitioner’s credibility at trial by means of the prior conviction.
When the defendant does not testify, the reviewing court also has no way of knowing whether the Government would have sought to impeach with the prior conviction. If, for example, the Government’s case is strong, and the defendant is subject to impeachment by other means, a prosecutor might elect not to use an arguably inadmissible prior conviction.
Because an accused’s decision whether to testify “seldom turns on the resolution of one factor,” New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U. S. 450, 467 (1979) (Blackmun, J., dissenting), a reviewing court cannot assume that the adverse ruling motivated a defendant’s decision not to testify. In support of his motion a defendant might make a commitment to testify if his motion is granted; but such a commitment is virtually risk free because of the difficulty of enforcing it.
Even if these difficulties could be surmounted, the reviewing court would still face the question of harmless error. See generally United States v. Hasting, 461 U. S. 499 (1983). Were in limine rulings under Rule 609(a) re viewable on appeal, almost any error would result in the windfall of automatic reversal; the appellate court could not logically term “harmless” an error that presumptively kept the defendant from testifying. Requiring that a defendant testify in order to preserve Rule 609(a) claims will enable the reviewing court to determine the impact any erroneous impeachment may have had in light of the record as a whole; it will also tend to discourage making such motions solely to “plant” reversible error in the event of conviction.
Petitioner’s reliance on Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U. S. 605 (1972), and New Jersey v. Portash, supra, is misplaced. In those cases we reviewed Fifth Amendment challenges to state-court rulings that operated to dissuade defendants from testifying. We did not hold that a federal court’s preliminary ruling on a question not reaching constitutional dimensions — such as a decision under Rule 609(a) — is reviewable on appeal.
However, Justice Powell, in his concurring opinion in Portash, stated essentially the rule we adopt today:
“The preferred method for raising claims such as [petitioner’s] would be for the defendant to take the stand and appeal a subsequent conviction .... Only in this way may the claim be presented to a reviewing court in a concrete factual context.” 440 U. S., at 462.
We hold that to raise and preserve for review the claim of improper impeachment with a prior conviction, a defendant must testify. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Rule 609(a) provides:
“General Rule. — For the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that he has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted if elicited from him or established by public record during cross-examination but only if the crime (1) was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year under the law under which he was convicted, and the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect to the defendant, or (2) involved dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment.”
“In limine” has been defined as “[o]n or at the threshold; at the very beginning; preliminarily.” Black’s Law Dictionary 708 (5th ed. 1979). We use the term in a broad sense to refer to any motion, whether made before or during trial, to exclude anticipated prejudicial evidence before the evidence is actually offered.
See, e. g., United States v. Lipscomb, 226 U. S. App. D. C. 312, 332, 702 F. 2d 1049, 1069 (1983) (en banc); United States v. Kiendra, 663 F. 2d 349, 352 (CA1 1981); United States v. Fountain, 642 F. 2d 1083, 1088 (CA7), cert. denied, 451 U. S. 993 (1981); United States v. Toney, 615 F. 2d 277, 279 (CA5), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 985 (1980). The Ninth Circuit allows review if the defendant makes a record unequivocally announcing his intention to testify if his motion to exclude prior convictions is granted, and if he proffers the substance of his contemplated testimony. See United States v. Cook, 608 F. 2d 1175, 1186 (1979) (en banc), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1034 (1980).
Although the Federal Rules of Evidence do not explicitly authorize in limine rulings, the practice has developed pursuant to the district court’s inherent authority to manage the course of trials. See generally Fed. Rule Evid. 103(e); cf. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 12(e).
Requiring a defendant to make a proffer of testimony is no answer; his trial testimony could, for any number of reasons, differ from the proffer.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The First National Bank — Detroit closed its doors in 1933 and, in its liquidation, dividends on proved claims, small in average but large in the aggregate, have remained for some years in the hands of the federal liquidators, unclaimed by their owners. Since this national banking institution was located in the State of Michigan, Attorneys General of that State have made persistent efforts at different stages of the liquidation to establish a right in the State to escheat the unclaimed dividends. Latest of these was this action, brought by the Attorney General against the Comptroller of the Currency of the United States and the Receiver of the First National Bank— Detroit, for a declaratory judgment that the Michigan discovery and escheat statute (Michigan Compiled Laws, 1929, Mason’s 1940 Cum. Supp., c. 263), as amended by the statute known as Act 170, Public Acts of Michigan for 1941, applies to unclaimed dividends on claims duly proved in the liquidation. The Court of Appeals held the state statute ineffective as “an unlawful interference with the liquidation of a national bank upon the same principles and authority fully discussed in our previous opinions.” It affirmed the District Court in dismissing the action “on the merits,” adopting the “settled doctrine” of its own prior adjudications. 170 F. 2d 966. However, recourse to these opinions creates some doubt as to whether the Court of Appeals has held the Michigan statute to be invalid for conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States or inapplicable by intendment of the Michigan Legislature. A review of these cited cases will expose the cause of our uncertainty.
In Starr v. O’Connor, 118 F. 2d 548 (1941), the then Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the statutes of Michigan then in force, which did not include Act 170, here involved, and held them applicable to the First National liquidation but unconstitutional under our decision in First National Bank of San Jose v. California, 262 U. S. 366.
In Rushton v. Schram, 143 F. 2d 554 (1944), the court considered whether the amendment effected by Act 170 was applicable to the First National receivership at that stage of the liquidation. The court said that it must determine at the threshold whether this Act should be construed as retroactive in effect; that is, whether it applied to a liquidation commenced before its passage. This, of course, was a state law question and it was decided by reference to state decisions. The court construed the Act, in the light of Michigan decisional law, not to apply retroactively. It is true that the court there reviewed federal decisions to show that it would raise a serious question of constitutionality if the Act were construed otherwise. But Anderson National Bank v. Luckett, 321 U. S. 233, had intervened and in reference to it the Court of Appeals said, “In the light of that fresh authority, we do not say that if invoked for prospective application, and in a manner consistent with the federal statutes, the Michigan statute would conflict with the national banking laws and constitute an unlawful interference with the liquidation of a national bank. Discussion of that problem is deemed inappropriate in view of our conclusion that the Act under consideration carries no retroactive effect in the present situation.” 143 F. 2d at 559.
In Starr v. Schram, 143 F. 2d 561 (1944), the Court of Appeals on the same day passed on the receiver’s request for a declaration that the escheat laws were at no time validly applicable to the receivership and that he was entitled to recover back certain dormant deposit balances and the dividends thereon which already had been paid over to the State pursuant to the Act. The District Court had held that the state statute was invalid as an “unlawful interference” with the federal liquidation. This holding the Court of Appeals affirmed but, on considerations of state immunity from suit, it refused to allow recovery of what had been paid over.
Now comes Black v. Delano—the present case, Roth being substituted for Black—170 F. 2d 966 (1948), which the Court of Appeals rests on the “settled doctrine” of these cases.
Anderson National Bank v. Luckett, supra, in substance, held that the Constitution of the United States does not prohibit a State from escheating deposits in a national bank located and actively doing business therein, abandoned by their owners or belonging to missing persons. The State, after a reasonable lapse of time may lawfully administer such assets, holding them for the benefit of the disappeared claimant or the missing owner for a period and providing for eventual escheat. This it may do through appointment of a personal representative, or a public administrator, or by utilizing its own public officials. We held that mere putting of the State itself, or its duly named officer, in the shoes of the claimant to take what the bank would otherwise be obliged to disburse to the claimant himself does not burden, obstruct or frustrate a going bank in discharging its federal functions. We also held no interference with a bank’s federal function to result from a mere requirement that it make a report to the State of unclaimed property, any more than from a requirement that it report to the State tangible property therein for the purposes of taxation, and nothing in our decisions suggests that such a disclosure would be an interference with the liquidation function. It would not seem too much to ask that a federal officer, possessed of property claimed by the State to be subject to its taxing or escheat power, make reasonable disclosure thereof to such authority as the State designates. It is but a decent comity between governments.
Of course, these basic and general rights of the State, including the enforcement of its claims, might be asserted at a time, in a manner or through such means as to interfere with the federal function of orderly liquidation or to conflict with federal law; but absent such interference with a federal statute, the basic assumption of the State here that nothing in the Constitution prevents it from escheating the specific claims here involved is made clear in our recent decisions. Anderson National Bank v. Luckett, supra. See also Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Moore, 333 U. S. 541.
Reiteration of these general principles does not, of course, determine whether any peculiarity in the operation of Act 170 would go beyond the right of the State and constitute an unreasonable burden on federal functions of the receiver. But this question , is not appropriate for decision here. If the judgment below rests, as well it may, upon earlier decisional law of the Circuit which held that this Act was not intended to apply to receiverships beginning before its enactment, we would hardly review such construction of the State Act. And there is a further reason why we should not now decide the principal question. Michigan has repealed Act No. 170 by Act 329, Public Acts of Michigan for 1947, reserving, however, from the effect of the repeal any “pending suit or proceeding.” A possible consequence is that no new suit or proceeding could be maintained to enforce the repealed Act. Thus, to now decide this suit for a declaratory judgment might be to render an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of a repealed State Act. And, of course, a State cannot by reservation, any more than by affirmation, confer upon us the power or impose upon us the duty to render an advisory opinion.
In view of these considerations, we vacate and remand to the Court of Appeals for such action as it may consider appropriate in the light of the foregoing opinion.
Judgment vacated.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The trial court dismissed as to the Comptroller on the ground it had no jurisdiction over him and the Court of Appeals did not pass on the contention that he is a necessary party. 170 F. 2d 966, 967.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was born in 1927 and was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness by his parents, both of whom were of that faith. He has been identified with the sect since he was 6 years old, “was immersed and became a consecrated servant of Jehovah” at 15, and was ordained when 17 years old. He registered with his local Board in 1948, and, although he worked 44 hours a week for the Railway Express Company, he was first classified as a minister. In 1950, however, petitioner was reclassified for general service and, shortly thereafter, he filed his conscientious objector claim.
In the special form, petitioner included this statement :
“The nature of my claim is that: I am already in the Army of Christ Jesus serving as a soldier of Jehovah’s appointed Commander Jesus Christ. (2 Tim. 2:3 & 4). Inasmuch as the war weapons of the soldier of Jesus Christ are not carnal, I am not authorized by his Commander to engage in carnal warfare of this world. (2 Corinthians 10:3 & 4, Ephesians 6:11-18) Furthermore being enlisted in the army of Jesus Christ, I cannot desert the forces of Jehovah to assume the obligations of a soldier in any army of this world without being guilty of desertion and suffering the punishment meted out to deserters by Almighty God. . . .”
In answer to the question, “Under what circumstances, if any, do you believe in the use of force,” he wrote:
“Only in the interests of defending Kingdom Interests, our preaching work, our meetings, our fellow brethren and sisters and our property against attack. I (as well as all Jehovah's Witnesses) defend those when they are attacked and are forced to protect such interests and scripturally so. Because in doing so we do not arm ourselves or carry carnal weapons in anticipation of or in preparation for trouble or to meet threats. In doing so I try to ward off blows and attacks only in defense. I do not use weapons of warfare in defense of myself or the Kingdom interests. I do not retreat when attacked in my home or at meeting places, but will retreat on public or other property and shake the dust off my feet; so not giving what is holy to dogs and not throwing my pearls before swine. (Matthew 10:14 & 7:6) So I retreat when I can do so and avoid a fight or trouble. Also following the admonition at Acts 24:16; which states ‘In this respect, indeed, I am exercising myself continually to have a consciousness of committing no offense against God and man.’ ”
Upon a denial of this claim by the local Board, petitioner appealed and his file was referred to the Department of Justice. It appears that the report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation contained nothing unfavorable to petitioner’s claim, and the hearing officer concluded that petitioner should be classified as a conscientious objector. In advising the Department of Justice, the hearing officer wrote that he “was convinced that [petitioner] has sincere objections to military service by reason of his religious training and beliefs.” The Department of Justice, although admitting that the investigation was favorable to petitioner, recommended to the Appeal Board that petitioner’s claim be denied on the ground that
“While the registrant may be sincere in the beliefs he has expressed, he has, however, failed to establish that he is opposed to war in any form. As indicated by the statements on his SSS Form No. 150, registrant will fight under some circumstances, namely in defense of his ministry, Kingdom Interests, and in defense of his fellow brethren. He is, therefore, not entitled to exemption within the meaning of the Act.”
The Appeal Board retained petitioner in his I-A classification, and thereafter, when duly ordered to report, he refused to submit to induction. This prosecution followed and the Seventh Circuit affirmed petitioner’s conviction. 213 F. 2d 911. We granted certiorari. 348 U. S. 812.
In this case, unlike Witmer, ante, p. 375, it is admitted that petitioner is sincere; we are therefore relieved of the task of searching the record for basis in fact to support a finding of insincerity. The only question presented in this case is one of law — do the beliefs which petitioner says he holds amount to the conscientious opposition to “participation in war in any form” demanded by Congress as a prerequisite to the conscientious objector deferment?
Stated in the light of the background, the question at issue is whether a registrant under the Universal Military Training and Service Act, who is admittedly a sincere Jehovah’s Witness and conscientious objector to participation in war, but who believes in the use of force in defending “his ministry, Kingdom interests and ... his fellow brethren,” is entitled to exemption under § 6 (j) of the Act from service in the armed forces. The Government insists that petitioner’s statements reveal qualified and varied objection to war — and that “petitioner’s willingness to fight in defense of ‘Kingdom Interests’, particularly when those words are considered in the light of the teachings of his sect, . . .” is clearly not opposition to war in any form.
The Government does not contend that the petitioner’s belief in the use of force in self-defense, as well as the defense of his home, family and associates, is so inconsistent with his claim of conscientious objection as to serve as a basis for a denial of his claim. The question here narrows to whether the willingness to use of force in defense of Kingdom interests and brethren is sufficiently inconsistent with petitioner’s claim as to justify the conclusion that he fell short of being a conscientious objector. Throughout his selective service form, petitioner emphasized that the weapons of his warfare were spiritual, not carnal. He asserted that he was a soldier in the Army of Jesus Christ and that “the war weapons of the soldier of Jesus Christ are not carnal.” With reference to the defense of his ministry, his brethren and Kingdom interests, he asserted that “we do not arm ourselves or carry carnal weapons .... I do not use weapons of warfare in defense ... of Kingdom interests . . . .” In letters to the local Board he reiterated these beliefs. On their face, these statements make it clear that petitioner’s defense of “Kingdom Interests” has neither the bark nor the bite of war as we unfortunately know it today. It is difficult for us to believe that the Congress had in mind this type of activity when it said the thrust of conscientious objection must go to “participation in war in any form.”
But the Government urges that these statements of petitioner must be taken in the light of the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While each case must of necessity be based on the particular beliefs of the individual registrant, it is true that the Congress, by relating the registrant’s conscientious objection to his religious training and belief, has made the belief of his sect relevant. Moreover, the petitioner does parenthetically say that his belief in the use of force was “as well . . . [the belief of] all Jehovah’s Witnesses.” On the other hand, though the Government has appended to its brief a copy of the Watchtower magazine of February 1, 1951, we do not find any such literature in the record. It is not at all clear that we may consider such material outside the record to support an Appeal Board decision, cf. Cox v. United States, 332 U. S. 442, 453-455 (1947), but we need not decide that here because in any event there is no substance to the Government’s contention. Granting that these articles picture Jehovah’s Witnesses as antipacifists, extolling the ancient wars of the Israelites and ready to engage in a “theocratic war” if Jehovah so commands them, and granting that the Jehovah’s Witnesses will fight at Armageddon, we do not feel this is enough. The test is not whether the registrant is opposed to all war, but whether he is opposed, on religious grounds, to participation in war. As to theocratic war, petitioner’s willingness to fight on the orders of Jehovah is tempered by the fact that, so far as we know, their history records no such command since Biblical times and their theology does not appear to contemplate one in the future. And although the Jehovah’s Witnesses may fight in the Armageddon, we are not able to stretch our imagination to the point of believing that the yardstick of the Congress includes within its measure such spiritual wars between the powers of good and evil where the Jehovah’s Witnesses, if they participate, will do so without carnal weapons.
We believe that Congress had in mind real shooting wars when it referred to participation in war in any form — actual military conflicts between nations of the earth in our time-r-wars with bombs and bullets, tanks, planes and rockets. We believe the reasoning of the Government in denying petitioner’s claim is so far removed from any possible congressional intent that it is erroneous as a matter of law.
The Court of Appeals also rested its decision on the conclusion that petitioner’s objection to participation in war was only a facet of his real objection to all governmental authority. We believe, however, that if the requisite objection to participation in war exists, it makes no difference that a registrant also claims, on religious grounds, other exemptions which are not covered by the Act. Once he comes within § 6 (j), he does not forfeit its coverage because of his other beliefs which may extend beyond the exemption granted by Congress.
The Government also contends, apparently for the first time, that petitioner objects to “participation in war in any form,” if in fact he does, not from a feeling that it is wrong to participate in war but because such participation will require time which petitioner feels should be devoted to his religious activities. In its memorandum indicating its lack of opposition to certiorari, the Government gave no hint that it considered such an issue in the case, and it is unnecessary for us to consider it here. The report of the Department of Justice to the Appeal Board clearly bases its recommendation on petitioner’s willingness to “fight under some circumstances, namely in defense of his ministry, Kingdom Interests, and in defense of his fellow brethren,” and we feel that this error of law by the Department, to which the Appeal Board might naturally look for guidance on such questions, must vitiate the entire proceedings at least where it is not clear that the Board relied on some legitimate ground. Here, where it is impossible to determine on exactly which grounds the Appeal Board decided, the integrity of the Selective Service System demands, at least, that the Government not recommend illegal grounds. There is an impressive body of lower court cases taking this position and we believe that they state the correct rule. Cf. United States ex rel. Levy v. Cain, 149 F. 2d 338, 342 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1945); United States v. Balogh, 157 F. 2d 939, 943-944 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1946), judgment vacated on other grounds, 329 U. S. 692; United States v. Everngam, 102 F. Supp. 128 (S. D. W. Va. 1951).
The decision below is therefore
Reversed.
In United States v. Taffs, in which we denied certiorari, 347 U. S. 928, the Government admitted as much in its petition. Its admission here does not extend to the category “brethren” which was not used in Taffs.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellants, two natural gas pipeline companies, brought separate suits against Texas State officials, appellees here, in a state district court, seeking a determination that a Texas tax statute as applied to appellants violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States, and seeking recovery of money paid under protest in compliance with the statute. The District Court sustained appellants’ contentions and entered judgment in their favor. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed, holding that the tax statute as applied is constitutional. 255 S. W. 2d 535. The Supreme Court of Texas “refused” appellants’ applications for writs of error.
By state statute and procedural rule, the docket notation “refused” in denying application for writ of error signifies that the State Supreme Court deems the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals a correct one and the principles of law declared in the opinion correctly determined. Appellants were uncertain whether appeal to this Court was properly from the Court of Civil Appeals or the Supreme Court of Texas, as “the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had” within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1257. Hence each appellant appealed from each of the courts. We postponed to the hearing of the cases on the merits a determination of the jurisdictional question. 346 U. S. 805.
We think that appeals in these cases were properly from the Court of Civil Appeals. In American Railway Express Co. v. Levee, 263 U. S. 19 (1923), the Supreme Court of Louisiana had refused a writ of certiorari to the State Court of Appeal “for the reason that the judgment is correct.” Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Court, said:
“. . . [Ujnder the Constitution of the State the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is discretionary . . . and although it was necessary for the petitioner to invoke that jurisdiction in order to make it certain that the case could go no farther, . . . when the jurisdiction was declined the Court of Appeal was shown to be the highest Court of the State in which a decision could be had. Another section of the article cited required the Supreme Court to give its reasons for refusing the writ, and therefore the fact that the reason happened to be an opinion upon the merits rather than some more technical consideration, did not take from the refusal its ostensible character of declining jurisdiction. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Crovo, 220 U. S. 364, 366. Norfolk & Suburban Turnpike Co. v. Virginia, 225 U. S. 264, 269. Of course the limit of time for applying to this Court was from the date when the writ of cer-tiorari was refused.” 263 U. S., at 20-21.
In Lone Star Gas Co. v. Texas, 304 U. S. 224 (1938), with the present Texas procedural provisions in effect, this Court’s mandate issued to the Court of Civil Appeals in a case where the State Supreme Court had “refused” writ of error. See also United Public Service Co. v. Texas, 301 U. S. 667 (1937).
Accordingly the appeals in Nos. 199 and 201, from the Supreme Court of Texas, are dismissed. We proceed to consider Nos. 198 and 200.
The question presented is whether the Commerce Clause is infringed by a Texas tax on the occupation of “gathering gas,” measured by the entire volume of gas “taken,” as applied to an interstate natural gas pipeline company, where the taxable incidence is the taking of gas from the outlet of an independent gasoline plant within the State for the purpose of immediate interstate transmission. In relevant part the tax statute provides that “In addition to all other licenses and taxes levied and assessed in the State of Texas, there is hereby levied upon every person engaged in gathering gas produced in this State, an occupation tax for the privilege of engaging in such business, at the rate of 9/20 of one cent per thousand (1,000) cubic feet of gas gathered.” Using a beggared definition of the term “gathering gas,” the Act further provides that “In the case of gas containing gasoline or liquid hydrocarbons that are removed or extracted at a plant within the State by scrubbing, absorption, compression or any other process, the term ‘gathering gas’ means the first taking or the first retaining of possession of such gas for other processing or transmission whether through a pipeline, either common carrier or private, or otherwise after such gas has passed through the outlet of such plant.” It also prohibits the “gatherer” as therein defined from shifting the burden of the tax to the producer of the gas, and provides that the tax shall not be levied as to gas gathered for local consumption if declared unconstitutional as to that gathered for interstate transmission.
Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Company and Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Company, appellants, are Delaware corporations and are natural gas companies holding certificates of convenience and necessity under the Natural Gas Act of 1938 for the transportation and sale in interstate commerce of natural gas. The nature of their activities has been stipulated.
Michigan-Wisconsin has constructed a pipeline extending from Texas to Michigan and Wisconsin. At points in these two States and in Missouri and Iowa it sells gas to distribution companies which serve markets in those areas. It sells no gas in Texas. The company-produces no gas; it purchases its supply from Phillips Petroleum Company in Texas, under a long-term contract. Phillips collects the gas from the wells and pipes it to a gasoline plant, where certain liquefiable hydrocarbons, oxygen, sulphur, hydrogen sulphide, dust and foreign substances are removed preparatory to the transmission of the residue. As this residue gas leaves the absorbers, it flows through pipes owned by Phillips for a distance of 300 yards to the outlet of its gasoline plant, at the boundary between property of Phillips and property of Michigan-Wisconsin. Phillips has installed gas meters in its pipes at this point. The gas emerging from the outlet flows directly into two 26-inch pipelines of Michigan-Wisconsin. It is this “taking” that is made the taxable incidence of the statute. After the gas has been taken into the Michigan-Wisconsin pipes, it flows a distance of approximately 1,215 feet to a compressor station owned and operated by Michigan-Wisconsin, at which station the pressure of the gas is raised from about 200 pounds to some 975 pounds to facilitate movement to distant markets. In the course of its flow through this station the gas is compressed, cooled, scrubbed and dehydrated and then passes into a 24-inch pipeline which carries it 1.74 miles to the Oklahoma border and thence to markets outside Texas. Additional motive power is furnished by 15 other compressor stations in other states through which the gas is transported.
The entire movement of the gas, from producing wells through the Phillips gasoline plant and into the Michigan-Wisconsin pipeline to consumers outside Texas, is a steady and continuous flow. All of Michigan-Wisconsin’s gas is purchased from Phillips for transportation to points outside Texas, and is in fact so transported.
Exclusive of the tax in question, Michigan-Wisconsin pays an ad valorem tax on the value of all its facilities and leases within the State. The State also levies on producers a tax of 5.72% of the value at the well of all gas produced in the State and a special tax to cover expenses in enforcing the conservation and proration laws.
The appellees place much emphasis upon the fact that Texas through these conservation and proration measures has afforded great benefits and protection to pipeline companies. It is beyond question that the enforcement of these laws has been not only in the public interest but to the commercial advantage of the industry. But, though this be an appealing truth, these benefits are relevant here only to show that essential requirements of due process have been met sufficiently to justify the imposition of any tax on the interstate activity. No challenge is made of the validity of the tax under the Due Process Clause, the appellants basing their objections only on the Commerce Clause, and when we proceed to examine the tax under the latter its validity “depends upon other considerations of constitutional policy having reference to the substantial effects, actual or potential, of the particular tax in suppressing or burdening unduly the commerce.” Nippert v. Richmond, 327 U. S. 416, 424 (1946). We proceed, therefore, to discuss only those relevant factors involved in the testing of the tax under the Commerce Clause.
The tax here assailed applies equally to gas moving in intrastate and interstate commerce. It is levied in addition to all other licenses and taxes and is denominated an occupation tax for the privilege of engaging in the “gathering of gas.” Obviously appellants are not engaged in “gathering gas” within the meaning of that term in its ordinary usage; but the tax statute gives the term a transcendent scope; as to appellants’ operations it is defined as “the first taking ... of possession of such gas for other processing or transmission . . . after such gas has passed through the outlet” of a gasoline plant. The State Appellate Court realistically found “the taxable event described by the statute” to be “the taking or retaining of the gas at the gasoline plant outlet It thought that since this local activity was not subject to repetition elsewhere, “the sole question is whether such local activities are so closely related to and such an integral part of the interstate business of [appellants] who transport gas in interstate commerce as to be within the scope of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.” The court concluded that such taking “is just as local in nature as the production itself is local,” and held the tax valid principally on the authority of Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, 286 U. S. 165 (1932), and Hope Natural Gas Co. v. Hall, 274 U. S. 284 (1927).
We accept the State court’s determination of the operating incidence of the tax, and we think the court has correctly stated the essential question presented. But we are unable to agree with its answer thereto or with its conclusion of constitutionality.
Appellants’ business is the interstate transportation and sale of natural gas. Under the Commerce Clause interstate commerce and its instrumentalities are not totally immune from state taxation, absent action by Congress. Frequently it has been said that interstate business must pay its way, Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Richmond, 249 U. S. 252, 259 (1919); Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S. 250, 254 (1938); and the Court has done more than pay lip service to this idea. Numerous cases have upheld state levies where it is thought that the tax does not operate to discriminate against commerce or unduly burden it either directly or by the possibility of multiple taxation resulting from other taxes of the same sort being imposed by other states. The recurring problem is to resolve a conflict between the Constitution's mandate that trade between the states be permitted to flow freely without unnecessary obstruction from any source, and the state’s rightful desire to require that interstate business bear its proper share of the costs of local government in return for benefits received. Some have thought that the wisest course would be for this Court to uphold all state taxes not patently discriminatory, and wait for Congress to adjust conflicts when and as it wished. But this view has not prevailed, and the Court has therefore been forced to decide in many varied factual situations whether the application of a given state tax to a given aspect of interstate activity violates the Commerce Clause. It is now well settled that a tax imposed on a local activity related to interstate commerce is valid if, and only if, the local activity is not such an integral part of the interstate process, the flow of commerce, that it cannot realistically be separated from it. Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Stone, 335 U. S. 80, 87 (1948); Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, supra, at 258. And if a genuine separation of the taxed local activity from the interstate process is impossible, it is more likely that other states through which the commerce passes or into which it flows can with equal right impose a similar levy on the goods, with the net effect of prejudicing or unduly burdening commerce.
The problem in this case is not whether the State could tax the actual gathering of all gas whether transmitted in interstate commerce or not, cf. Hope Natural Gas Co. v. Hall, supra, but whether here the State has delayed the incidence of the tax beyond the step where production and processing have ceased and transmission in interstate commerce has begun. Cf. Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, supra. The incidence of the tax here at issue, as stated by the Texas appellate court, is appellants’ “taking” of gas from Phillips’ gasoline plant. This event, as stipulated, occurs after the gas has been produced, gathered and processed by others than appellants. The “taking” into appellants’ pipelines is solely for interstate transmission and the gas at that time is not only actually committed to but is moving in interstate commerce. What Texas seeks to tax is, therefore, more than merely the loading of an interstate carrier, which was condemned in Joseph v. Carter & Weekes Stevedoring Co., 330 U. S. 422, 427 (1947), for thé gas here simultaneously enters the pipeline carrier and moves on continuously to its outside market. “There is no break, no period of deliberation, but a steady flow ending as contemplated from the beginning beyond the state line.” United Fuel Gas Co. v. Hallanan, 257 U. S. 277, 281 (1921). As early as Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 213 (1885), this Court said, “Receiving and landing passengers and freight is incident to their transportation.” But receipt of the gas in the pipeline is more than its “taking”; from a practical standpoint it is its “taking off” in appellants’ carrier into commerce; in reality the tax is, therefore, on the exit of the gas from the State. This economic process is inherently unsusceptible of division into a distinct local activity capable of forming the basis for the tax here imposed, on the one hand, and a separate movement in commerce, on the other. It is difficult to conceive of a factual situation where the incidence of taking or loading for transmission is more closely related to the transmission itself. This Court has held that much less integrated activity is “so closely related to interstate transportation as to be practically a part of it.” We are therefore of the opinion that the taking of the gas here is essentially a part of interstate commerce itself.
The Court of Civil Appeals, as we have stated, relied largely on Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, supra. But that case involved a license tax on the generation of electricity produced in a hydraulic power plant within the State of Idaho and transmitted to Utah. The question the Court was called upon to solve was whether “the generation of electrical energy, like manufacture or production generally, [is] a process essentially local in character and complete in itself; or is it so linked with the transmission as to make it an inseparable part of a transaction in interstate commerce?” The Court thought it inaccurate to say that the entire system was purely a transferring device. “On the contrary,” it said, “the generator and the transmission lines perform different functions, with a result comparable, so far as the question here under consideration is concerned, to the manufacture of physical articles of trade and their subsequent shipment and transportation in commerce.” Cited to support this principle was Oliver Iron Mining Co. v. Lord, 262 U. S. 172 (1923), where a state tax levied on all “engaged in the business of mining or producing iron ore or other ores” was upheld since the “ore does not enter interstate commerce until after the mining is done, and the tax is imposed only in respect of the mining” (at 179); and Hope Natural Gas Co. v. Hall, supra, which upheld a tax on “producers of natural gas reckoned according to the value of that commodity at the well.” But the tax here is not levied on the capture or production of the gas, but rather on its taking into interstate commerce after production, gathering and processing.
The State Appellate Court recognized that nothing was done to the gas at the point of “taking”; its form was not changed in any way; it merely continued its journey. However, the court thought that it would be unfair to base a decision on the fluid nature of natural gas, and that there was in fact a two-step process, taking and transmission, with interference in between found in title passing and processing. But the processing, on which this tax is not imposed, was done by Phillips and took place prior to the taxable event of “taking.” As for the interference of title passing, appellees readily admit this levy was designed to avoid taxing the sale; and we think that, as a basis for finding a separate local activity, the incidence must be a more substantial economic factor than the movement of the gas from a local outlet of one owner into the connecting interstate pipeline of another. Such an aspect of interstate transportation cannot be “carve[d] out from what is an entire or integral economic process,” Nippert v. Richmond, supra, at 423, by legislative whimsy and segregated as a basis for the tax. The separation must be realistic.
Here it is perhaps sufficient that the privilege taxed, namely the taking of the gas, is not so separate and distinct from interstate transportation as to support the tax. But additional objection is present if the tax be upheld. It would “permit a multiple burden upon that commerce,” Joseph v. Carter & Weekes Stevedoring Co., supra, at 429, for if Texas may impose this “first taking” tax measured by the total volume of gas so taken, then Michigan and the other recipient states have at least equal right to tax the first taking or “unloading” from the pipeline of the same gas when it arrives for distribution. Oklahoma might then seek to tax the first taking of the gas as it crossed into that State. The net effect would be substantially to resurrect the customs barriers which the Commerce Clause was designed to eliminate. “The very purpose of the Commerce Clause was to create an area of free trade among the several States. That clause vested the power of taxing a transaction forming an unbroken process of interstate commerce in the Congress, not in the States.” McLeod v. Dilworth Co., 322 U. S. 327, 330-331 (1944).
Reversed.
Cf. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Priester, 276 U. S. 252 (1928).
Tex. Laws 1951, c. 402, § XXIII.
The two appellants, through the distribution companies, supply gas for consumer markets with a population of about 12,000,000 people. As noted by the court below, “Except for minor variations Panhandle conducts its activities in the same manner as Michigan-Wisconsin. Panhandle loads its interstate pipeline with gas from the outlets of three gasoline plants, rather than with gas from only one plant; it produces a portion of the gas which it takes at the outlet of one of such plants; and it makes sales in Texas to three small customers, rather than sending all of its gas outside the State.” We agree with that court that for purposes of this decision Panhandle’s operations are not significantly different from those of Michigan-Wisconsin. Only the interstate aspects of the enterprise are in question. The operations of Michigan-Wisconsin, which transmits all of its gas out of Texas, most clearly present the question to be decided and will be the basis of our discussion. This approach was utilized by the State court; and appellees do not suggest that the situations of the two appellants are different for purposes of decision here.
Appellees challenge at the outset of their argument this Court’s jurisdiction to consider these appeals, on the ground that appellants present no question, federal or otherwise, for the Court’s determination. The argument is in substance that appellants’ grounds of protest in the State courts set forth a number of alleged operating incidences of the tax, none of which coincided with the operating incidence found by the Court of Civil Appeals; that the State court’s finding on this subject is conclusive and binding on this Court; that appellants, in urging that the tax is a burden on and discriminatory against interstate commerce, are advancing new grounds not considered by the State courts and hence waived under the Texas protest statute; in short, that the issue of the validity of the tax was not properly raised. We think there is no substance to this contention. In their complaints and continuously thereafter appellants specifically challenged the validity of the tax statute under the Commerce Clause. The trial court held the tax invalid as violating the Commerce Clause. The Court of Civil Appeals expressly stated that the question for its decision was whether the statute as applied to appellants “violates the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. If so it is void, if not it is valid.” Since the State courts have clearly treated the single issue here presented as properly raised and preserved, and since appellees first suggested the contrary in their brief on argument in this Court, we think the objections to jurisdiction are not well taken.
Baltimore & Ohio S. W. R. Co. v. Burtch, 263 U. S. 540, 544 (1924) (“loading or unloading of a shipment”); also see Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460, 466 (1882) (tax on “sending” of messages outside state is a regulation of interstate commerce); Puget Bound, Stevedoring Co. v. State Tax Commission, 302 U. S. 90, 92 (1937) (“loading and discharge of cargoes” is interstate operation); Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, 329 U. S. 69, 83 (1946) (commerce begins “no later than the delivery of the oil into the vessel”).
286 U. S., at 180-181. The Court found that in the operation there involved it was necessary to convert the mechanical energy into electrical energy before it could be transmitted and that this transformation was completed at the generator where the interstate movement began. This is analogous to the situation here where the gas is prepared by Phillips for transmission and is then fed into appellants' lines.
Appellees also rely on Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Stone, supra; Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, supra; Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, 289 U. S. 249 (1933); Chassaniol v. Greenwood, 291 U. S. 584 (1934); Coverdale v. Arkansas-Louisiana Pipe Line Co., 303 U. S. 604 (1938). We think these cases are distinguishable from the present one in that in each of them the tax was imposed on a less integral part of the commerce process involved. Also distinguishable is McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., 309 U. S. 33 (1940), involving a tax on the sale of goods for consumption, imposed by the city in which the goods had come to rest. The Court there found that commerce, as to the goods, had ended prior to the taxable event, and likened the tax to an ad valorem one on property.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
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Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The two issues are whether respondent Alvarez-Machain’s allegation that the Drug Enforcement Administration instigated his abduction from Mexico for criminal trial in the United States supports a claim against the Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA or Act), 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346(b)(1), 2671-2680, and whether he may recover under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U. S. C. § 1350. We hold that he is not entitled to a remedy under either statute.
I
We have considered the underlying facts before, United, States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U. S. 655 (1992). In 1985, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Enrique Camarena-Salazar, was captured on assignment in Mexico and taken to a house in Guadalajara, where he was tortured over the course of a 2-day interrogation, then murdered. Based in part on eyewitness testimony, DEA officials in the United States came to believe that respondent Humberto Alvarez-Machain (Alvarez), a Mexican physician, was present at the house and acted to prolong the agent’s life in order to extend the interrogation and torture. Id., at 657.
In 1990, a federal grand jury indicted Alvarez for the torture and murder of Camarena-Salazar, and the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a warrant for his arrest. 331 F. 3d 604, 609 (CA9 2003) (en banc). The DEA asked the Mexican Government for help in getting Alvarez into the United States, but when the requests and negotiations proved fruitless, the DEA approved a plan to hire Mexican nationals to seize Alvarez and bring him to the United States for trial. As so planned, a group of Mexicans, including petitioner Jose Francisco Sosa, abducted Alvarez from his house, held him overnight in a motel, and brought him by private plane to El Paso, Texas, where he was arrested by federal officers. Ibid.
Once in American custody, Alvarez moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that his seizure was “outrageous governmental conduct,” Alvarez-Machain, 504 U. S., at 658, and violated the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico. The. District Court agreed, the Ninth Circuit affirmed, and we reversed, id., at 670, holding that the fact of Alvarez’s forcible seizure did not affect the jurisdiction of a federal court. The case was tried in 1992, and ended at the close of the Government’s case, when the District Court granted Alvarez’s motion for a judgment of acquittal.
In 1993, after returning to Mexico, Alvarez began the civil action before us here. He sued Sosa, Mexican citizen and DEA operative Antonio Garate-Bustamante, five unnamed Mexican civilians, the United States, and four DEA agents. 331 F. 3d, at 610. So far as it matters here, Alvarez sought damages from the United States under the FTCA, alleging false arrest, and from Sosa under the ATS, for a violation of the law of nations. The former statute authorizes suit “for... personal injury... 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.” 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b)(1). The latter provides in its entirety that “[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” § 1350.
The District Court granted the Government’s motion to dismiss the FTCA claim, but awarded summary judgment and $25,000 in damages to Alvarez on the ATS claim. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit then affirmed the ATS judgment, but reversed the dismissal of the FTCA claim. 266 F. 3d 1045 (2001).
A divided en banc court came to the same conclusion. 331 F. 3d, at 641. As for the ATS claim, the court called on its own precedent, “that [the ATS] not only provides federal courts with subject matter jurisdiction, but also creates a cause of action for an alleged violation of the law of nations.” Id., at 612. The Circuit then relied upon what it called the “clear and universally recognized norm prohibiting arbitrary arrest and detention,” id., at 620, to support the conclusion that Alvarez’s arrest amounted to a tort in violation of international law. On the FTCA claim, the Ninth Circuit held that, because “the DEA had no authority to effect Alvarez’s arrest and detention in Mexico,” id., at 608, the United States was liable to him under California law for the tort of false arrest, id., at 640-641.
We granted certiorari in these companion cases to clarify the scope of both the FTCA and the ATS. 540 U. S. 1045 (2003). We now reverse in each.
II
The Government seeks reversal of the judgment of liability under the FTCA on two principal grounds. It argues that the arrest could not have been tortious, because it was authorized by 21 U. S. C. §878, setting out the arrest authority of the DEA, and it says that in any event the liability asserted here falls within the FTCA exception to waiver of sovereign immunity for claims “arising in a foreign country,” 28 U. S. C. § 2680(k). We think the exception applies and decide on that ground.
A
The FTCA “was designed primarily to remove the sovereign immunity of the United States from suits in tort and, with certain specific exceptions, to render the Government liable in tort as a private individual would be under like circumstances.” Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 6 (1962); see also 28 U. S. C. § 2674. The Act accordingly gives federal district courts jurisdiction over claims against the United States for injury “caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.” § 1346(b)(1), But the Act also limits its waiver of sovereign immunity in a number of ways. See §2680 (no waiver as to, e. g., “[a]ny claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter,” “[a]ny claim for damages caused by the imposition or establishment of a quarantine by the United States,” or “[a]ny claim arising from the activities of the Panama Canal Company”).
Here the significant limitation on the waiver of immunity is the Act’s exception for “[a]ny claim arising in a foreign country,” §2680(k), a provision that on its face seems plainly applicable to the facts of this action. In the Ninth Circuit’s view, once Alvarez was within the borders of the United States, his detention was not tortious, see 331 F. 3d, at 636-637; the appellate court suggested that the Government’s liability to Alvarez rested solely upon a false arrest claim. Id., at 640-641. Alvarez's arrest, however, was said to be “false,” and thus tortious, only because, and only to the extent that, it took place and endured in Mexico. The actions in Mexico are thus most naturally understood as the kernel of a “claim arising in a foreign country,” and barred from suit under the exception to the waiver of immunity.
Notwithstanding the straightforward language of the foreign country exception, the Ninth Circuit allowed the action to proceed under what has come to be known as the “headquarters doctrine.” Some Courts of Appeals, reasoning that “[t]he entire scheme of the FTC A focuses on the place where the negligent or wrongful act or omission of the government employee occurred,” Sami v. United States, 617 F. 2d 755, 761 (CADC 1979), have concluded that the foreign country exception does not exempt the United States from suit “for acts or omissions occurring here which have their operative effect in another country,” id., at 762 (refusing to apply § 2680(k) where a communique sent from the United States by a federal law enforcement officer resulted in plaintiff’s wrongful detention in Germany). Headquarters claims “typically involve allegations of negligent guidance in an office within the United States of employees who cause damage while in a foreign country, or of activities which take place within a foreign country.” Cominotto v. United States, 802 F. 2d 1127, 1130 (CA9 1986). In such instances, these courts have concluded that §2680(k) does not bar suit.
The reasoning of the Ninth Circuit here was that, since Alvarez’s abduction in Mexico was the direct result of wrongful acts of planning and direction by DEA agents located in California, “Alvarez’s abduction fits the headquarters doctrine like a glove.” 331 F. 3d, at 638.
“Working out of DEA offices in Los Angeles, [DEA agents] made the decision to kidnap Alvarez and... gave [their Mexican intermediary] precise instructions on whom to recruit, how to seize Alvarez, and how he should be treated during the trip to the United States. DEA officials in Washington, D. C., approved the details of the operation. After Alvarez was abducted according to plan, DEA agents supervised his transportation into the United States, telling the arrest team where to land the plane and obtaining clearance in El Paso for landing. The United States, and California in particular, served as command central for the operation carried out in Mexico.” Id., at 638-639.
Thus, the Ninth Circuit held that Alvarez’s claim did not “aris[e] in” a foreign country.
The potential effect of this sort of headquarters analysis flashes the yellow caution light. “[I]t will virtually always be possible to assert that the negligent activity that injured the plaintiff [abroad] was the consequence of faulty training, selection or supervision — or even less than that, lack of careful training, selection or supervision — in the United States." Beattie v. United States, 756 F. 2d 91, 119 (CADC 1984) (Scalia, J., dissenting). Legal malpractice claims, Knisley v. United States, 817 F. Supp. 680, 691-693 (SD Ohio 1993), allegations of negligent medical care, Newborn v. United States, 238 F. Supp. 2d 145, 148-149 (DC 2002), and even slip-and-fall cases, Eaglin v. United States, Dept. of Army, 794 F. 2d 981, 983-984 (CA5 1986), can all be repackaged as headquarters claims based on a failure to train, a failure to warn, the offering of bad advice, or the adoption of a negligent policy. If we were to approve the headquarters exception to the foreign country exception, the “'headquarters claim’ [would] become a standard part of FTCA litigation” in cases potentially implicating the foreign country exception. Beattie, supra, at 119 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The headquarters doctrine threatens to swallow the foreign country exception whole, certainly at the pleadings stage.
The need for skepticism is borne out by two considerations. One of them is pertinent to cases like this one, where harm was arguably caused both by individual action in a foreign country as well as by planning in the United States; the other is suggested simply because the harm occurred on foreign soil.
B
Although not every headquarters case is rested on an explicit analysis of proximate causation, this notion of cause is necessary to connect the domestic breach of duty (at headquarters) with the action in the foreign country (in a case like this) producing the foreign harm or injury. It is necessary, in other words, to conclude that the act or omission at home headquarters was sufficiently close to the ultimate injury, and sufficiently important in producing it, to make it reasonable to follow liability back to the headquarters behavior. Only in this way could the behavior at headquarters properly be seen as the act or omission on which all FTCA liability must rest under §2675. See, e. g., Cominotto, supra, at 1130 (“[A] headquarters claim exists where negligent acts in the United States proximately cause harm in a foreign country”); Eaglin, supra, at 983 (noting that head-. quarters cases require “a plausible proximate nexus or connection between acts or omissions in the United States and the resulting damage or injury in a foreign country”).
Recognizing this connection of proximate cause between domestic behavior and foreign harm or injury is not, however, sufficient of itself to bar application of the foreign country exception to a claim resting on that same foreign consequence. Proximate cause is causation substantial enough and close enough to the harm to be recognized by law, but a given proximate cause need not be, and frequently is not, the exclusive proximate cause of harm. See, e. g., 57A Am. Jur. 2d § 529 (2004) (discussing proper jury instructions in cases involving multiple proximate causes); Beattie, swpra, at 121 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“[I]n the ordinary case there may be several points along the chain of causality” pertinent to the enquiry). Here, for example, assuming that the direction by DEA officials in California was a proximate cause of the abduction, the actions of Sosa and others in Mexico were just as surely proximate causes, as well. Thus, understanding that California planning was a legal cause of the harm in no way eliminates the conclusion that the claim here arose from harm proximately caused by acts in Mexico. At most, recognition of additional domestic causation under the headquarters doctrine leaves an open question whether the exception applies to the claim.
C
Not only does domestic proximate causation under the headquarters doctrine fail to eliminate application of the foreign country exception, but there is good reason to think that Congress understood a claim “arising in” a foreign country in such a way as to bar application of the headquarters doctrine. There is good reason, that is, to conclude that Congress understood a claim “arising in a foreign country” to be a claim for injury or harm occurring in a foreign country. 28 U. S. C. § 2680(k). This sense of “arising in” was the common usage in state borrowing statutes contemporary with the Act, which operated to determine which State’s statute of limitations should apply in cases involving transjurisdic-tional facts. When the FTCA was passed, the general rule, as set out in various state statutes, was that “a cause of action arising in another jurisdiction, which is barred by the laws of that jurisdiction, will [also] be barred in the domestic courts.” 41 A. L. R. 4th 1025,1029, §2 (1985). These borrowing statutes were typically restricted by express terms to situations where a cause of action was time barred in the State “where [the] cause of action arose, or accrued, or originated.” 75 A. L. R. 203, 211 (1931) (emphasis in original). Critically for present purposes, these variations on the theme of “arising in” were interpreted in tort cases in just the same way that we read the FTCA today. A commentator noted in 1962 that, for the purposes of these borrowing statutes, “[t]he courts unanimously hold that a cause of action sounding in tort arises in the jurisdiction where the last act necessary to establish liability occurred”; i. e., “the jurisdiction in which injury was received.” Ester, Borrowing Statutes of Limitation and Conflict of Laws, 15 U. Fla. L. Rev. 33, 47.
There is, moreover, specific reason to believe that using “arising in” as referring to place of harm was central to the object of the foreign country exception. Any tort action in a court of the United States based on the acts of a Government employee causing harm outside the State of the district court in which the action is filed requires a determination of the source of the substantive law that will govern liability. When, the FTCA was passed, the dominant principle in choice-of-law analysis for tort cases was lex loci delicti: courts generally applied the law of the place where the injury occurred. See Richards v. United States, 369 U. S., at 11-12 (“The general conflict-of-laws rule, followed by a vast majority of the States, is to apply the law of the place of injury to the substantive rights of the parties” (footnote omitted)); see also Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws §379 (1934) (defendant’s liability determined by “the law of the place of wrong”); id., §377, Note 1 (place of wrong for torts involving bodily harm is “the place where the harmful force takes effect upon the body ” (emphasis in original)); ibid. (same principle for torts of fraud and torts involving harm to property). For a plaintiff injured in a foreign country, then, the presumptive choice in American courts under the traditional rule would have been to apply foreign law to determine the tortfeasor’s liability. See, e. g., Day & Zimmermann, Inc. v. Challoner, 423 U. S. 3 (1975) (per curiam) (noting that Texas would apply Cambodian law to wrongful-death action involving explosion in Cambodia of an artillery round manufactured in United States); Thomas v. FMC Corp., 610 F. Supp. 912 (MB Ala. 1985) (applying German law to determine American manufacturer’s liability for negligently designing and manufacturing a Howitzer that killed, decedent in Germany); Quandt v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 317 F. Supp. 1009 (Del. 1970) (noting that Italian law applies to allegations of negligent manufacture in Kansas that resulted in an airplane crash in Italy); Manos v. Trans World Airlines, 295 F. Supp. 1170 (ND Ill. 1969) (applying Italian law to determine American corporation’s liability for negligent manufacture of a plane that crashed in Italy); see also, e. g., Dallas v. Whitney, 118 W. Va. 106, 188 S. E. 766 (1936) (Ohio law applied where blasting operations on a West Virginia highway caused property damage in Ohio); Cam eron v. Vandegriff, 53 Ark. 381, 13 S. W. 1092 (1890) (Arkansas law applied where a blasting of a rock in Indian territory inflicted injury on plaintiff in Arkansas).
The application of foreign substantive law exemplified in these cases was, however, what Congress intended to avoid by the foreign country exception. In 1942, the House Committee on the Judiciary considered an early draft of the FTCA that would have exempted all claims “arising in a foreign country in behalf of an alien.” H. R. 5373, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., § 303(12). The bill was then revised, at the suggestion of the Attorney General, to omit the last five words. In explaining the amendment to the House Committee on the Judiciary, Assistant Attorney General Shea said that
“[c]laims arising in a foreign country have been exempted from this bill, H. R. 6463, whether or not the claimant is an alien. Since liability is to be determined by the law of the situs of the wrongful act or omission it is wise to restrict the bill to claims arising in this country. This seems desirable because the law of the particular State is being applied. Otherwise, it will lead I think to a good deal of difficulty.” Hearings on H. R. 5373 et al. before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 35 (1942).
The amended version, which was enacted into law and constitutes the current text of the foreign country exception, 28 U. S. C. §2680(k), thus codified Congress’s “unwillingness] to subject the United States to liabilities depending upon the laws of a foreign power.” United States v. Spelar, 338 U. S. 217, 221 (1949). See also Sami v. United States, 617 F. 2d, at 762 (noting Spelar’s explanation but attempting to recast the object behind the foreign country exception); Leaf v. United States, 588 F. 2d 733, 736, n. 3 (CA9 1978).
The object being to avoid application of substantive foreign law, Congress evidently used the modifier “arising in a foreign country” to refer to claims based on foreign harm or injury, the fact that would trigger application of foreign law to determine liability. That object, addressed by the quoted phrase, would obviously have been thwarted, however, by applying the headquarters doctrine, for that doctrine would have displaced the exception by recasting claims of foreign injury as claims not arising in a foreign country because some planning or negligence at domestic headquarters was their cause. And that, in turn, would have resulted in applying foreign law of the place of injury, in accordance with the choice-of-law rule of the headquarters jurisdiction.
Nor, as a practical matter, can it be said that the headquarters doctrine has outgrown its tension with the exception. It is true that the traditional approach to choice of substantive tort law has lost favor, Simson, The Choice-of-Law Revolution in the United States: Notes on Rereading Von Mehren, 36 Cornell Int’l L. J. 125 (2002) (“The traditional methodology of place of wrong... has receded in importance, and new approaches and concepts such as governmental interest analysis, most significant relationship, and better rule of law have taken over center stage” (footnotes omitted)). But a good many States still employ essentially the same choice-of-law analysis in tort cases that the First Restatement exemplified. Symeonides, Choice of Law in the American Courts, 51 Am. J. Comp. L. 1, 4-5 (2003) (“Ten states continue to adhere to the traditional method in tort conflicts”); see, e. g., Raskin v. Allison, 30 Kan. App. 2d 1240, 1242, 1241, 57 P. 3d 30, 32 (2002) (under “traditional choice of law principles largely reflected in the original Restatement,” Mexican law applied to boating accident in Mexican waters because “the injuries were sustained in Mexican waters”).
Equally to the point is that in at least some cases that the Court of Appeals’s approach would treat as arising at headquarters, not the foreign country, even the later methodologies of choice point to the application of foreign law. The Second Restatement itself, encouraging the general shift toward using flexible balancing analysis to inform choice of law, includes a default rule for tort cases rooted in the traditional approach: “[i]n an action for a personal injury, the local law of the state where the injury occurred determines the rights and liabilities of the parties, unless... some other state has a more significant relationship... to the occurrence and the parties.” Restatement 2d §146; see also id., Comment e (“On occasion, conduct and personal injury will occur in different states. In such instances, the local law of the state of injury will usually be applied to determine most issues involving the tort”). In practice, then, the new dispensation frequently leads to the traditional application of the law of the jurisdiction of injury. See, e. g., Dorman v. Emerson Elec. Co., 23 F. 3d 1354 (CA8 1994) (applying Canadian law where negligent saw design in Missouri caused injury in Canada); Bing v. Halstead, 495 F. Supp. 517 (SDNY 1980) (applying Costa Rican law where letter written and mailed in Arizona caused mental distress in Costa Rica); McKinnon v. F. H. Morgan & Co., 170 Vt. 422, 750 A. 2d 1026 (2000) (applying Canadian law where a defective bicycle sold in Vermont caused injuries in Quebec).
In sum, current flexibility in choice-of-law methodology gives no assurance against applying foreign substantive law if federal courts follow headquarters doctrine to assume jurisdiction over tort claims against the Government for foreign harm. Based on the experience just noted, the expectation is that application of the headquarters doctrine would in fact result in a substantial number of cases applying the very foreign law the foreign country exception was meant to avoid.
Before concluding that headquarters analysis should have no part in applying the foreign country exception, however, a word is needed to answer an argument for selective application of headquarters doctrine, that it ought to be permitted when a State’s choice-of-law approach would not apply the foreign law of place of injury. See In re “Agent Orange” Product Liability Litigation, 580 F. Supp. 1242, 1254 (EDNY 1984) (noting that the purpose of the exception did not apply to the litigation at hand because foreign law was not implicated). The point would be well taken, of course, if Congress had written the exception to apply when foreign law would be applied. But that is not what Congress said. Its provision of an exception when a claim arises in a foreign country was written at a time when the phrase “arising in” was used in state statutes to express the position that a claim arises where the harm occurs; and the odds are that Congress meant simply this when it used the “arising in” language. Finally, even if it were not a stretch to equate “arising in a foreign country” with “implicating foreign law,” the result of accepting headquarters analysis for foreign injury cases in which no application of foreign law would ensue would be a scheme of federal jurisdiction that would vary from State to State, benefiting or penalizing plaintiffs accordingly. The idea that Congress would have intended any such jurisdictional variety is too implausible to drive the analysis to the point of grafting even a selective headquarters exception onto the foreign country exception itself. We therefore hold that the FTCA’s foreign country exception bars all claims based on any injury suffered in a foreign country, regardless of where the tortious act or omission occurred.
Ill
Alvarez has also brought an action under the ATS against petitioner Sosa, who argues (as does the United States supporting him) that there is no relief under the ATS because the statute does no more than vest federal courts with jurisdiction, neither creating nor authorizing the courts to recognize any particular right of action without further congressional action. Although we agree the statute is in terms only jurisdictional, we think that at the time of enactment the jurisdiction enabled federal courts to hear claims in a very limited category defined by the law of nations and recognized at common law. We do not believe, however, that the limited, implicit sanction to entertain the handful of international law cum common law claims understood in 1789 should be taken as authority to recognize the right of action asserted by Alvarez here.
A
Judge Friendly called the ATS a “legal Lohengrin,” IIT v. Vencap, Ltd., 519 F. 2d 1001, 1015 (CA2 1975); “no one seems to know whence it came,” ibid., and for over 170 years after its enactment it provided jurisdiction in only one case. The first Congress passed it as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, in providing that the new federal district courts “shall also have cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, or the circuit courts, as the case may be, of all causes where -an alien sues for a tort only in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Act of Sept. 24, 1789, ch. 20, §9, 1 Stat. 77.
The parties and amici here advance radically different historical interpretations of this terse provision. Alvarez says that the ATS was intended not simply as a jurisdictional grant, but as authority for the creation of a new cause of action for torts in violation of international law. We think that reading is implausible. As enacted in 1789, the ATS gave the district courts “cognizance” of certain causes of action, and the term bespoke a grant of jurisdiction, not power to mold substantive law. See, e. g., The Federalist No. 81, pp. 447, 451 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (using “jurisdiction” interchangeably with “cognizance”). The fact that the ATS was placed in §9 of the Judiciary Act, a statute otherwise exclusively concerned with federal-court jurisdiction, is itself support for its strictly jurisdictional nature. Nor would the distinction between jurisdiction and cause of action have been elided by the drafters of the Act or those who voted on it. As Fisher Ames put it, “there is a substantial difference between the jurisdiction of the courts and the rules of decision.” 1 Annals of Cong. 807 (Gales ed. 1834). It is unsurprising, then, that an authority on the historical origins of the ATS has written that “section 1350 clearly does not create a statutory cause of action,” and that the contrary suggestion is “simply frivolous.” Casto, The Federal Courts’ Protective Jurisdiction over Torts Committed in Violation of the Law of Nations, 18 Conn. L. Rev. 467, 479, 480 (1986) (hereinafter Casto, Law of Nations); cf. Dodge, The Constitutionality of the Alien Tort Statute: Some Observations on Text and Context, 42 Va. J. Int’l L. 687, 689 (2002). In sum, we think the statute was intended as jurisdictional in the sense of addressing the power of the courts to entertain cases concerned with a certain subject.
But holding the ATS jurisdictional raises a new question, this one about the interaction between the ATS at the time of its enactment and the ambient law of the era. Sosa would have it that the ATS was stillborn because there could be no claim for relief without a further statute expressly authorizing adoption of causes of action. Amici professors of federal jurisdiction and legal history take a different tack, that federal courts could entertain claims once the jurisdictional grant was on the books, because torts in violation of the law of nations would have been recognized within the common law of the time. Brief for Vikram Amar et al. as Amici Curiae. We think history and practice give the edge to this latter position.
1
‘When the United States declared their independence, they were bound to receive the law of nations, in its modern state of purity and refinement.” Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. 199, 281 (1796) (Wilson, J.). In the years of the early Republic, this law of nations comprised two principal elements, the first covering the general norms governing the behavior of national states with each other: “the science which teaches the rights subsisting between nations or states, and the obligations correspondent to those rights,” E. de Vattel, Law of Nations, Preliminaries §3 (J. Chitty et al. transí, and ed. 1883) (hereinafter Vattel) (footnote omitted), or “that code of public instruction which defines the rights and prescribes the duties of nations, in their intercourse with each other,” 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *1. This aspect of the law of nations thus occupied the executive and legislative domains, not the judicial. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 68 (1769) (hereinafter Commentaries) (“[O]ffences against” the law of nations are “principally incident to whole states or nations”).
The law of nations included a second, more pedestrian element, however, that did fall within the judicial sphere, as a body of judge-made law regulating the conduct of individuals situated outside domestic boundaries and consequently carrying an international savor. To Blackstone, the law of nations in this sense was implicated “in mercantile questions, such as bills of exchange and the like; in all marine causes, relating to freight, average, demurrage, insurances, bot-tomry... ; [and] in all disputes relating to prizes, to shipwrecks, to hostages, and ransom bills.” Id., at 67. The law merchant emerged from the customary practices of international traders and admiralty required its own transnational regulation. And it was the law of nations in this sense that our precursors spoke about when the Court explained the status of coast fishing vessels in wartime grew from “ancient usage among civilized nations, beginning centuries ago, and gradually ripening into a rule of international law....” The Paquete Habana, 175 U. S. 677, 686 (1900).
There was, finally, a sphere in which these rules binding individuals for the benefit of other individuals overlapped with the norms of state relationships. Blackstone referred to it when he mentioned three specific offenses against the law of nations addressed by the criminal law of England: violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy. 4 Commentaries 68. An assault against an ambassador, for example, impinged upon the sovereignty of the foreign nation and if not adequately redressed could rise to an issue of war. See Vattel 463-464. It was this narrow set of violations of the law of nations, admitting of a judicial remedy and at the same time threatening serious consequences in international affairs, that was probably on minds of the mbn who drafted the ATS with its reference to tort.
2
Before there was any ATS, a distinctly American preoccupation with these hybrid international norms had taken shape owing to the distribution of political power from independence through the period of confederation. The Continental Congress was hamstrung by its inability to “cause infractions of treaties, or of the law of nations to be punished,” J. Madison, Journal of the Constitutional Convention 60 (E. Scott ed. 1893), and in 1781 the Congress implored the States to vindicate rights under the law of nations. In words that echo Blackstone, the congressional resolution called upon state legislatures to “provide expeditious, exemplary and adequate punishment” for “the violation of safe conducts or passports,... of hostility against such as are in amity... with the United States,... infractions of the immunities of ambassadors and other public ministers... [and] infractions of treaties and conventions to which the United States are a party.” 21 Journals of the Continental Congress 1136-1137 (G. Hunt ed. 1912) (hereinafter Journals of the Continental Congress). The resolution recommended that the States “authorise suits... for damages by the party injured, and for compensation to the United States for damage sustained by them from an injury done to a foreign power by a citizen.” Id., at 1137; cf. Vattel 463-464 (“Whoever offends... a public minister... should be punished..., and... the state should, at the expense of the delinquent, give full satisfaction to the sovereign who has been offended in the person of his minister”). Apparently only one State acted upon the recommendation, see Public Records of the State of Connecticut, 1782, pp. 82, 83 (L. Larabee ed. 1982) (1942 compilation, exact date of Act unknown), but Congress had done what it could to signal a commitment to enforce the law of nations
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellees were charged by information with violation of the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act, 60 Stat. 812, 839, 2 U. S. C. §§ 261-270. Relying on its previous decision in National Association of Manufacturers v. McGrath, 103 F. Supp. 510, vacated as moot, 344 U. S. 804, the District Court dismissed the information on the ground that the Act is unconstitutional. 109 F. Supp. 641. The case is here on direct appeal under the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3731.
Seven counts of the information are laid under § 305, which requires designated reports to Congress from every person “receiving any contributions or expending any money” for the purpose of influencing the passage or defeat of any legislation by Congress. One such count charges the National Farm Committee, a Texas corporation, with failure to report the solicitation and receipt of contributions to influence the passage of legislation which would cause a rise in the price of agricultural commodities and commodity futures and the defeat of legislation which would cause a decline in those prices. The remaining six counts under § 305 charge defendants Moore and Harriss with failure to report expenditures having the same single purpose. Some of the alleged expenditures consist of the payment of compensation to others to communicate face-to-face with members of Congress, at public functions and committee hearings, concerning legislation affecting agricultural prices; the other alleged expenditures relate largely to the costs of a campaign to induce various interested groups and individuals to communicate by letter with members of Congress on such legislation.
The other two counts in the information are laid under § 308, which requires any person “who shall engage himself for pay or for any consideration for the purpose of attempting to influence the passage or defeat of any legislation” to register with Congress and to make specified disclosures. These two counts allege in considerable detail that defendants Moore and Linder were hired to express certain views to Congress as to agricultural prices or to cause others to do so, for the purpose of attempting to influence the passage of legislation which would cause a rise in the price of agricultural commodities and commodity futures and a defeat of legislation which would cause a decline in such prices; and that pursuant to this undertaking, without having registered as required by § 308, they arranged to have members of Congress contacted on behalf of these views, either directly by their own emissaries or through an artificially stimulated letter campaign.
We are not concerned here with the sufficiency of the information as a criminal pleading. Our review under the Criminal Appeals Act is limited to a decision on the alleged “invalidity” of the statute on which the information is based. In making this decision, we judge the statute on its face. See United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1, 6, 12. The “invalidity” of the Lobbying Act is asserted on three grounds: (1) that §§ 305, 307, and 308 are too vague and indefinite to meet the requirements of due process; (2) that §§ 305 and 308 violate the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to petition the Government; (3) that the penalty provision of § 310 (b) violates the right of the people under the First Amendment to petition the Government.
I.
The constitutional requirement of definiteness is violated by a criminal statute that fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute. The underlying principle is that no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed.
On the other hand, if the general class of offenses to which the statute is directed is plainly within its terms, the statute will not be struck down as vague, even though marginal cases could be put where doubts might arise. United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1, 7. Cf. Jordan v. De George, 341 U. S. 223, 231. And if this general class of offenses can be made constitutionally definite by a reasonable construction of the statute, this Court is under a duty to give the statute that construction. This was the course adopted in Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, upholding the definiteness of the Civil Rights Act.
The same course is appropriate here. The key section of the Lobbying Act is § 307, entitled “Persons to Whom Applicable.” Section 307 provides:
“The provisions of this title shall apply to any person (except a political committee as defined in the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, and duly organized State or local committees of a political party), who by himself, or through any agent or employee or other persons in any manner whatsoever, directly or indirectly, solicits, collects, or receives money or any other thing of value to be used principally to aid, or the principal purpose of which person is to aid, in the accomplishment of any of the following purposes:
“(a) The passage or defeat of any legislation by the Congress of the United States.
“(b) To influence, directly or indirectly, the passage or defeat of any legislation by the Congress of the United States.”
This section modifies the substantive provisions of the Act, including § 305 and § 308. In other words, unless a “person” falls within the category established by § 307, the disclosure requirements of § 305 and § 308 are inapplicable. Thus coverage under the Act is limited to those persons (except for the specified political committees) who solicit, collect, or receive contributions of money or other thing of value, and then only if “the principal purpose” of either the persons or the contributions is to aid in the accomplishment of the aims set forth in § 307 (a) and (b). In any event, the solicitation, collection, or receipt of money or other thing of value is a prerequisite to coverage under the Act.
The Government urges a much broader construction— namely, that under § 305 a person must report his expenditures to influence legislation even though he does not solicit, collect, or receive contributions as provided in § 307. Such a construction, we believe, would do violence to the title and language of § 307 as well as its legislative history. If the construction urged by the Government is to become law, that is for Congress to accomplish by further legislation.
We now turn to the alleged vagueness of the purposes set forth in § 307 (a) and (b). As in United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 47, which involved the interpretation of similar language, we believe this language should be construed to refer only to “lobbying in its commonly accepted sense” — to direct communication with members of Congress on pending or proposed federal legislation. The legislative history of the Act makes clear that, at the very least, Congress sought disclosure of such direct pressures, exerted by the lobbyists themselves or through their hirelings or through an artificially stimulated letter campaign. It is likewise clear that Congress would have intended the Act to operate on this narrower basis, even if a broader application to organizations seeking to propagandize the general public were not permissible.
There remains for our consideration the meaning of “the principal purpose” and “to be used principally to aid.” The legislative history of the Act indicates that the term “principal” was adopted merely to exclude from the scope of § 307 those contributions and persons having only an “incidental” purpose of influencing legislation. Conversely, the “principal purpose” requirement does not exclude a contribution which in substantial part is to be used to influence legislation through direct communication with Congress or a person whose activities in substantial part are directed to influencing legislation through direct communication with Congress. If it were otherwise — if an organization, for example, were exempted because lobbying was only one of its main activities— the Act would in large measure be reduced to a mere exhortation against abuse of the legislative process. In construing the Act narrowly to avoid constitutional doubts, we must also avoid a construction that would seriously impair the effectiveness of the Act in coping with the problem it was designed to alleviate.
To summarize, therefore, there are three prerequisites to coverage under §307: (1) the “person” must have solicited, collected, or received contributions; (2) one of the main purposes of such “person,” or one of the main purposes of such contributions, must have been to influence the passage or defeat of legislation by Congress; (3) the intended method of accomplishing this purpose must have been through direct communication with members of Congress. And since § 307 modifies the substantive provisions of the Act, our construction of § 307 will of necessity also narrow the scope of § 305 and § 308, the substantive provisions underlying the information in this case. Thus § 305 is limited to those persons who are covered by § 307; and when so covered, they must report all contributions and expenditures having the purpose of attempting to influence legislation through direct communication with Congress. Similarly, § 308 is limited to those persons (with the stated exceptions) who are covered by § 307 and who, in addition, engage themselves for pay or for any other valuable consideration for the purpose of attempting to influence legislation through direct communication with Congress. Construed in this way, the Lobbying Act meets the constitutional requirement of definiteness.
II.
Thus construed, §§ 305 and 308 also do not violate the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment — freedom to speak, publish, and petition the Government.
Present-day legislative complexities are such that individual members of Congress cannot be expected to explore the myriad pressures to which they are regularly subjected. Yet full realization of the American ideal of government by elected representatives depends to no small extent on their ability to properly evaluate such pressures. Otherwise the voice of the people may all too easily be drowned out by the voice of special interest groups seeking favored treatment while masquerading as proponents of the public weal. This is the evil which the Lobbying Act was designed to help prevent.
Toward that end, Congress has not sought to prohibit these pressures. It has merely provided for a modicum of information from those who for hire attempt to influence legislation or who collect or spend funds for that purpose. It wants only to know who is being hired, who is putting up the money, and how much. It acted in the same spirit and for a similar purpose in passing the Federal Corrupt Practices Act — to maintain the integrity of a basic governmental process. See Burroughs and Cannon v. United States, 290 U. S. 534, 545.
Under these circumstances, we believe that Congress, at least within the bounds of the Act as we have construed it, is not constitutionally forbidden to require the disclosure of lobbying activities. To do so would be to deny Congress in large measure the power of self-protection. And here Congress has used that power in a manner restricted to its appropriate end. We conclude that §§ 305 and 308, as applied to persons defined in § 307, do not offend the First Amendment.
It is suggested, however, that the Lobbying Act, with respect to persons other than those defined in § 307, may as a practical matter act as a deterrent to their exercise of First Amendment rights. Hypothetical borderline situations are conjured up in which such persons choose to remain silent because of fear of possible prosecution for failure to comply with the Act. Our narrow construction of the Act, precluding as it does reasonable fears, is calculated to avoid such restraint. But, even assuming some such deterrent effect, the restraint is at most an indirect one resulting from self-censorship, comparable in many ways to the restraint resulting from criminal libel laws. The hazard of such restraint is too remote to require striking down a statute which on its face is otherwise plainly within the area of congressional power and is designed to safeguard a vital national interest.
III.
The appellees further attack the statute on the ground that the penalty provided in § 310 (b) is unconstitutional. That section provides:
“(b) In addition to the penalties provided for in subsection (a), any person convicted of the misdemeanor specified therein is prohibited, for a period of three years from the date of such conviction, from attempting to influence, directly or indirectly, the passage or defeat of any proposed legislation or from appearing before a committee of the Congress in support of or opposition to proposed legislation; and any person who violates any provision of this subsection shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a felony, and shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000, or imprisonment for not more than five years, or by both such fine and imprisonment.”
This section, the appellees argue, is a patent violation of the First Amendment guarantees' of freedom of speech and the right to petition the Government.
We find it unnecessary to pass on this contention. Unlike §§ 305, 307, and 308 which we have judged on their face, § 310 (b) has not yet been applied to the appellees, and it will never be so applied if the appellees are found innocent of the charges against them. See United States v. Wurzbach, 280 U. S. 396, 399; United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1, 9-12.
Moreover, the Act provides for the separability of any provision found invalid. If § 310 (b) should ultimately be declared unconstitutional, its elimination would still leave a statute defining specific duties and providing a specific penalty for violation of any such duty. The prohibition of § 310 (b) is expressly stated to be “In addition to the penalties provided for in subsection (a) . . subsection (a) makes a violation of § 305 or § 308 a misdemeanor, punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. Consequently, there would seem to be no obstacle to giving effect to the separability clause as to § 310 (b), if this should ever prove necessary. Compare Electric Bond & Share Co. v. Securities & Exchange Commission, 303 U. S. 419, 433-437.
The judgment below is reversed and the cause is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 305 provides:
“(a) Every person receiving any contributions or expending any money for the purposes designated in subparagraph (a) or (b) of section 307 shall file with the Clerk between the first and tenth day of each calendar quarter, a statement containing complete as of the day next preceding the date of filing—
“(1) the name and address of each person who has made a contribution of $500 or more not mentioned in the preceding report; except that the first report filed pursuant to this title shall contain the name and address of each person who has made any contribution of $500 or more to such person since the effective date of this title;
“(2) the total sum of the contributions made to or for such person during the calendar year and not stated under paragraph (1) ;
“ (3) the total sum of all contributions made to or for such person during the calendar year;
“ (4) the name and address of each person to whom an expenditure in one or more items of the aggregate amount or value, within the calendar year, of $10 or more has been made by or on behalf of such person, and the amount, date, and purpose of such expenditure;
“(5) the total sum of all expenditures made by or on behalf of such person during the calendar year and not stated under paragraph (4);
“(6) the total sum of expenditures made by or on behalf of such person during the calendar year.
“(b) The statements required to be filed by subsection (a) shall be cumulative during the calendar year to which they relate, but where there has been no change in an item reported in a previous statement only the amount need be carried forward.”
The following are “the purposes designated in subparagraph (a) or (b) of section 307”:
“(a) The passage or defeat of any legislation by the Congress of the United States.
“(b) To influence, directly or indirectly, the passage or defeat of any legislation by the Congress of the United States.”
Section 308 provides:
“(a) Any person who shall engage himself for pay or for any consideration for the purpose of attempting to influence the passage or defeat of any legislation by the Congress of the United States shall, before doing anything in furtherance of such object, register with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate and shall give to those officers in writing and under oath, his name and. business address, the name and address of the person by whom he is employed, and in whose interest he appears or works, the duration of such employment, how much he is paid and is to receive, by whom he is paid or is to be paid, how much he is to be paid for expenses, and what expenses are to be included. Each such person so registering shall, between the first and tenth day of each calendar quarter, so long as his activity continues, file with the Clerk and Secretary a detailed report under oath of all money received and expended by him during the preceding calendar quarter in carrying on his work; to whom paid; for what purposes; and the names of any papers, periodicals, magazines, or other publications in which he has caused to be published any articles or editorials; and the proposed legislation he is employed to support or oppose. The provisions of this section shall not apply to any person who merely appears before a committee of the Congress of the United States in support of or opposition to legislation; nor to any public official acting in his official capacity; nor in the case of any newspaper or other regularly published periodical (including any individual who owns, publishes, or is employed by any such newspaper or periodical) which in the ordinary course of business publishes news items, editorials, or other comments, or paid advertisements, which directly or indirectly urge the passage or defeat of legislation, if such newspaper, periodical, or individual, engages in no further or other activities in connection with the passage or defeat of such legislation, other than to appear before a committee of the Congress of the United States in support of or in opposition to such legislation.
“(b) All information required to be filed under the provisions of this section with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate shall be compiled by said Clerk and Secretary, acting jointly, as soon as practicable after the close of the calendar quarter with respect to which such information is filed and shall be printed in the Congressional Record.”
A third count under § 308 was abated on the death of the defendant against whom the charge was made.
18 U. S. C. § 3731. See United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1, 5. For “The Government’s appeal does not open the whole case.” United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 193.
See Jordan v. De George, 341 U. S. 223, 230-232; Quarles, Some Statutory Construction Problems and Approaches in Criminal Law, 3 Vand. L. Rev. 531, 539-543; Note, 62 Harv. L. Rev. 77.
Cf. Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273; Musser v. Utah, 333 U. S. 95; Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510.
This rule as to statutes charged with vagueness is but one aspect of the broader principle that this Court, if fairly possible, must construe congressional enactments so as to avoid a danger of unconstitutionality. United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 407-408; United States v. Congress of Industrial Organizations, 335 U. S. 106, 120-121; United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 47. Thus, in the C. I. O. case, supra, this Court held that expenditures by a labor organization for the publication of a weekly periodical urging support for a certain candidate in a forthcoming congressional election were not forbidden by the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it unlawful for “. . . any labor organization to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with any [congressional] election . . . .” Similarly, in the Rumely case, supra, this Court construed a House Resolution authorizing investigation of “all lobbying activities intended to influence, encourage, promote, or retard legislation” to cover only “ ‘lobbying in its commonly accepted sense,’ that is, ‘representations made directly to the Congress, its members, or its committees.’ ”
Section 302 (c) defines the term “person” as including “an individual, partnership, committee, association, corporation, and any other organization or group of persons.”
The Government’s view is based on a variance between the language of § 307 and the language of § 305. Section 307 refers to any person who “solicits, collects, or receives” contributions; §305, however, refers not only to “receiving any contributions” but also to “expending any money.” It is apparently the Government’s contention that § 307 — since it makes no reference to expenditures — is inapplicable to the expenditure provisions of § 305. Section 307, however, limits the application of § 305 as a whole, not merely a part of it.
Both the Senate and House reports on the bill state that “This section [§ 307] defines the application of the title S. Rep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 28; Committee Print, July 22, 1946, statement by Representative Monroney on Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 34. See also the remarks of Representative Dirksen in presenting the bill to the House: “The gist of the antilobbying provision is contained in section 307.” 92 Cong. Rec. 10088.
The Lobbying Act was enacted as Title III of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which was reported to Congress by the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. The Senate and House reports accompanying the bill were identical with respect to Title III. Both declared that the Lobbying Act applies “chiefly to three distinct classes of so-called lobbyists:
“First. Those who do not visit the Capitol but initiate propaganda from all over the country in the form of letters and telegrams, many of which have been based entirely upon misinformation as to facts. This class of persons and organizations will be required under the title, not to cease or curtail their activities in any respect, but merely to disclose the sources of their collections and the methods in which they are disbursed.
“Second. The second class of lobbyists are those who are employed to come to the Capitol under the false impression that they exert some powerful influence over Members of Congress. These individuals spend their time in Washington presumably exerting some mysterious influence with respect to the legislation in which their employers are interested, but carefully conceal from Members of Congress whom they happen to contact the purpose of their presence. The title in no wise prohibits or curtails their activities. It merely requires that they shall register and disclose the sources and purposes of their employment and the amount of their compensation.
“Third. There is a third class of entirely honest and respectable representatives of business, professional, and philanthropic organizations who come to Washington openly and frankly to express their views for or against legislation, many of whom serve a useful and perfectly legitimate purpose in expressing the views and interpretations of their employers with respect to legislation which concerns them. They will likewise be required to register and state their compensation and the sources of their employment.”
S. Rep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 27; Committee Print, July 22, 1946, statement by Representative Monroney on Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 32-33. See also the statement in the Senate by Senator La Follette, who was Chairman of the Joint Committee, at 92 Cong. Rec. 6367-6368.
See the Act’s separability clause, note 18, infra, providing that the invalidity of any application of the Act should not affect the validity of its application “to other persons and circumstances.”
Both the Senate and House reports accompanying the bill state that the Act "... does not apply to organizations formed for other purposes whose efforts to influence legislation are merely incidental to the purposes for which formed.” S. Hep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 27; Committee Print, July 22, 1946, statement by Representative Monroney on Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 32. In the Senate discussion preceding enactment, Senator Hawkes asked Senator La Follette, Chairman of the Joint Committee in charge of the bill, for an explanation of the “principal purpose” requirement. In particular, Senator Hawkes sought assurance that multi-purposed organizations like the United States Chamber of Commerce wopld not be subject to the Act. Senator La Follette refused to give such assurance, stating: “So far as any organizations or individuals are concerned, I will say to the Senator from New Jersey, it will depend on the type and character of activity which they undertake. ... I cannot tell the Senator whether they will come under the act. It will depend on the type of activity in which they engage, so far as legislation is concerned. ... It [the Act] affects all individuals and organizations alike if they engage in a covered activity.” (Italics added.) 92 Cong. Rec. 10151-10152. See also Representative Dirksen’s remarks in the House, 92 Cong. Rec. 10088.
Such a criterion is not novel in federal law. See Int. Rev. Code, § 23 (o) (2) (income tax), § 812 (d) (estate tax), and § 1004 (a) (2) (B) (gift tax), providing tax exemption for contributions to charitable and educational organizations “no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation.” For illustrative cases applying this criterion, see Sharpe’s Estate v. Commissioner, 148 F. 2d 179 (C. A. 3d Cir.); Marshall v. Commissioner, 147 F. 2d 75 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Faulkner v. Commissioner, 112 F. 2d 987 (C. A. 1st Cir.); Huntington National Bank v. Commissioner, 13 T. C. 760, 769. Cf. Girard Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 122 F. 2d 108 (C. A. 3d Cir.); Leuhuscher v. Commissioner, 54 F. 2d 998 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Weyl v. Commissioner, 48 F. 2d 811 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Slee v. Commissioner, 42 F. 2d 184 (C. A. 2d Cir.). See also Annotation, 138 A. L. R. 456.
For the three exceptions, see note 2, supra.
Under this construction, the Act is at least as definite as many other criminal statutes which this Court has upheld against a charge of vagueness. E. g., Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U. S. 337 (regulation providing that drivers of motor vehicles carrying explosives “shall avoid, so far as practicable, and, where feasible, by prearrangement of routes, driving into or through congested thoroughfares, places where crowds are assembled, street car tracks, tunnels, viaducts, and dangerous crossings”); Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494 (Smith Act making it unlawful for any person to conspire “to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence . . . ."); United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1 (statute forbidding coercion of radio stations to employ persons “in excess of the number of employees needed ... to perform actual services”); Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, and Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97 (statute forbidding acts which would deprive a person of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States”); United States v. Wurzbach, 280 U. S. 396 (statute forbidding any candidate for Congress or any officer or employee of the United States to solicit or receive a “contribution for any political purpose whatever” from any other such officer or employee); Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246 U. S. 343 (statute forbidding pasturing of sheep “on any cattle range previously occupied by cattle, or upon any range usually occupied by any cattle grower”); Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273 (state statute imposing criminal sanctions on “Every person who shall wilfully print, publish, edit, issue, or knowingly circulate, sell, distribute or display any book, paper, document, or written or printed matter, in any form, advocating, encouraging or inciting, or having a tendency to encourage or incite the commission of any crime, breach of the peace or act of violence, or which shall tend to encourage or advocate disrespect for law or for any court or courts of justice . . . .”); Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373 (Sherman Act forbidding “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations”). Cf. Jordan v. De George, 341 U. S. 223 (statute providing for deportation of persons who have committed crimes involving “moral turpitude”).
Similar legislation has been enacted in over twenty states. See Notes, 56 Yale L. J. 304, 313-316, and 47 Col. L. Rev. 98, 99-103.
Similarly, the Hatch Act probably deters some federal employees from political activity permitted by that statute, but yet was sustained because of the national interest in a nonpolitical civil service. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75.
60 Stat. 812, 814:
“If any provision of this Act or the application thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the validity of the remainder of the Act and of the application of such provision to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This Court first encountered John Sturgeon's lawsuit three Terms ago. See Sturgeon v. Frost, 577 U. S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 1061, 194 L.Ed.2d 108 (2016) ( Sturgeon I ). As we explained then, Sturgeon hunted moose along the Nation River in Alaska for some 40 years. See id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1064. He traveled by hovercraft, an amphibious vehicle able to glide over land and water alike. To reach his favorite hunting ground, he would pilot the craft over a stretch of the Nation River that flows through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, a unit of the federal park system managed by the National Park Service. On one such trip, park rangers informed Sturgeon that a Park Service regulation prohibits the use of hovercrafts on rivers within any federal preserve or park. Sturgeon complied with their order to remove his hovercraft from the Yukon-Charley, thus "heading home without a moose." Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1067. But soon afterward, Sturgeon sued the Park Service, seeking an injunction that would allow him to resume using his hovercraft on his accustomed route. The lower courts denied him relief. This Court, though, thought there was more to be said. See id., at ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1071-1072.
As we put the matter then, Sturgeon's case raises the issue how much "Alaska is different" from the rest of the country-how much it is "the exception, not the rule." Id., at ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1071. The rule, just as the rangers told Sturgeon, is that the Park Service may regulate boating and other activities on waters within national parks-and that it has banned the use of hovercrafts there. See 54 U.S.C. § 100751(b) ; 36 C.F.R. § 2.17(e) (2018). But Sturgeon claims that Congress created an Alaska-specific exception to that broad authority when it enacted the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), 94 Stat. 2371, 16 U.S.C. § 3101 et seq. In Alaska, Sturgeon argues, the Park Service has no power to regulate lands or waters that the Federal Government does not own; rather, the Service may regulate only what ANILCA calls "public land" (essentially, federally owned land) in national parks. And, Sturgeon continues, the Federal Government does not own the Nation River-so the Service cannot ban hovercrafts there. When we last faced that argument, we disagreed with the reason the lower courts gave to reject it. But we remanded the case for consideration of two remaining questions. First, does "the Nation River qualif[y] as 'public land' for purposes of ANILCA"? 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1072. Second, "even if the [Nation] is not 'public land,' " does the Park Service have authority to "regulate Sturgeon's activities" on the part of the river in the Yukon-Charley? Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1072. Today, we take up those questions, and answer both "no." That means Sturgeon can again rev up his hovercraft in search of moose.
I
A
We begin, as Sturgeon I did, with a slice of Alaskan history. The United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. It thereby acquired "[i]n a single stroke" 365 million acres of land-an area more than twice the size of Texas. Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1064. You might think that would be enough to go around. But in the years since, the Federal Government and Alaskans (including Alaska Natives) have alternately contested and resolved and contested and... so forth who should own and manage that bounty. We offer here a few highlights because they are the backdrop against which Congress enacted ANILCA. As we do so, you might catch a glimpse of some former-day John Sturgeons-who (for better or worse) sought greater independence from federal control and, in the process, helped to shape the current law.
For 90 years after buying Alaska, the Federal Government owned all its land. At first, those living in Alaska-a few settlers and some 30,000 Natives-were hardly aware of that fact. See E. Gruening, The State of Alaska 355 (1968). American citizens mocked the Alaska purchase as Secretary of State "Seward's Folly" and President Johnson's "Polar Bear Garden." They paid no attention to the new area, leading to an "era of total neglect." Id., at 31. But as Sturgeon I recounted, the turn of the century brought "newfound recognition of Alaska's economic potential." 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1065. Opportunities to mine, trap, and fish attracted tens of thousands more settlers and sparked an emerging export economy. And partly because of that surge in commercial activity, the country's foremost conservationists-President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, chief of the fledgling Forest Service-took unprecedented action to protect Alaska's natural resources. In particular, Roosevelt (and then President Taft) prevented settlers from logging or coal mining on substantial acreage. See W. Borneman, Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land 240-241 (2003). Alaskans responded by burning Pinchot in effigy and, more creatively, organizing the "Cordova Coal Party"-a mass dumping of imported Canadian coal (instead of English tea) into the Pacific Ocean (instead of Boston Harbor). See ibid. The terms of future conflict were thus set: resource conservation vs. economic development, federal management vs. local control.
By the 1950s, Alaskans hankered for both statehood and land-and Congress decided to give them both. In pressing for statehood, Alaska's delegate to the House of Representatives lamented that Alaskans were no better than "tenants upon the estate of the national landlord"; and Alaska's Governor (then a Presidential appointee) called on the country to "[e]nd American [c]olonialism." W. Everhart, The National Park Service 126-127 (1983) (Everhart). Ever more aware of Alaska's economic and strategic importance, Congress agreed the time for statehood had come. The 1958 Alaska Statehood Act, 72 Stat. 339, made Alaska the country's 49th State. And because the new State would need property-to propel private industry and create a tax base-the Statehood Act made a land grant too. Over the next 35 years, Alaska could select for itself 103 million acres of "vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved" federal land-an area totaling the size of California. §§ 6(a)-(b), 72 Stat. 340, as amended; see Everhart 127. And more: By incorporating the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, the Statehood Act gave Alaska "title to and ownership of the lands beneath navigable waters," such as the Nation River. 43 U.S.C. § 1311 ; see § 6(m), 72 Stat. 343. And a State's title to the lands beneath navigable waters brings with it regulatory authority over "navigation, fishing, and other public uses" of those waters. United States v. Alaska, 521 U.S. 1, 5, 117 S.Ct. 1888, 138 L.Ed.2d 231 (1997). All told, the State thus emerged a formidable property holder.
But the State's bonanza provoked land claims from Alaska Natives. Their ancestors had lived in the area for thousands of years, and they asserted aboriginal title to much of the property the State was now taking (and more besides). See Everhart 127. When their demands threatened to impede the trans-Alaska pipeline, Congress stepped in. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) extinguished the Natives' aboriginal claims. See 85 Stat. 688, as amended, 43 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq. But it granted the Natives much in return. Under the law, corporations organized by groups of Alaska Natives could select for themselves 40 million acres of federal land-equivalent, when combined, to all of Pennsylvania. See §§ 1605, 1610-1615. So the Natives became large landowners too.
Yet one more land dispute loomed. In addition to settling the Natives' claims, ANCSA directed the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) to designate, subject to congressional approval, 80 million more acres of federal land for inclusion in the national park, forest, or wildlife systems. See § 1616(d)(2). The Secretary dutifully made his selections, but Congress failed to ratify them within the five-year period ANCSA had set. Rather than let the designations lapse, President Carter invoked another federal law (the 1906 Antiquities Act) to proclaim most of the lands (totaling 56 million acres) national monuments, under the National Park Service's aegis. See 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1065-1066. Many Alaskans balked. "[R]egard[ing] national parks as just one more example of federal interference," protesters demonstrated throughout the State and several thousand joined in the so-called Great Denali-McKinley Trespass. Everhart 129; see 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1065-1066. "The goal of the trespass," as Sturgeon I explained, "was to break over 25 Park Service rules in a two-day period." Ibid. One especially eager participant played a modern-day Paul Revere, riding on horseback through the crowd to deliver the message: "The Feds are coming! The Feds are coming!" Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).
And so they were-but not in quite the way President Carter had contemplated. Responding to the uproar his proclamation had set off, Congress enacted a third major piece of legislation allocating land in Alaska. We thus reach ANILCA, the statute principally in dispute in this case, in which Congress set aside extensive land for national parks and preserves-but on terms different from those governing such areas in the rest of the country.
B
Starting with the statement of purpose in its first section, ANILCA sought to "balance" two goals, often thought conflicting. 16 U.S.C. § 3101(d). The Act was designed to "provide[ ] sufficient protection for the national interest in the scenic, natural, cultural and environmental values on the public lands in Alaska." Ibid. "[A]nd at the same time," the Act was framed to "provide[ ] adequate opportunity for satisfaction of the economic and social needs of the State of Alaska and its people." Ibid. So if, as you continue reading, you see some tension within the statute, you are not mistaken: It arises from Congress's twofold ambitions.
ANILCA set aside 104 million acres of federally owned land in Alaska for preservation purposes. See 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1066. In doing so, the Act rescinded President Carter's monument designations. But it brought into the national park, forest, or wildlife systems millions more acres than even ANCSA had contemplated. The park system's share of the newly withdrawn land (to be administered, as usual, by the Park Service) was nearly 44 million acres-an amount that more than doubled the system's prior (nationwide) size. See Everhart 132. With that land, ANILCA created ten new national parks, monuments, and preserves-including the Yukon-Charley Preserve-and expanded three old ones. See §§ 410hh, 410hh-1. In line with the Park Service's usual terminology, ANILCA calls each such park or other area a "conservation system unit." § 3102(4) ("The term... means any unit in Alaska of the National Park System"); see 54 U.S.C. § 100102(6) (similar).
In sketching those units' boundary lines, Congress made an uncommon choice-to follow "topographic or natural features," rather than enclose only federally owned lands. § 3103(b) ; see Brief for Respondents 24 (agreeing that "ANILCA [is] atypical in [this] respect"). In most parks outside Alaska, boundaries surround mainly federal property holdings. "[E]arly national parks were carved out of a larger public domain, in which virtually all land" was federally owned. Sax, Helpless Giants: The National Parks and the Regulation of Private Lands, 75 Mich. L. Rev. 239, 263 (1976); see Dept. of Interior, Nat. Park Serv., Statistical Abstract 87 (2017) (Table 9) (noting that only 2 of Yellowstone's 2.2 million acres are in non-federal hands). And even in more recently established parks, Congress has used gerrymandered borders to exclude most non-federal land. See Sax, Buying Scenery, 1980 Duke L. J. 709, 712, and n. 12. But Congress had no real way to do that in Alaska. Its prior cessions of property to the State and Alaska Natives had created a "confusing patchwork of ownership" all but impossible to draw one's way around. C. Naske & H. Slotnick, Alaska: A History 317 (3d ed. 2011). What's more, an Alaskan Senator noted, the United States might want to reacquire state or Native holdings in the same "natural areas" as reserved federal land; that could occur most handily if Congress drew boundaries, "wherever possible, to encompass" those holdings and authorized the Secretary to buy whatever lay inside. 126 Cong. Rec. 21882 (1980) (remarks of Sen. Stevens). The upshot was a vast set of so-called inholdings-more than 18 million acres of state, Native, and private land-that wound up inside Alaskan system units. See 577 U. S., at ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1066-1067.
Had Congress done nothing more, those inholdings could have become subject to many Park Service rules-the same kind of "restrictive federal regulations" Alaskans had protested in the years leading up to ANILCA (and further back too). Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1066. That is because the Secretary, acting through the Director of the Park Service, has broad authority under the National Park Service Organic Act (Organic Act), 39 Stat. 535, to administer both lands and waters within all system units in the country. See 54 U.S.C. §§ 100751, 100501, 100102. The Secretary "shall prescribe such regulations as [he] considers necessary or proper for the use and management of System units." § 100751(a). And he may, more specifically, issue regulations concerning "boating and other activities on or relating to water located within System units." § 100751(b). Those statutory grants of power make no distinctions based on the ownership of either lands or waters (or lands beneath waters). And although the Park Service has sometimes chosen not to regulate non-federally owned lands and waters, it has also imposed major restrictions on their use. Rules about mining and solid-waste disposal, for example, apply to all lands within system units "whether federally or nonfederally owned." 36 C.F.R. § 6.2 ; see § 9.2. And (of particular note here) the Park Service freely regulates activities on all navigable (and some other) waters "within [a park's] boundaries"-once more, "without regard to... ownership." § 1.2(a)(3). So Alaska and its Natives had reason to worry about how the Park Service would regulate their lands and waters within the new parks.
Congress thus acted, as even the Park Service agrees, to give the State and Natives "assurance that their [lands] wouldn't be treated just like" federally owned property. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50. (It is only-though this is quite a large "only"-the nature and extent of that assurance that is in dispute.) The key provision here is Section 103(c), which contains three sentences that may require some re-reading. We quote it first in one block; then provide some definitions; then go over it again a bit more slowly. But still, you should expect to return to this text as you proceed through this opinion.
Section 103(c) provides in full:
"Only those lands within the boundaries of any conservation system unit which are public lands (as such term is defined in this Act) shall be deemed to be included as a portion of such unit. No lands which, before, on, or after [the date of ANILCA's passage], are conveyed to the State, to any Native Corporation, or to any private party shall be subject to the regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units. If the State, a Native Corporation, or other owner desires to convey any such lands, the Secretary may acquire such lands in accordance with applicable law (including this Act), and any such lands shall become part of the unit, and be administered accordingly." § 3103(c).
Now for the promised definitions. The term "land," as found in all three sentences, actually-and crucially for this case-"means lands, waters, and interests therein." § 3102(1). The term "public lands," in the first two sentences, then means "lands" (including waters and interests therein) "the title to which is in the United States"-except for lands selected for future transfer to the State or Native Corporations (under the Statehood Act or ANCSA). § 3102(2), (3) ; see supra, at 1073 - 1074. "Public lands" are therefore most but not quite all lands (and again, waters and interests) that the Federal Government owns.
Finally, to recap. As explained in Sturgeon I, "Section 103(c) draws a distinction between 'public' and 'non-public' lands within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska." 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1071. Section 103(c)'s first sentence makes clear that only public lands (again, defined as most federally owned lands, waters, and associated interests) would be considered part of a system unit (again, just meaning a national park, preserve, or similar area). By contrast, state, Native, or private lands would not be understood as part of such a unit, even though they in fact fall within its geographic boundaries. Section 103(c)'s second sentence then expressly exempts all those non-public lands (the inholdings) from certain regulations-though exactly which ones, as will soon become clear, is a matter of dispute. And last, Section 103(c)'s third sentence enables the Secretary to buy any inholdings. If he does, the lands (because now public) become part of the park, and may be administered in the usual way-e.g., without the provision's regulatory exemption.
C
We can now return to John Sturgeon, on his way to a hunting ground alternatively dubbed "Moose Meadows" or "Sturgeon Fork." As recounted above, Sturgeon used to travel by hovercraft up a stretch of the Nation River that lies within the boundaries of the Yukon-Charley Preserve. See supra, at 1072. Until one day, three park rangers approached Sturgeon while he was repairing his steering cable and told him he was violating a Park Service rule. According to the specified regulation, "[t]he operation or use of hovercraft is prohibited" on navigable (and some other) waters "located within [a park's] boundaries," without any "regard to... ownership." 36 C.F.R. §§ 2.17(e), 1.2(a)(3) ; see supra, at 1072. That regulation, issued under the Secretary's Organic Act authority, applies on its face to parks across the country. See supra, at 1075 (describing Organic Act). And Sturgeon did not doubt that the Nation River is a navigable water. But Sturgeon protested that in Alaska (even though nowhere else) the rule could not be enforced on a waterway-like, he said, the Nation River-that is not owned by the Federal Government. And when his objection got nowhere with the rangers (or with the Secretary, to whom he later petitioned), Sturgeon stopped using his hovercraft-but also brought this lawsuit, based on ANILCA's Section 103(c).
In Sturgeon I, we rejected one ground for dismissing Sturgeon's case, but remanded for consideration of two further questions. The District Court and Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held that even assuming the Nation River is non-public land, the Park Service could enforce its hovercraft ban there. See 2013 WL 5888230 (Oct. 30, 2013) ; 768 F.3d 1066 (2014). Those two courts interpreted Section 103(c) to limit only the Service's authority to impose Alaska-specific regulations on such lands-not its authority to apply nationwide regulations like the hovercraft rule. But we viewed that construction as "implausible." 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1071. ANILCA, we reasoned, "repeatedly recognizes that Alaska is different." Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1070 ; see id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1071 (The Act "reflect[s] the simple truth that Alaska is often the exception, not the rule"). Yet the lower courts' reading would "prevent the Park Service from recognizing Alaska's unique conditions"-thus producing a "topsy-turvy" result. Ibid. Still, we thought two hurdles remained before Sturgeon could take his hovercraft out of storage. We asked the Court of Appeals to decide whether the Nation River "qualifies as 'public land' for purposes of ANILCA," thus indisputably subjecting it to the Service's regulatory authority. Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1072. And if the answer was "no," we asked the Ninth Circuit to address whether the Service, on some different theory from the one just dispatched, could still "regulate Sturgeon's activities on the Nation River." Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1072.
The Ninth Circuit never got past the first question because it concluded that the Nation River is "public land[.]" See 872 F.3d 927, 936 (2017). The court explained that it was bound by three circuit decisions construing that term, when used in ANILCA's provisions about subsistence fishing, as including all navigable waters. Id., at 933-934. Accordingly, the court again rejected Sturgeon's challenge. Id., at 936.
And we again granted certiorari. 585 U. S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 2648, 201 L.Ed.2d 1048 (2018).
II
We first address whether, as the Ninth Circuit found, the Nation River is "public land" under ANILCA. As defined, once again, that term means (almost all) "lands, waters, and interests therein" the "title to which is in the United States." 16 U.S.C. § 3102(1) - (3). If the Nation River comes within that definition, even Sturgeon agrees that the Park Service may enforce its hovercraft rule in the stretch traversing the Yukon-Charley. That is because the Organic Act authorizes the Park Service to regulate boating and similar activities in parks and other system units-and under ANILCA's Section 103(c) those units include all "public land" within their boundaries. 54 U.S.C. § 100751(a) - (b) ; 16 U.S.C. § 3103(c) ; see supra, at 1075 - 1077.
But the United States does not have "title" (as the just-quoted definition demands) to the Nation River in the ordinary sense. As the Park Service acknowledges, running waters cannot be owned-whether by a government or by a private party. See FPC v. Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., 347 U.S. 239, 247, n. 10, 74 S.Ct. 487, 98 L.Ed. 666 (1954) ; Brief for Respondents 33. In contrast, the lands beneath those waters-typically called submerged lands-can be owned, and the water regulated on that basis. But that does not help the Park Service because, as noted earlier, the Submerged Lands Act gives each State "title to and ownership of the lands beneath [its] navigable waters." 43 U.S.C. § 1311 ; see supra, at 1073. That means Alaska, not the United States, has title to the lands beneath the Nation River.
So the Park Service argues instead that the United States has "title" to an "interest" in the Nation River, under what is called the reserved-water-rights doctrine. See Brief for Respondents 32-37. The canonical statement of that doctrine goes as follows: "[W]hen the Federal Government withdraws its land from the public domain and reserves it for a federal purpose, the Government, by implication, reserves appurtenant water then unappropriated to the extent needed to accomplish the purpose of the reservation." Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 138, 96 S.Ct. 2062, 48 L.Ed.2d 523 (1976). For example, this Court decided that in reserving land for an Indian tribe, the Government impliedly reserved sufficient water from a nearby river to enable the tribe to farm the area. See Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, 576, 28 S.Ct. 207, 52 L.Ed. 340 (1908). And similarly, we held that in creating a national monument to preserve a species of fish inhabiting an underground pool, the United States acquired an enforceable interest in preventing others from depleting the pool below the level needed for the fish to survive. See Cappaert, 426 U.S. at 147, 96 S.Ct. 2062. According to the Park Service, the United States has an analogous interest in the Nation River and other navigable waters in Alaska's national parks. "Because th[e] purposes [of those parks] require that the waters within [them] be safeguarded against depletion and diversion," the Service contends, "Congress's reservations of park lands also reserved interests in appurtenant navigable waters." Brief for Respondents 35.
That argument first raises the question whether it is even possible to hold "title," as ANILCA uses the term, to reserved water rights. 16 U.S.C. § 3102(2). Those rights, as all parties agree, are "usufructuary" in nature, meaning that they are rights for the Government to use-whether by withdrawing or maintaining-certain waters it does not own. See Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., 347 U.S. at 246, 74 S.Ct. 487 ; Brief for Petitioner 36; Brief for Respondents 36. The Park Service has found a couple of old cases suggesting that a person can hold "title" to such usufructuary interests. See ibid. ; Crum v. Mt. Shasta Power Corp., 220 Cal. 295, 307, 30 P.2d 30, 36 (1934) ; Radcliff's Ex'rs v. Mayor of Brooklyn, 4 N. Y. 195, 196 (1850). But the more common understanding, recently noted in another ANILCA case, is that "reserved water rights are not the type of property interests to which title can be held"; rather, "the term 'title' applies" to "fee ownership of property" and (sometimes) to "possessory interests" in property like those granted by a lease. See Totemoff v. State, 905 P.2d 954, 965 (Alaska 1995) (collecting cases); Brief for State of Idaho et al. as Amici Curiae 21-22 (same). And we see no evidence that the Congress enacting ANILCA meant to use the term in any less customary and more capacious sense.
But even assuming so, the Nation River itself would not thereby become "public land" in the way the Park Service argues. Under ANILCA's definition, the "public land" at issue would consist only of the Federal Government's specific "interest" in the River-that is, its reserved water right. § 3102(1), (3). And that reserved right, by its nature, is limited. It does not give the Government plenary authority over the waterway to which it attaches. Rather, the interest merely enables the Government to take or maintain the specific "amount of water"-and "no more"-required to "fulfill the purpose of [its land] reservation." Cappaert, 426 U.S. at 141, 96 S.Ct. 2062. So, for example, in the cases described above, the Government could control only the volume of water necessary for the tribe to farm or the fish to survive. See Winters, 207 U.S. at 576-577, 28 S.Ct. 207 ; Cappaert, 426 U.S. at 141, 96 S.Ct. 2062. And likewise here, the Government could protect "only th[e] amount of water" in the Nation River needed to "accomplish the purpose of the [Yukon-Charley's] reservation." Id., at 138, 141, 96 S.Ct. 2062.
And whatever that volume, the Government's (purported) reserved right could not justify applying the hovercraft rule on the Nation River. That right, to use the Park Service's own phrase, would support a regulation preventing the "depletion or diversion" of waters in the River (up to the amount required to achieve the Yukon-Charley's purposes). Brief for Respondents 34-35. But the hovercraft rule does nothing of that kind. A hovercraft moves above the water, on a thin cushion of air produced by downward-directed fans; it does not "deplet[e]" or "diver[t]" any water. Nor has the Park Service explained the hovercraft rule as an effort to protect the Nation River from pollution or other similar harm. To the contrary, that rule is directed against the "sight or sound" of "motorized equipment" in remote locations-concerns not related to safeguarding the water. 48 Fed. Reg. 30258 (1983). So the Park Service's "public lands" argument runs aground: Even if the United States holds title to a reserved water right in the Nation River, that right (as opposed to title in the River itself) cannot prevent Sturgeon from wafting along the River's surface toward his preferred hunting ground.
III
We thus move on to the second question we posed in Sturgeon I, concerning the Park Service's power to regulate even non-public lands and waters within Alaska's system units (or, in our unofficial terminology, national parks). The Service principally relies on that sort of ownership-indifferent authority in defending its decision to expel Sturgeon's hovercraft from the Nation River. See Brief for Respondents 16-18, 25-32. And we can see why. If Sturgeon lived in any other State, his suit would not have a prayer of success. As noted earlier, the Park Service has used its Organic Act authority to ban hovercrafts on navigable waters "located within [a national park's] boundaries" without any "regard to... ownership." 36 C.F.R. §§ 2.17(e), 1.2(a)(3) ; see supra, at 1077 - 1078. And no one disputes that Sturgeon was driving his hovercraft on a stretch of the Nation River (a navigable water) inside the borders of the Yukon-Charley (a national park). So case closed. Except that Sturgeon lives in Alaska. And as we have said before, "Alaska is often the exception, not the rule." Sturgeon I, 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1071. Here, Section 103(c) of ANILCA makes it so. As explained below, that section provides that even when non-public lands-again, including waters-are geographically within a national park's boundaries, they may not be regulated as part of the park. And that means the Park Service's hovercraft regulation cannot apply there.
To understand why, first recall how Section 103(c) grew out of ANILCA's unusual method for drawing park boundaries. See supra, at 1075 - 1076. Those lines followed the area's "natural features," rather than (as customary) the Federal Government's property holdings. 16 U.S.C. § 3103(b). The borders thus took in immense tracts owned by the State, Native Corporations, and private individuals. And as you might imagine, none of those parties was eager to have its lands newly regulated as national parks. To the contrary, all of them wanted to preserve the regulatory status quo-to prevent ANILCA's maps from subjecting their properties to the Park Service's rules. Hence arose Section 103(c). Cf. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50 (Solicitor General acknowledging that Section 103(c) responds to the State's and Native Corporations' "concern[s]" about the effects of "includ[ing their lands] within the outer boundaries" of the new parks). Now might be a good time to review that provision, block quoted above. See supra, at 1076. In broad brush strokes, Sturgeon I described it as follows: "Section 103(c) draws a distinction between 'public' and 'non-public' lands," including waters, "within the boundaries of [Alaska's] conservation system units." 577 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1071.
Section 103(c)'s first sentence sets out the essential distinction, relating to what qualifies as parkland. It provides, once again, that "[o]nly" the "public lands" (essentially, the federally owned lands) within any system unit's boundaries would be "deemed" a part of that unit. § 3103(c). The non-public lands (everything else) were, by negative implication, "deemed" not a part of the unit-even though within the unit's geographic boundaries. The key word here is "deemed." That term is used in legal materials "[t]o treat (something) as if... it were really something else." Black's Law Dictionary 504 (10th ed. 2014). Legislators (and other drafters) find the word "useful" when "it is necessary to establish a legal fiction," either by " 'deeming' something to be what it is not" or by " 'deeming' something not to be what it is." Ibid. (quoting G.C. Thornton, Legislative Drafting 99 (4th ed. 1996)). The fiction in 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.
Per Curiam.
Because the decision of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in this case is contrary to Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420 (1984), we grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and reverse.
In the early morning of January 19, 1985, Officer Steve Shallis of the Newton Township, Pennsylvania, Police Department observed respondent Thomas Bruder driving very erratically along State Highway 252. Among other traffic violations, he ignored a red light. Shallis stopped Bruder’s vehicle. Bruder left his vehicle, approached Shallis, and when asked for his registration card, returned to his car to obtain it. Smelling alcohol and observing Bruder’s stumbling movements, Shallis administered field sobriety tests, including asking Bruder to recite the alphabet. Shallis also inquired about alcohol. Bruder answered that he had been drinking and was returning home. Bruder failed the sobriety tests, whereupon Shallis arrested him, placed him in the police car, and gave him Miranda warnings. Bruder was later convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol. At his trial, his statements and conduct prior to his arrest were admitted into evidence. On appeal, the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed, 365 Pa. Super. 106, 528 A. 2d 1385 (1987), on the ground that the above statements Bruder had uttered during the roadside questioning were elicited through custodial interrogation and should have been suppressed for lack of Miranda warnings. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the State’s appeal application.
In Berkemer v. McCarty, supra, which involved facts strikingly similar to those in this case, the Court concluded that the “noncoercive aspect of ordinary traffic stops prompts us to hold that persons temporarily detained pursuant to such stops are not ‘in custody’ for the purposes of Miranda” Id., at 440. The Court reasoned that although the stop was unquestionably a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, such traffic stops typically are brief, unlike a prolonged station house interrogation. Second, the Court emphasized that traffic stops commonly occur in the “public view,” in an atmosphere far “less ‘police dominated’ than that surrounding the kinds of interrogation at issue in Miranda itself.” Id., at 438-439. The detained motorist’s “freedom of action [was not] curtailed to ‘a degree associated with formal arrest.’” Id., at 440 (citing California v. Beheler, 463 U. S. 1121, 1125 (1983)). Accordingly, he was not entitled to a recitation of his constitutional rights prior to arrest, and his roadside responses to questioning were admissible.
The facts in this record, which Bruder does not contest, reveal the same noncoercive aspects as the Berkemer detention: “a single police officer ask[ing] respondent a modest number of questions and requesting] him to perform a simple balancing test at a location visible to passing motorists.” 468 U. S., at 442 (footnote omitted). Accordingly, Berkemer s rule, that ordinary traffic stops do not involve custody for purposes of Miranda, governs this case. The judgment of the Pennsylvania Superior Court that evidence was inadmissible for lack of Miranda warnings is reversed.
It is so ordered.
We did not announce an absolute rule for all motorist detentions, observing that lower courts must be vigilant that police do not “delay formally arresting detained motorists, and . . . subject them to sustained and intimidating interrogation at the scene of their initial detention.” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 440 (1984).
Reliance on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Meyer, 488 Pa. 297, 412 A. 2d 517 (1980), to which we referred in Berkemer, see 468 U. S., at 441, and n. 34, is inapposite. Meyer involved facts which we implied might properly remove its result from Berkemer’s application to ordinary traffic stops; specifically, the motorist in Meyer could be found to have been placed in custody for purposes of Miranda safeguards because he was detained for over half an hour, and subjected to questioning while in the patrol car. Thus, we acknowledged Meyer’s relevance to the unusual traffic stop that involves prolonged detention. We expressly disapproved, however, the attempt to extrapolate from this sensitivity to uncommon detention circumstances any general proposition that custody exists whenever motorists think that their freedom of action has been restricted, for such a rationale would eviscerate Berkemer altogether. See Berkemer, supra, at 436-437.
We thus do not reach the issue whether recitation of the alphabet in response to custodial questioning is testimonial and hence inadmissible under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, engaged in the business of supplying electric energy to the public, seeks the refund of taxes paid by it pursuant to § 3411 of the Internal Revenue Code. That section, in pertinent part, provides for a tax
“. . . upon electrical energy sold for domestic or commercial consumption . . . equivalent to 3 per centum of the price for which so sold, to be paid by the vendor under such rules and regulations as the Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary, shall prescribe.”
Note that the statute taxes energy for domestic or commercial consumption. There is no provision for taxation of electrical energy used for industrial purposes.
The purchasers of the electric power here involved are 27 dairy plants which are engaged primarily in the collection, pasteurization, and distribution of fresh milk. The sole question presented by the case is whether the use of electricity by these dairies is commercial consumption within the meaning of the statute or industrial consumption, a use not covered by the statute.
The functions of the dairy plants are sufficiently similar so that they can be treated as one for the purpose of describing their methods of operation. The plants are buildings equipped with milk-handling machinery and facilities located either off the dairy farms, or on the dairy farm itself as an activity apart from milk production. Contracts for the purchase of raw milk are negotiated with nearby farms. This milk is delivered in trucks of the producers or of the dairy plant, as the case may be, to the plant where it is received, weighed, tested for butterfat content, cooled, and mixed and standardized so as to achieve the proper butterfat content. Next it is pasteurized. Pasteurization consists of heating the milk to 143°-145° F., maintaining it at that level for about thirty minutes, and then subjecting it to sudden cooling to a point between 38° and 40° F. The process is designed to kill pathogenic bacteria without destroying the natural creaming properties or the taste of the milk. Then the milk is drawn into bottles or cans which have been washed, sterilized, and cooled. Finally it is stored in refrigerated rooms to permit the cream line to form and to await delivery. Most of it is delivered to customers in the dairy plant’s trucks or wagons. In some instances a small proportion is sold at the plant itself.
Electric power is employed by the purchasing dairy plants in a number of ways. It is used to light the plants, including the garage space for the collecting and distributing trucks. It drives electric motors which pump refrigerants, deliver milk to and from the pasteurizer and to the bottling machines, operate the homogenizer, the bottling machine, the cream separator, and the machinery used in washing, sterilizing and conveying bottles. The electricity used by some of the plants is measured through a single meter, that of others through two or more meters, but in no case are the meters so connected to the incoming power line as to enable the energy supplied for one purpose to be differentiated from that supplied for another. We do not have before us a situation where pasteurization utilizes electrical energy that is measured by a meter exclusively used for pasteurization.
Pasteurization is accomplished by the use of special equipment designed for that purpose. Most of the electricity attributable to the process is devoted to the ice machines which perform the rapid cooling of the milk after the initial heating. Since the same cooling units perform the cooling which is necessary before and after pasteurization, however, the electricity which they consume for pasteurization alone cannot be ascertained. Pasteurization equipment, including the increased cooling equipment necessary 'therefor, accounts for about 15 or 20 percent of the total cost of plant equipment, excluding trucks and other vehicles. About one-tenth of the cost of plant operation, excluding the cost of the raw milk and costs attributable to distribution, is attributable to pasteurization.
Petitioner paid the tax on electrical energy sold to the dairy plants during the period from April, 1940, to July, 1943, and then brought suit to recover it on the ground that such energy was sold not for commercial but for industrial consumption. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin held that the sales were for commercial consumption within the meaning of the statute, and therefore that the tax was valid. 69 F. Supp. 743. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. 168 F. 2d 285. It summarized its views as follows:
“We agree with [District] Judge Duffy that the wording and legislative history of the Act make it clear that the predominant character of the business carried on by a consumer of electrical energy is what determines whether the electricity sold has been sold for 'commercial consumption’; hence we are content to adopt his opinion as that of this court.” Id. at 286.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit had held in United States v. Public Service Co. of Colorado, 143 F. 2d 79, that electrical energy sold to dairy plants operating substantially as these was sold for industrial rather than commercial consumption, and consequently was not taxable under § 3411. We granted certiorari in this case in order to resolve the apparent conflict between circuits and to settle the meaning of the statute as it applies to the business of this general type of dairy plant. 335 U. S. 842.
The tax now embodied in § 3411 was originally imposed upon the consumer of electricity by the Revenue Act of 1932, 47 Stat. 169, 266. This Act was amended in 1933 to make the burden of the tax fall directly upon the vendor. 48 Stat. 254, 256. No change of any significance for our purposes has occurred since the original enactment of this provision.
Although the language of the section does not include the word “industrial,” it is clear from the legislative history that “commercial” was used in contradistinction to “industrial.” While electricity sold for commercial consumption is taxed, that sold for industrial consumption is not. Thus our task resolves itself to a determination of the category in which the consumption of electricity by these dairy plants should be classified. We shall not undertake the difficult and here needless task of general definition which differentiates for this statutory clause between industrial and commercial in other lines of business activity. That is a problem primarily for the administrators of the section, with knowledge of the specific and varying facts.
The legislative history indicates that the term “commercial” was meant to apply to the nature of the business in which the energy is consumed, and not to the specific purpose to which each measurable unit of electricity is devoted. Where it is delivered through a single meter at one location, energy utilized to operate sewing machines for a minor manufacturing unit, e. g., shirts, in a department store, would be deemed power sold for commercial consumption, although it might fall within the industrial category if sold to a consumer who did nothing but manufacture shirts. Since any other interpretation of the section would entail the almost insurmountable administrative difficulty of classifying all the electricity sold to a plant according to the specific operations to which such power was devoted by the consumer, the conclusion that the controlling factor is the general nature of a business at a location accords with the natural meaning to be given the words employed by Congress to express its purpose.
The regulations interpret the section in line with the legislative history. U. S. Treas. Reg. 46 (1940 ed.) § 316.190 [as amended by T. D. 5099], presently applicable, provides in pertinent part:
“Scope of tax. — The tax imposed by section 3411 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code, as amended, applies, except as provided hereinafter, to all electrical energy sold for domestic or commercial consumption and not for resale.
“The term 'electrical energy sold for domestic or commercial consumption’ does not include (1) electrical energy sold for industrial consumption, e. g., for use in manufacturing, mining, refining, shipbuilding, building construction, irrigation, etc., or (2) that sold for other uses which likewise can not be classed as domestic or commercial, such as the electrical energy used by electric and gas companies, waterworks, telegraph, telephone, and radio communication companies, railroads, other similar common carriers, educational institutions not operated for private profit, churches, and charitable institutions in their operations as such. However, electrical energy is subject to tax if sold for consumption in commercial phases of industrial or other businesses, such as in office buildings, sales and display rooms, retail stores, etc., or in domestic phases, such as in dormitories or living quarters maintained by educational institutions, churches, charitable institutions, or others.
“Where electrical energy is sold to a consumer for two or more purposes, through separate meters, the specific use for which the energy is sold through each meter, i. e., whether for domestic or commercial consumption, or for other use, shall determine its taxable status. Where the consumer has all the electrical energy consumed at a given location furnished through one meter, the predominant character of the business carried on at such location shall determine the classification of consumption for the purposes of this tax.”
The last sentence of this regulation makes it clear that all electrical energy furnished to a predominantly commercial establishment through a single meter is subject to the tax although portions of such energy are devoted to purposes which, considered separately, might be classified as industrial. While the regulation does not deal with the point, we think it obvious from the last quoted paragraph that where the energy is furnished at a single location through various meters, although none of them are shown to carry current for predominantly industrial uses, the same rule would be applied. The last sentence of the regulation adds a qualification, however, which directs our attention, not necessarily to the nature of a business as a whole, but to the nature as a whole of the activities carried on “at a given location.”
We accept the last sentence of the quoted regulation as proper under the statute. As applied to these plants we think that the electricity furnished by the petitioner was “sold for commercial consumption” and consequently was properly taxed. Admittedly the activities of these consumers would be considered commercial if they did not pasteurize the milk prior to its sale. Such business would accurately be called the distribution of fresh milk. The butter and cream extraction appears incidental. We are not dealing with a “creamery” in the sense of a butter or cheese factory. We agree with the courts below that the addition of pasteurization to the other activities described above does not change the nature of the dairy plants’ business from commercial to industrial any more than would the cooking of food for sale in a restaurant, or the cleaning of raw food products prior to distribution or sale. The District Court found that “pasteurization plays a minor part in the total business of the dairies,” and that “the predominant business of the dairies here involved ... is, and was, that of fluid milk dealers and distributors.”
Petitioner argues that the test applied by the Court of Appeals, “whether the predominant character of the enterprise carried on by such consumer is commercial,” is erroneous and contrary to the regulation in that it directs attention to the business as a whole rather than to the activities at a given location. While the language quoted is susceptible to this criticism, the variation is harmless because the plant itself is the location or the focal point of all the relevant activities of each of these consumers of electricity. Pasteurization does not occur at a separate location, but at the same plant where the milk is received, weighed, tested, cooled, homogenized, separated and bottled. The milk is brought to this plant when purchased, and from the plant it is distributed to customers. The fact that most of the sales or deliveries occur off the premises does not alter the essential fact that all activities occur in or pivot around the plant.
Thus, though pasteurizing, we assume, is processing and though processing separately viewed may be conceded to be industrial, we conclude that the business conducted by these dairy plants is essentially commercial. The contrary conclusion reached in United States v. Public Service Co. of Colorado, 143 F. 2d 79, may be ascribed to the fact that there the court apparently looked to the use to which the electrical energy was devoted rather than to the nature of the business at a given location.
Rulings of the Bureau of Internal Revenue support our conclusion. In 1932, S. T. 518 stated that,
“Electrical energy furnished for consumption by bottling works, milk companies, or creameries engaged in the pasteurization and bottling of milk, and in the manufacture of butter, buttermilk, chocolate milk, and cottage cheese, is not furnished for domestic or commercial consumption . . . .”
Apparently, however, the Bureau intended this ruling to apply only to those plants whose business was predominantly pasteurization and the manufacture of milk by-products, because S. T. 637, issued the following year, contained the following statement:
“A dairy which obtains milk and converts it into use for retail purposes is held to be engaged in a business commercial in character. Electrical energy used in such operations will be subject to tax.”
In clarification of these two rulings the Bureau explained:
“Electrical energy furnished a commercial dairy or milk company which merely produces or purchases raw milk in bulk and pasteurizes it for sale either in bulk or bottled quantities, whose activities consist principally in the handling, distribution and sale of milk, is also subject to the tax.
“It is only electrical energy that is furnished for direct consumption by dairies which in addition to pasteurizing and bottling milk are also engaged in all the essential manufacturing processes necessary for the production of dairy products, such as the manufacturing of butter, cheese and other dairy-products, for sale on the open market as an article of commerce,- that is not subject to the tax."
Thus we hold that electrical energy supplied to these dairy plants through single meters, or through more than one but without differentiation as to use, is energy sold for commercial consumption.
Affirmed.
Amended by the Revenue Act of 1941, c. 412, 55 Stat. 687, 707, § 521 (a) (19), to change the three percent tax to three and one-third percent.
26 U. S. C. §3411.
See, infra, p. 180, et seq.
A few of the consumers of electricity here involved produce their own milk.
One of the plants pasteurizes by the so-called “flash method,” heating the milk to 161° F. for 16 seconds and rapidly cooling it to 32° F.
A minor proportion of the milk purchased by these plants is manufactured into butter, cheese, or other by-products. An undisclosed amount of this milk is separated from the cream it contains; some is also homogenized.
H. R. Conference Rep. No. 1492, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 22; Senator Harrison, 77 Cong. Rec. 3212-14, 3215.
The legislative explanations treat of business consumers as units and do not differentiate as to use within the units.
Senator Harrison, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which reported the bill, said:
“I am telling Senators nothing new when I remind them that we had a fight here in 1932 over the imposition of this tax. The Senate imposed a 3-percent electric-energy tax, and it was finally adopted, to be collected from the consumer of electric energy. We applied that only on domestic and commercial energy; that is, electric energy used in stores and dwellings that are classified as commercial and domestic. There was no tax in the 1932 act imposed upon energy employed in industry.” 77 Cong. Rec. 3212-13.
Senator Couzens, a member of a subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee, which was constituted to consider the electrical energy tax, said: “I mean they eliminated that feature of the tax; they eliminated the tax on electrical energy sold to manufacturing plants and left the tax on electricity used commercially, that is by stores and on electricity used for domestic purposes . . . .” 77 Cong. Rec. 3218.
This regulation was substantially the same in its earlier versions. U. S. Treas. Reg. 42, Art. 40 (1932); T. D. 4342, XI-2 Cum. Bull. 495 (1932); T. D. 4393, XII-2 Cum. Bull. 322 (1933). The quoted version, however, omitted the word “processing,” which was formerly included in the list of activities exemplifying industrial consumption. We do not consider this deletion significant for purposes of this case.
Cf. St. Louis Refrigerating & Cold Storage Co. v. United States, 95 Ct. Cl. 694, 43 F. Supp. 476; Fulton Market Cold Storage Co. v. United States, 95 Ct. Cl. 710, 43 F. Supp. 485.
We do not intend by these words of limitation to approve or disapprove other provisions. There are ambiguities in this section of the regulation. In the second paragraph, without reference to separate meters, it holds that energy used in the commercial phases of an industrial business is taxable. The reverse would seem to follow as to industrial phases of a commercial business. Yet the third paragraph allows the avoidance of such a tax on industrial use only by the employment of separate meters.
For state cases to the effect that this business is primarily commerical, see e. g. City of Louisville v. Ewing Von-Allmen D. Co., 268 Ky. 652, 105 S. W. 2d 801; People ex rel. E. S. Dairy Co. v. Sohmer, 218 N. Y. 199, 112 N. E. 755; Richmond v. Dairy Co., 156 Va. 63, 157 S. E. 728. But see Dairy Assn. v. Bd. of Tax Admin., 302 Mich. 643,5 N. W. 2d 516.
See note-9, supra.
“The electrical energy was not used in the commercial phase of the dairying enterprise, but in the processing or industrial phase of the enterprise.” 143 F. 2d 79, 82.
XI-2 Cum. Bull. 498 (1932).
XII-1 Cum. Bull. 409, 410 (1933).
Bureau Letter, dated May 13, 1933 (symbols MT: ST: BHF) (333 C. C. H. ¶ 6266), 4 C. C. H. Standard Federal Tax Reporter ¶ 2633G .175 (1949).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Powell
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion,
in which Justice Brennan, Justice White, and Justice Marshall joined.
This case presents questions as to the authority of arson investigators, in the absence of exigent circumstances or consent, to enter a private residence without a warrant to investigate the cause of a recent fire.
Respondents, Raymond and Emma Jean Clifford, were arrested and charged with arson in connection with a fire at their private residence. At the preliminary examination held to establish probable cause for the alleged offense, the State introduced various pieces of physical evidence, most of which was obtained through a warrantless and nonconsensual search of the Cliffords’ fire-damaged home. Respondents moved to suppress this evidence on the ground that it was obtained in violation of their rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. That motion was denied and respondents were bound over for trial. Before trial, they again moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the search. The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing and denied the motion on the ground that exigent circumstances justified the search. The court certified its eviden-tiary ruling for interlocutory appeal and the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed.
That court held that there were no exigent circumstances justifying the search. Instead, it found that the warrantless entry and search of the Clifford residence were conducted pursuant to a policy of the Arson Division of the Detroit Fire Department that sanctioned such searches as long as the owner was not present, the premises were open to trespass, and the search occurred within a reasonable time of the fire. The Court of Appeals held that this policy was inconsistent with Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499 (1978), and that the warrantless nonconsensual search of the Cliffords’ residence violated their rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. We granted certiorari to clarify doubt that appears to exist as to the application of our decision in Tyler. 459 U. S. 1168 (1983).
II
In the early morning hours of October 18, 1980, a fire erupted at the Clifford home. The Cliffords were out of town on a camping trip at the time. The fire was reported to the Detroit Fire Department, and fire units arrived on the scene about 5:40 a. m. The fire was extinguished and all fire officials and police left the premises at 7:04 a. m.
At 8 o’clock on the morning of the fire, Lieutenant Beyer, a fire investigator with the arson section of the Detroit Fire Department, received instructions to investigate the Clifford fire. He was informed that the Fire Department suspected arson. Because he had other assignments, Lieutenant Beyer did not proceed immediately to the Clifford residence. He and his partner finally arrived at the scene of the fire about 1 p. m. on October 18.
When they arrived, they found a work crew on the scene. The crew was boarding up the house and pumping some six inches of water out of the basement. A neighbor told the investigators that he had called Mr. Clifford and had been instructed to request the Cliffords’ insurance agent to send a boarding crew out to secure the house. The neighbor also advised that the Cliffords did not plan to return that day. While the investigators waited for the water to be pumped out, they found a Coleman fuel can in the driveway that was seized and marked as evidence.
By 1:30 p. m., the water had been pumped out of the basement and Lieutenant Beyer and his partner, without obtaining consent or an administrative warrant, entered the Clifford residence and began their investigation into the cause of the fire. Their search began in the basement and they quickly confirmed that the fire had originated there beneath the basement stairway. They detected a strong odor of fuel throughout the basement, and found two more Coleman fuel cans beneath the stairway. As they dug through the debris, the investigators also found a crock pot with attached wires leading to an electrical timer that was plugged into an outlet a few feet away. The timer was set to turn on at approximately 3:45 a. m. and to turn back off at approximately 9 a. m. It had stopped somewhere between 4 and 4:30 a. m. All of this evidence was seized and marked.
After determining that the fire had originated in the basement, Lieutenant Beyer and his partner searched the remainder of the house. The warrantless search that followed was extensive and thorough. The investigators called in a photographer to take pictures throughout the house. They searched through drawers and closets and found them full of old clothes. They inspected the rooms and noted that there were nails on the walls but no pictures. They found wiring and cassettes for a video tape machine but no machine.
Respondents moved to exclude all exhibits and testimony based on the basement and upstairs searches on the ground that they were searches to gather evidence of arson, that they were conducted without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances, and that they therefore were per se unreasonable under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Petitioner, on the other hand, argues that the entire search was reasonable and should be exempt from the warrant requirement.
Ill
In its petition for certiorari, the State does not challenge the state court’s finding that there were no exigent circumstances justifying the search of the Clifford home. Instead, it asks us to exempt from the warrant requirement all administrative investigations into the cause and origin of a fire. We decline to do so.
In Tyler, we restated the Court’s position that administrative searches generally require warrants. 436 U. S., at 504-508. See Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S. 307 (1978); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523 (1967); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541 (1967). We reaffirm that view again today. Except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, the nonconsensual entry and search of property are governed by the warrant requirement of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The constitutionality of warrantless and nonconsensual entries onto fire-damaged premises, therefore, normally turns on several factors: whether there are legitimate privacy interests in the fire-damaged property that are protected by the Fourth Amendment; whether exigent circumstances justify the government intrusion regardless of any reasonable expectations of privacy; and, whether the object of the search is to determine the cause of fire or to gather evidence of criminal activity.
A
We observed in Tyler that reasonable privacy expectations may remain in fire-damaged premises. “People may go on living in their homes or working in their offices after a fire. Even when that is impossible, private effects often remain on the fire-damaged premises.” Tyler, 436 U. S., at 505. Privacy expectations will vary with the type of property, the amount of fire damage, the prior and continued use of the premises, and in some cases the owner’s efforts to secure it against intruders. Some fires may be so devastating that no reasonable privacy interests remain in the ash and ruins, regardless of the owner’s subjective expectations. The test essentially is an objective one: whether “the expectation [is] one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). See also Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735, 739-741 (1979). If reasonable privacy interests remain in the fire-damaged property, the warrant requirement applies, and any official entry must be made pursuant to a warrant in the absence of consent or exigent circumstances.
B
A burning building of course creates an exigency that justifies a warrantless entry by fire officials to fight the blaze. Moreover, in Tyler we held that once in the building, officials need no warrant to remain for “a reasonable time to investigate the cause of a blaze after it has been extinguished.” 436 U. S., at 510. Where, however, reasonable expectations of privacy remain in the fire-damaged property, additional investigations begun after the fire has been extinguished and fire and police officials have left the scene, generally must be made pursuant to a warrant or the identification of.some new exigency.
The aftermath of a fire often presents exigencies that will not tolerate the delay necessary to obtain a warrant or to secure the owner’s consent to inspect fire-damaged premises. Because determining the cause and origin of a fire serves a compelling public interest, the warrant requirement does not apply in such cases.
c
If a warrant is necessary, the object of the search determines the type of warrant required. If the primary object is to determine the cause and origin of a recent fire, an administrative warrant will suffice. To obtain such a warrant, fire officials need show only that a fire of undetermined origin has occurred on the premises, that the scope of the proposed search is reasonable and will not intrude unnecessarily on the fire victim’s privacy, and that the search will be executed at a reasonable and convenient time.
If the primary object of the search is to gather evidence of criminal activity, a criminal search warrant may be obtained only on a showing of probable cause to believe that relevant evidence will be found in the place to be searched. If evidence of criminal activity is discovered during the course of a valid administrative search, it may be seized under the “plain view” doctrine. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 465-466 (1971). This evidence then may be used to establish probable cause to obtain a criminal search warrant. Fire officials may not, however, rely on this evidence to expand the scope of their administrative search without first making a successful showing of probable cause to an independent judicial officer.
The object of the search is important even if exigent circumstances exist. Circumstances that justify a warrantless search for the cause of a fire may not justify a search to gather evidence of criminal activity once that cause has been determined. If, for example, the administrative search is justified by the immediate need to ensure against rekindling, the scope of the search may be no broader than reasonably necessary to achieve its end. A search to gather evidence of criminal activity not in plain view must be made pursuant to a criminal warrant upon a traditional showing of probable cause.
The searches of the Clifford home, at least arguably, can be viewed as two separate ones: the delayed search of the basement area, followed by the extensive search of the residential portion of the house. We now apply the principles outlined above to each of these searches.
IV
The Clifford home was a two-and-one-half story brick and frame residence. Although there was extensive damage to the lower interior structure, the exterior of the house and some of the upstairs rooms were largely undamaged by the fire, although there was some smoke damage. The firemen had broken out one of the doors and most of the windows in fighting the blaze. At the time Lieutenant Beyer and his partner arrived, the home was uninhabitable. But personal belongings remained, and the Cliffords had arranged to have the house secured against intrusion in their absence. Under these circumstances, and in light of the strong expectations of privacy associated with a home, we hold that the Cliffords retained reasonable privacy interests in their fire-damaged residence and that the postfire investigations were subject to the warrant requirement. Thus, the warrantless and non-consensual searches of both the basement and the upstairs areas of the house would have been valid only if exigent circumstances had justified the object and the scope of each.
A
As noted, the State does not claim that exigent circumstances justified its postfire searches. It argues that we either should exempt postfire searches from the warrant requirement or modify Tyler to justify the warrantless searches in this case. We have rejected the State’s first argument and turn now to its second.
In Tyler we upheld a warrantless postfire search of a furniture store, despite the absence of exigent circumstances, on the ground that it was a continuation of a valid search begun immediately after the fire. The investigation was begun as the last flames were being doused, but could not be completed because of smoke and darkness. The search was resumed promptly after the smoke cleared and daylight dawned. Because the postfire search was interrupted for reasons that were evident, we held that the early morning search was “no more than an actual continuation of the first, and the lack of a warrant thus did not invalidate the resulting seizure of evidence.” 436 U. S., at 511.
As the State conceded at oral argument, this case is distinguishable for several reasons. First, the challenged search was not a continuation of an earlier search. Between the time the firefighters had extinguished the blaze and left the scene and the arson investigators first arrived about 1 p. m. to begin their investigation, the Cliffords had taken steps to secure the privacy interests that remained in their residence against further intrusion. These efforts separate the entry made to extinguish the blaze from that made later by different officers to investigate its origin. Second, the privacy interests in the residence — particularly after the Cliffords had acted — were significantly greater than those in the fire-damaged furniture store, making the delay between the fire and the midday search unreasonable absent a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances. We frequently have noted that privacy interests are especially strong in a private resi-deuce. These facts — the interim efforts to secure the burned-out premises and the heightened privacy interests in the home — distinguish this case from Tyler. At least where a homeowner has made a reasonable effort to secure his fire-damaged home after the blaze has been extinguished and the fire and police units have left the scene, we hold that a subsequent postfire search must be conducted pursuant to a warrant, consent, or the identification of some new exigency. So long as the primary purpose is to ascertain the cause of the fire, an administrative warrant will suffice.
B
Because the cause of the fire was then known, the search of the upper portions of the house, described above, could only have been a search to gather evidence of the crime of arson. Absent exigent circumstances, such a search requires a criminal warrant.
Even if the midday basement search had been a valid administrative search, it would not have justified the upstairs search. The scope of such a search is limited to that reasonably necessary to determine the cause and origin of a fire and to ensure against rekindling. As soon as the investigators determined that the fire had originated in the basement and had been caused by the crock pot and timer found beneath the basement stairs, the scope of their search was limited to the basement area. Although the investigators could have used whatever evidence they discovered in the basement to establish probable cause to search the remainder of the house, they could not lawfully undertake that search without a prior judicial determination that a successful showing of probable cause had been made. Because there were no exigent circumstances justifying the upstairs search, and it was undertaken without a prior showing of probable cause before an independent judicial officer, we hold that this search of a home was unreasonable under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, regardless of the validity of the basement search.
The warrantless intrusion into the upstairs regions of the Clifford house presents a telling illustration of the importance of prior judicial review of proposed administrative searches. If an administrative warrant had been obtained in this case, it presumably would have limited the scope of the proposed investigation and would have prevented the warrantless intrusion into the upper rooms of the Clifford home. An administrative search into the cause of a recent fire does not give fire officials license to roam freely through the fire victim’s private residence.
V
The only pieces of physical evidence that have been challenged on this interlocutory appeal are the three empty fuel cans, the electric crock pot, and the timer and attached cord. Respondents also have challenged the testimony of the investigators concerning the warrantless search of both the basement and the upstairs portions of the Clifford home. The discovery of two of the fuel cans, the crock pot, the timer and cord — as well as the investigators’ related testimony — were the product of the unconstitutional postfire search of the Cliffords’ residence. Thus, we affirm that portion of the judgment of the Michigan Court of Appeals that excluded that evidence. One of the fuel cans was discovered in plain view in the Cliffords’ driveway. This can was seen in plain view during the initial investigation by the firefighters. It would have been admissible whether it had been seized in the basement by the firefighters or in the driveway by the arson investigators. Exclusion of this evidence should be reversed.
It is so ordered.
The can had been found in the basement by the fire officials who had fought the blaze. The firemen removed the can and put it by the side door where Lieutenant Beyer discovered it on his arrival.
See, e. g., Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S. 594 (1981) (heavily regulated business); United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311 (1972) (same); Colonnade Corp. v. United States, 397 U. S. 72 (1970) (same). The exceptions to the warrant requirement recognized in these cases are not applicable to the warrantless search in this case.
We do not suggest that firemen fighting a fire normally remain within a building. The circumstances, of course, vary. In many situations actual entry may be too hazardous until the fire has been wholly extinguished, and even then the danger of collapsing walls may exist. Thus, the effort to ascertain the cause of a fire may extend over a period of time with entry and reentry. The critical inquiry is whether reasonable expectations of privacy exist in the fire-damaged premises at a particular time, and if so, whether exigencies justify the reentries.
For example, an immediate threat that the blaze might rekindle presents an exigency that would justify a warrantless and nonconsensual postfire investigation. “Immediate investigation may also be necessary to preserve evidence from intentional or accidental destruction.” See Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 510 (1978).
Probable cause to issue an administrative warrant exists if reasonable legislative, administrative, or judicially prescribed standards for conducting an inspection are satisfied with respect to a particular dwelling. See particularly Tyler, supra; see also Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 538 (1967).
The plain-view doctrine must be applied in light of the special circumstances that frequently accompany fire damage. In searching solely to ascertain the cause, firemen customarily must remove rubble or search other areas where the cause of fires is likely to be found. An object that comes into view during such a search may be preserved without a warrant.
See, e. g., Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 578, 589-590 (1980); United States v. United States District Court, 407 U. S. 297, 313 (1972). Reasonable expectations of privacy in fire-damaged premises will vary depending particularly on the type and use of the building involved. Expectations of privacy are particularly strong in private residences and offices. There may be, depending upon the circumstances, diminished privacy expectations in commercial premises.
This is not to suggest that individual expectations of privacy may prevail over interests of public safety. For example, when fire breaks out in an apartment unit of an apartment complex, the exigency exception may allow warrantless postfire investigations where necessary to ensure against any immediate danger of future fire hazard.
In many cases, there will be no bright line separating the firefighters’ investigation into the cause of a fire from a search for evidence of arson. The distinction will vary with the circumstances of the particular fire and generally will involve more than the lapse of time or the number of entries and reentries. For example, once the cause of a fire in a single-family dwelling is determined, the administrative search should end, and any broader investigation should be made pursuant to a criminal warrant. A fire in an apartment, on the other hand, may present complexities that make it necessary for officials to conduct more expansive searches, to remain on the premises for longer periods of time, and to make repeated entries and reentries into the building. See Tyler, 436 U. S., at 510, n. 6.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in these cases is whether petitioner Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) complied with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 83 Stat. 852, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 4321 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V) (NEPA), when it considered whether to permit petitioner Metropolitan Edison Co. to resume operation of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear powerplant (TMI-1). The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the NRC improperly failed to consider whether the risk of an accident at TMI-1 might cause harm to the psychological health and community well-being of residents of the surrounding area. 219 U. S. App. D. C. 358, 678 F. 2d 222 (1982). We reverse.
Metropolitan owns two nuclear powerplants at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa. Both of these plants were licensed by the NRC after extensive proceedings, which included preparation of Environmental Impact Statements (EIS’s). On March 28, 1979, TMI-1 was not operating; it had been shut down for refueling. TMI-2 was operating, and it suffered a serious accident that damaged the reactor. Although, as it turned out, no dangerous radiation was released, the accident caused widespread concern. The Governor of Pennsylvania recommended an evacuation of all pregnant women and small children, and many area residents did leave their homes for several days.
After the accident, the NRC ordered Metropolitan to keep TMI-1 shut down until it had an opportunity to determine whether the plant could be operated safely. 44 Fed. Reg. 40461 (1979). The NRC then published a notice of hearing specifying several safety-related issues for consideration. Metropolitan Edison Co., 10 N. R. C. 141 (1979). The notice stated that the Commission had not determined whether to consider psychological harm or other indirect effects of the accident or of renewed operation of TMI-1. It invited interested parties to submit briefs on this issue. Id., at 148.
Respondent People Against Nuclear Energy (PANE) intervened and responded to this invitation. PANE is an association of residents of the Harrisburg area who are opposed to further operation of either TMI reactor. PANE contended that restarting TMI-1 would cause both severe psychological health damage to persons living in the vicinity, and serious damage to the stability, cohesiveness, and well-being of the neighboring communities.
The NRC decided not to take evidence concerning PANE’S contentions. Metropolitan Edison Co., 12 N. R. C. 607 (1980); Metropolitan Edison Co., 14 N. R. C. 593 (1981). PANE filed a petition for review in the Court of Appeals, contending that both NEPA and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 68 Stat. 921, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2011 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V), require the NRC to address its contentions. Metropolitan intervened on the side of the NRC.
The Court of Appeals concluded that the Atomic Energy-Act does not require the NRC to address PANE’S contentions. 219 U. S. App. D. C., at 385-389, 678 F. 2d, at 249-253. It did find, however, that NEPA requires the NRC to evaluate “the potential psychological health effects of operating” TMI-1 which have arisen since the original EIS was prepared. Id., at 371, 678 F. 2d, at 235. It also held that, if the NRC finds that significant new circumstances or information exist on this subject, it shall prepare a “supplemental [EIS] which considers not only the effects on psychological health but also effects on the well-being of the communities surrounding Three Mile Island.” Id., at 371-372, 678 F. 2d, at 235-236. We granted certiorari. 459 U. S. 966 (1982).
All the parties agree that effects on human health can be cognizable under NEPA, and that human health may include psychological health. The Court of Appeals thought these propositions were enough to complete a syllogism that disposes of the case: NEPA requires agencies to consider effects on health. An effect on psychological health is an effect on health. Therefore, NEPA requires agencies to consider the effects on psychological health asserted by PANE. See 219 U. S. App. D. C., at 364, 678 F. 2d, at 228. PANE, using similar reasoning, contends that because the psychological health damage to its members would be caused by a change in the environment (renewed operation of TMI-1), NEPA requires the NRC to consider that damage. See Brief for Respondents 23. Although these arguments are appealing at first glance, we believe they skip over an essential step in the analysis. They do not consider the closeness of the relationship between the change in the environment and the “effect” at issue.
Section 102(C) of NEPA, 83 Stat. 853,42 U. S. C. § 4332(C), directs all federal agencies to
“include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on—
“(i) the environmental impact of the proposed action, [and]
“(ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented . . . .”
To paraphrase the statutory language in light of the facts of this case, where an agency action significantly affects the quality of the human environment, the agency must evaluate the “environmental impact” and any unavoidable adverse environmental effects of its proposal. The theme of § 102 is sounded by the adjective “environmental”: NEPA does not require the agency to assess every impact or effect of its proposed action, but only the impact or effect on the environment. If we were to seize the word “environmental” out of its context and give it the broadest possible definition, the words “adverse environmental effects” might embrace virtually any consequence of a governmental action that someone thought “adverse.” But we think the context of the statute shows that Congress was talking about the physical environment — the world around us, so to speak. NEPA was designed to promote human welfare by alerting governmental actors to the effect of their proposed actions on the physical environment.
The statements of two principal sponsors of NEPA, explaining to their colleagues the Conference Report on the bill that was ultimately enacted, illustrate this point:
“What is involved [in NEPA] is a congressional declaration that we do not intend, as a government or as a people, to initiate actions which endanger the continued existence'or the health of mankind: That we will not intentionally initiate actions which do irreparable damage to the air, land and water which support life on earth.” 115 Cong. Rec. 40416 (1969) (remarks of Sen. Jackson) (emphasis supplied).
“[W]e can now move forward to preserve and enhance our air, aquatic, and terrestrial environments ... to carry out the policies and goals set forth in the bill to provide each citizen of this great country a healthful environment.” Id., at 40924 (remarks of Rep. Dingell) (emphasis supplied).
Thus, although NEPA states its goals in sweeping terms of human health and welfare, these goals are ends that Congress has chosen to pursue by means of protecting the physical environment.
To determine whether §102 requires consideration of a particular effect, we must look at the relationship between that effect and the change in the physical environment caused by the major federal action at issue. For example, if the Department of Health and Human Services were to implement extremely stringent requirements for hospitals and nursing homes receiving federal funds, many perfectly adequate hospitals and homes might be forced out of existence. The remaining facilities might be so limited or so expensive that many ill people would be unable to afford medical care and would suffer severe health damage. Nonetheless, NEPA would not require the Department to prepare an EIS evaluating that health damage because it would not be proximately related to a change in the physical environment.
Some effects that are “caused by” a change in the physical environment in the sense of “but for” causation, will nonetheless not fall within § 102 because the causal chain is too attenuated. For example, residents of the Harrisburg area have relatives in other parts of the country. Renewed operation of TMI-1 may well cause psychological health problems for these people. They may suffer “anxiety, tension and fear, a sense of helplessness,” and accompanying physical disorders, n. 2, supra, because of the risk that their relatives may be harmed in a nuclear accident. However, this harm is simply too remote from the physical environment to justify requiring the NRC to evaluate the psychological health damage to these people that may be caused by renewed operation of TMI-1.
Our understanding of the congressional concerns that led to the enactment of NEPA suggests that the terms “environmental effect” and “environmental impact” in § 102 be read to include a requirement of a reasonably close causal relationship between a change in the physical environment and the effect at issue. This requirement is like the familiar doctrine of proximate cause from tort law. See generally W. Prosser, Law of Torts, ch. 7 (4th ed. 1971). The issue before us, then, is how to give content to this requirement. This is a question of first impression in this Court.
The federal action that affects the environment in this case is permitting renewed operation of TMI-1. The direct effects on the environment of this action include release of low-level radiation, increased fog in the Harrisburg area (caused by operation of the plant’s cooling towers), and the release of warm water into the Susquehanna River. The NRC has considered each of these effects in its EIS, and again in the EIA. See App. 51-58. Another effect of renewed operation is a risk of a nuclear accident. The NRC has also considered this effect. See id., at 58-60.
PANE argues that the psychological health damage it alleges “will flow directly from the risk of [a nuclear] accident.” Brief for Respondents 23. But a risk of an accident is not an effect on the physical environment. A risk is, by definition, unrealized in the physical world. In a causal chain from renewed operation of TMI-1 to psychological health damage, the element of risk and its perception by PANE’S members are necessary middle links. We believe that the element of risk lengthens the causal chain beyond the reach of NEPA.
Risk is a pervasive element of modern life; to say more would belabor the obvious. Many of the risks we face are generated by modern technology, which brings both the possibility of major accidents and opportunities for tremendous achievements. Medical experts apparently agree that risk can generate stress in human beings, which in turn may rise to the level of serious health damage. For this reason, among many others, the question whether the gains from any technological advance are worth its attendant risks may be an important public policy issue. Nonetheless, it is quite different from the question whether the same gains are worth a given level of alteration of our physical environment or depletion of our natural resources. The latter question rather than the former is the central concern» of NEPA.
Time and resources are simply too limited for us to believe that Congress intended to extend NEPA as far as the Court of Appeals has taken it. See Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U. S. 519, 551 (1978). The scope of the agency’s inquiries must remain manageable if NEPA’s goal of “insuring] a fully informed and well-considered decision,” id., at 558, is to be accomplished.
If contentions of psychological health damage caused by risk were cognizable under NEPA, agencies would, at the very least, be obliged to expend considerable resources developing psychiatric expertise that is not otherwise relevant to their congressionally assigned functions. The available resources may be spread so thin that agencies are unable adequately to pursue protection of the physical environment and natural resources. As we said in another context in United States v. Dow, 357 U. S. 17, 25 (1958), “[w]e cannot attribute to Congress the intention to . . . open the door to such obvious incongruities and undesirable possibilities.”
This case bears strong resemblance to other cases in which plaintiffs have sought to require agencies to evaluate the risk of crime from the operation of a jail or other public facility in their neighborhood. See, e. g., Como-Falcon Coalition, Inc. v. Department of Labor, 609 F. 2d 342 (CA8 1979) (Job Corps Center); Nucleus of Chicago Homeowners Assn. v. Lynn, 524 F. 2d 225 (CA7 1975) (low-income housing); First National Bank of Chicago v. Richardson, 484 F. 2d 1369 (CA7 1973) (jail). The plaintiffs in these cases could have alleged that the risk of crime (or their dislike of the occupants of the facility) would cause severe psychological health damage. The operation of the facility is an event in the physical environment, but the psychological health damage to neighboring residents resulting from unrealized risks of crime is too far removed from that event to be covered by NEPA. The psychological health damage alleged by PANE is no closer to an event in the environment or to environmental concerns.
The Court of Appeals thought that PANE’S contentions are qualitatively different from the harm at issue in the cases just described. It thought PANE raised an issue of health damage, while those cases presented questions of fear or policy disagreement. We do not believe this line is so easily drawn. Anyone who fears or dislikes a project may find himself suffering from “anxiety, tension[,] fear, [and] a sense of helplessness.” N. 2, supra. Neither the language nor the history of NEPA suggests that it was intended to give citizens a general opportunity to air their policy objections to proposed federal actions. The political process, and not NEPA, provides the appropriate forum in which to air policy disagreements.
We do not mean to denigrate the fears of PANE’S members, or to suggest that the psychological health damage they fear could not, in fact, occur. Nonetheless, it is difficult for us to see the differences between someone who dislikes a government decision so much that he suffers anxiety and stress, someone who fears the effects of that decision so much that he suffers similar anxiety and stress, and someone who suffers anxiety and stress that “flow directly,” Brief for Respondents 23, from the risks associated with the same decision. It would be extraordinarily difficult for agencies to differentiate between “genuine” claims of psychological health damage and claims that are grounded solely in disagreement with a democratically adopted policy. Until Congress provides a more explicit statutory instruction than NEPA now contains, we do not think agencies are obliged to undertake the inquiry. See Maryland National Capital Park & Planning Comm’n v. U. S. Postal Service, 159 U. S. App. D. C. 158, 166, 487 F. 2d 1029, 1037 (1973).
The Court of Appeals’ opinion seems at one point to acknowledge the force of these arguments, 219 U. S. App. D. C., at 365, 678 F. 2d, at 229, but seeks to distinguish the situation suggested by the related cases. First, the Court of Appeals thought the harm alleged by PANE is far more severe than the harm alleged in other cases. Ibid. It thought the severity of the harm is relevant to whether NEPA requires consideration of an effect. This cannot be the case. NEPA addresses environmental effects of federal actions. The gravity of harm does not change its character. If a harm does not have a sufficiently close connection to the physical environment, NEPA does not apply.
Second, the Court of Appeals noted that PANE’S claim was made “in the wake of a unique and traumatic nuclear accident.” Ibid. We do not understand how the accident at TMI-2 transforms PANE’S contentions into “environmental effects.” The Court of Appeals “cannot believe that the psychological aftermath of the March 1979 accident falls outside” NEPA. Id., at 366, 678 F. 2d, at 230. On the contrary, NEPA is not directed at the effects of past accidents and does not create a remedial scheme for past federal actions. It was enacted to require agencies to assess the future effects of future actions. There is nothing in the language or the history of NEPA to suggest that its scope should be expanded “in the wake of” any kind of accident.
For these reasons, we hold that the NRC need not consider PANE’S contentions. NEPA does not require agencies to evaluate the effects of risk qua risk. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the petition for review.
It is so ordered.
See generally Report of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (1979).
Specifically, PANE contended, App. to Pet. for Cert. 115a-116a:
“1.) Renewed operation of [TMI-1] would cause severe psychological distress to PANE’S members and other persons living in the vicinity of the reactor. The accident at [TMI-2] has already impaired the health and sense of well being of these individuals, as evidenced by their feelings of increased anxiety, tension and fear, a sense of helplessness and such physical disorders as skin rashes, aggravated ulcers, and skeletal and muscular problems. Such manifestations of psychological distress have been seen in the aftermath of other disasters. The possibility that [TMI-1] will reopen severely aggravates these problems. As long as this possibility exists, PANE’S members and other persons living in the communities around the plánt will be unable to resolve and recover from the trauma which they have suffered. Operation of [TMI-1] would be a constant reminder of the terror which they felt during the accident, and of the possibility that it will happen again. The distress caused by this ever present spectre of disaster makes it impossible ... to operate TMI 1 without endangering the public health and safety.
“2.) Renewed operation of TMI 1 would cause severe harm to the stability, cohesiveness and well being of the communities in the vicinity of the reactor. Community institutions have already been weakened as a result of a loss of citizen confidence in the ability of these institutions to function properly and in a helpful manner during a crisis. The potential for a re-occurrence of the accident will further stress the community infrastructure, causing increased loss of confidence and a breakdown of the social and political order. Sociologists such as Kai Erikson have documented similar phenomena in other communities following disasters.
“The perception, created by the accident, that the communities near Three Mile Island are undesirable locations for business and industry, or for the establishment of law or medical practice, or homes compounds the damage to the viability of the communities. Community vitality depends upon the ability to attract and keep persons, such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, and businesses critical to economic and social health. The potential for another accident, should TMI 1 be allowed to operate, would compound and make permanent the damage, trapping the residents in disintegrating and dying communities and discouraging . . . essential growth.”
Four members of the Commission filed individual opinions. There was no majority opinion.
While the petition for review was pending, the NRC staff prepared an environmental impact assessment (EIA) to determine whether a full EIS is required before TMI-1 could be permitted to renew operation. The NRC’s Licensing Board has ruled that the EIA was adequate and that no EIS is required. This ruling was upheld by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board. In re Metropolitan Edison Co., Docket No. 50-289 (ALAB-705) (Dec. 10, 1982). Several additional steps, including repairs to a steam generator and NRC approval of those repairs, are necessary before Metropolitan actually resumes operation of TMI-1. Brief for Petitioners in No. 82-358, p. 18, and n. 13.
In the Court of Appeals the NRC argued that there is no “major Federal action” involved in permitting TMI-1 to renew operations because TMI-1 already has an operating license and an EIS was prepared before that license was issued. The Court of Appeals rejected this contention, stating that the “ ‘major federal action’ in the case of TMI-1 is . . . the Commission’s continued exercise of supervisory responsibility over its operation and maintenance.” 219 U. S. App. D. C., at 394, 678 F. 2d, at 231. No party has sought review of this holding, and we intimate no view as to its correctness. Similarly, no party has sought review of the Court of Appeals’ Atomic Energy Act holding.
For example, § 2 of NEPA, 83 Stat. 852, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 4321, provides:
“The purposes of this chapter are: To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.”
In drawing this analogy, we do not mean to suggest that any cause-effect relation too attenuated to merit damages in a tort suit would also be too attenuated to merit notice in an EIS; nor do we mean to suggest the converse. In the context of both tort law and NEPA, courts must look to the underlying policies or legislative intent in order to draw a manageable line between those causal changes that may make an actor responsible for an effect and those that do not.
See n. 5, supra.
The NRC concluded that the risk of an accident had not changed significantly since the EIS for TMI-1 was prepared in 1972.
We emphasize that in this case we are considering effects caused by the risk of an accident. The situation where an agency is asked to consider effects that will occur if a risk is realized, for example, if an accident occurs at TMI-1, is an entirely different case. The NRC considered, in the original EIS and in the most recent EIA for TMI-1, the possible effects of a number of accidents that might occur at TMI-1.
This risk can be perceived differently by different people. Indeed, it appears that the members of PANE perceive a much greater risk of another nuclear accident at Three Mile Island than is perceived by the NRC and its staff.
Although these cases involved similar facts, they presented different legal issues. They did not consider allegations that risk of crime would lead to psychological health damage. They did hold that the risk of crime, or the plaintiffs’ concern about crime, do not constitute environmental effects. Of course, these holdings are not at issue in this litigation.
PANE’S original contention seems to be addressed as much to the symbolic significance of continued operation of TMI-1 as to the risk of an accident. See n. 2, supra. NEPA does not require consideration of stress caused by the symbolic significance individuals attach to federal actions. Psychological health damage caused by a symbol is even farther removed from the physical environment, and more closely connected with the broader political process, than psychological health damage caused by risk.
For example, the hospital regulations contemplated in the hypothetical, supra, at 773-774, might cause many deaths. But despite the severity of that harm, the deaths would not by any stretch of the imagination be “environmental effects.”
The Court of Appeals held that the NRC need not consider PANE’S contentions of community damage unless it found that the contentions of psychological health damage warrant preparation of an EIS. Since we decide that the NRC need not consider the contentions of psychological health damage at all, it follows that the contentions of community damage need not be considered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this litigation is whether the reservation of Devil's Hole as a national monument reserved federal water rights in unappropriated water.
Devil’s Hole is a deep limestone cavern in Nevada. Approximately 50 feet below the opening of the cavern is a pool 65 feet long, 10 feet wide, and at least 200 feet deep, although its actual depth is unknown. The pool is a remnant of the prehistoric Death Valley Lake System and is situated on land owned by the United States since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, 9 Stat. 922. By the Proclamation of January 17, 1952, President Truman withdrew from the public domain a 40-acre tract of land surrounding Devil’s Hole, making it a detached component of the Death Valley National Monument. Proclamation No. 2961, 3 CFR 147 (1949-1953 Comp.) , The Proclamation was issued under the American Antiquities Preservation Act, 34 Stat. 225, 16 U. S. C. § 431, which authorizes the President to declare as national monuments “objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States . . .
The 1952 Proclamation notes that Death Valley was set aside as a national monument “for the preservation of the unusual features of scenic, scientific, and educational interest therein contained.” The Proclamation also notes that Devil’s Hole is near Death Valley and contains a “remarkable underground pool.” Additional preambulary statements in the Proclamation explain why Devil’s Hole was being added to the Death Valley National Monument:
“Whereas the said pool is a unique subsurface remnant of the prehistoric chain of lakes which in Pleistocene times formed the Death Valley Lake System, and is unusual among caverns in that it is a solution area in distinctly striated limestone, while also owing its formation in part to fault action; and
“Whereas the geologic evidence that this subterranean pool is an integral part of the hydrographic history of the Death Valley region is further confirmed by the presence in this pool of a peculiar race of desert fish, and zoologists have demonstrated that this race of fish, which is found nowhere else in the world, evolved only after the gradual drying up of the Death Valley Lake System isolated this fish population from the original ancestral stock that in Pleistocene times was common to the entire region; and
“Whereas the said pool is of such outstanding scientific importance that it should be given special protection, and such protection can be best afforded by making the said forty-acre tract containing the pool a part of the said monument . . . .”
The Proclamation provides that Devil’s Hole should be supervised, managed, and directed by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. Devil's Hole is fenced off, and only limited access is allowed by the Park Service.
The Cappaert petitioners own a 12,000-acre ranch near Devil's Hole, 4,000 acres of which are used for growing Bermuda grass, alfalfa, wheat, and barley; 1,700 to 1,800 head of cattle are grazed. The ranch represents an investment of more than $7 million; it employs more than 80 people with an annual payroll of more than $340,000.
In 1968 the Cappaerts began pumping groundwater on their ranch on land 2y2 miles from Devil's Hole; they were the first to appropriate groundwater. The groundwater comes from an underground basin or aquifer which is also the source of the water in Devil's Hole. After the Cappaerts began pumping from the wells near Devil’s Hole, which they do from March to October, the summer water level of the pool in Devil’s Hole began to decrease. Since 1962 the level of water in Devil's Hole has been measured with reference to a copper washer installed on one of the walls of the hole by the United States Geological Survey. Until 1968, the water level, with seasonable variations, had been stable at 1.2 feet below the copper marker. In 1969 the water level in Devil’s Hole was 2.3 feet below the copper washer; in 1970, 3.17 feet; in 1971, 3.48 feet; and, in 1972, 3.93 feet.
When the water is at the lowest levels, a large portion of a rock shelf in Devil’s Hole is above water. However, when the water level is at 3.0 feet below the marker or higher, most of the rock shelf is below water, enabling algae to grow on it. This in turn enables the desert fish (cyprinodon diabolis, commonly known as Devil’s Hole pupfish), referred to in President Truman’s Proclamation, to spawn in the spring. As the rock shelf becomes exposed, the spawning area is decreased, reducing the ability of the fish to spawn in sufficient quantities to prevent extinction.
In April 1970 the Cappaerts, pursuant to Nevada law, Nev. Rev. Stat. §533.325 (1973), applied to the State Engineer, Roland D. Westergard, for permits to change the use of water from several of their wells. Although the United States was not a party to that proceeding and was never served, employees of the National Park Service learned of the Cappaerts’ application through a public notice published pursuant to Nevada law. § 533.360. An official of the National Park Service filed a protest as did a private firm. Nevada law permits interested persons to protest an application for a permit; the protest may be considered by the State Engineer at a hearing. § 533.365. A hearing was conducted on December 16, 1970, and a field solicitor of the Department of the Interior appeared on behalf of the National Park Service. He presented documentary and testimonial evidence, informing the State Engineer that because of the declining water level of Devil’s Hole the United States had commissioned a study to determine whether the wells on the Cappaerts’ land were hydrologically connected to Devil’s Hole and, if so, which of those wells could be pumped safely and which should be limited to prevent lowering of the water level in Devil’s Hole. The Park Service field solicitor requested either that the Cappaerts’ application be denied or that decision on the application be postponed until the studies were completed.
The State Engineer declined to postpone decision. At the conclusion of the hearing he stated that there was no recorded federal water right with respect to Devil’s Hole, that the testimony indicated that the Cappaerts’ pumping would not unreasonably lower the water table or adversely affect existing water rights, and that the permit would be granted since further economic development of the Cappaerts’ land would be in the public interest. In his oral ruling the State Engineer stated in part that “the protest to the applications that are the subject of this hearing are overruled and the applications will be issued subject to existing rights.” The National Park Service did not appeal. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 533.450 (1973).
In August 1971 the United States, invoking 28 U. S. C. § 1345, sought an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada to limit, except for domestic purposes, the Cappaerts’ pumping from six specific wells and from specific locations near Devil’s Hole. The complaint alleged that the United States, in establishing Devil’s Hole as part of Death Valley National Monument, reserved the unappropriated waters appurtenant to the land to the extent necessary for the requirements and purposes of the reservation. The complaint further alleged that the Cappaerts had no perfected water rights as of the date of the reservation. The United States asserted that pumping from certain of the Cappaerts’ wells had lowered the water level in Devil’s Hole, that the lower water level was threatening the survival of a unique species of fish, and that irreparable harm would follow if the pumping were not enjoined. On June 2, 1972, the United States filed an amended complaint, adding two other specified wells to the list of those to be enjoined.
The Cappaerts answered, admitting that their wells draw water from the same underlying sources supplying Devil’s Hole, but denying that the reservation of Devil’s Hole reserved any water rights for the United States. The Cappaerts alleged that the United States was estopped from enjoining use of water under land which it had exchanged with the Cappaerts. The State of Nevada intervened on behalf of the State Engineer as a party defendant but raised no affirmative defenses.
On June 5, 1973, the District Court, by Chief Judge Roger D. Foley, entered a preliminary injunction limiting pumping from designated wells so as to return the level of Devil’s Hole to not more than 3.0 feet below the marker. Detailed findings of fact were made and the District Judge then appointed a Special Master to establish specific pumping limits for the wells and to monitor the level of the water at Devil’s Hole. The District Court found that the water from certain of the wells was hydrologically connected to Devil’s Hole, that the Cappaerts were pumping heavily from those wells, and that that pumping had lowered the water level in Devil’s Hole. The court also found that the pumping could be regulated to stabilize the water level at Devil’s Hole and that neither establishing an artificial shelf nor transplanting the fish was a feasible alternative that would preserve the species. The District Court further found that if the injunction did not issue “there is grave danger that the Devil’s Hole pupfish may be destroyed, resulting in irreparable injury to the United States.” 375 F. Supp. 456, 460 (1974).
The District Court then held that in establishing Devil’s Hole as a national monument, the President reserved appurtenant, unappropriated waters necessary to the purpose of the reservation; the purpose included preservation of the pool and the pupfish in it. The District Court also held that the federal water rights antedated those of the Cappaerts, that the United States was not estopped, and that the public interest required granting the injunction. On April 9, 1974, the District Court entered its findings of fact and conclusions of law substantially unchanged in a final decree permanently enjoining pumping that lowers the level of the water below the 3.0-foot level. 375 F. Supp. 456 (1974).
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, 508 F. 2d 313 (1974), in a thorough opinion by Senior District Judge Gus J. Solomon, sitting by designation, holding that the implied-reservation-of-water doctrine applied to groundwater as well as to surface water. The Court of Appeals held that “[t]he fundamental purpose of the reservation of the Devil’s Hole pool was to assure that the pool would not suffer changes from its condition at the time the Proclamation was issued in 1952 . . . .” Id., at 318. The Court of Appeals further held that neither the Cappaerts nor their successors in interest had any water rights in 1952, nor was the United States estopped from asserting its water rights by exchanging land with the Cappaerts. In answer to contentions raised by the intervenor Nevada, the Court of Appeals held that “the United States is not bound by state water laws when it reserves land from the public domain,” id., at 320, and does not need to take steps to perfect its rights with the State; that the District Court had concurrent jurisdiction with the state courts to resolve this claim; and, that the state administrative procedures granting the Cappaerts’ permit did not bar resolution of the United States’ suit in Federal District Court.
We granted certiorari to consider the scope of the implied-reservation-of-water-rights doctrine. 422 U. S. 1041 (1975). We affirm.
I
Reserved-Water-Rights Doctrine
This Court has long held that when the Federal Government withdraws its land from the public domain and reserves it for a federal purpose, the Government, by implication, reserves appurtenant water then unappropriated to the extent needed to accomplish the purpose of the reservation. In so doing the United States acquires a reserved right in unappropriated water which vests on the date of the reservation and is superior to the rights of future appropriators. Reservation of water rights is empowered by the Commerce Clause, Art. I, § 8, which permits federal regulation of navigable streams, and the Property Clause, Art. IV, § 3, which permits federal regulation of federal lands. The doctrine applies to Indian reservations and other federal enclaves, encompassing water rights in navigable and nonnavigable streams. Colorado River Water Cons. Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 805 (1976); United States v. District Court for Eagle County, 401 U. S. 520, 522-523 (1971); Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546, 601 (1963); FPC v. Oregon, 349 U. S. 435 (1955); United States v. Powers, 305 U. S. 527 (1939); Winters v. United States, 207 U. S. 564 (1908).
Nevada argues that the cases establishing the doctrine of federally reserved water rights articulate an equitable doctrine calling for a balancing of competing interests. However, an examination of those cases shows they do not analyze the doctrine in terms of a balancing test. For example, in Winters v. United States, supra, the Court did not mention the use made of the water by the upstream landowners in sustaining an injunction barring their diversions of the water. The “Statement of the Case” in Winters notes that the upstream users were homesteaders who had invested heavily in dams to divert the water to irrigate their land, not an unimportant interest. The Court held that when the Federal Government reserves land, by implication it reserves water rights sufficient to accomplish the purposes of the reservation.
In determining whether there is a federally reserved water right implicit in a federal reservation of public land, the issue is whether the Government intended to reserve unappropriated and thus available water. Intent is inferred if the previously unappropriated waters are necessary to accomplish the purposes for which the reservation was created. See, e. g., Arizona v. California, supra, at 599-601; Winters v. United States, supra, at 576. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals held that the 1952 Proclamation expressed an intention to reserve unappropriated water, and we agree. The Proclamation discussed the pool in Devil’s Hole in four of the five preambles and recited that the “pool . . . should be given special protection.” Since a pool is a body of water, the protection contemplated is meaningful only if the water remains; the water right reserved by the 1952 Proclamation was thus explicit, not implied.
Also explicit in the 1952 Proclamation is the authority of the Director of the Park Service to manage the lands of Devil’s Hole Monument “as provided in the act of Congress entitled 'An Act to establish a National Park Service, and for other purposes,’ approved August 25,1916 (39 Stat. 535; 16 U. S. C. 1-3) . . . .” The National Park Service Act provides that the “fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations” is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” 39 Stat. 535, 16 U. S. C. § 1.
The implied-reservation-of-water-rights doctrine, however, reserves only that amount of water necessary to fulfill the purpose of the reservation, no more. Arizona v. California, supra, at 600-601. Here the purpose of reserving Devil’s Hole Monument is preservation of the pool. Devil’s Hole was reserved “for the preservation of the unusual features of scenic, scientific, and educational interest.” The Proclamation notes that the pool contains “a peculiar race of desert fish . . . which is found nowhere else in the world” and that the “pool is of . . . outstanding scientific importance . . . .” The pool need only be preserved, consistent with the intention expressed in the Proclamation, to the extent necessary to preserve its scientific interest. The fish are one of the features of scientific interest. The preamble noting the scientific interest of the pool follows the preamble describing the fish as unique; the Proclamation must be read in its entirety. Thus, as the District Court has correctly determined, the level of the pool may be permitted to drop to the extent that the drop does not impair the scientific value of the pool as the natural habitat of the species sought to be preserved. The District Court thus tailored its injunction, very appropriately, to minimal need, curtailing pumping only to the extent necessary to preserve an adequate water level at Devil’s Hole, thus implementing the stated objectives of the Proclamation.
Petitioners in both cases argue that even if the intent of the 1952 Proclamation were to maintain the pool, the American Antiquities Preservation Act did not give the President authority to reserve a pool. Under that Act, according to the Cappaert petitioners, the President may reserve federal lands only to protect archeologic sites. However, the language of the Act which authorizes the President to proclaim as national monuments “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government” Is not so limited. The pool in Devil’s Hole and its rare inhabitants are “objects of historic or scientific interest.” See generally Cameron v. United States, 252 U. S. 450, 451-456 (1920).
II
Groundwater
No cases of this Court have applied the doctrine of implied reservation of water rights to groundwater. Nevada argues that the implied-reservation doctrine is limited to surface water. Here, however, the water in the pool is surface water. The federal water rights were being depleted because, as the evidence showed, the “[gjroundwater and surface water are physically interrelated as integral parts of the hydrologic cycle.” C. Corker, Groundwater Law, Management and Administration, National Water Commission Legal Study No. 6, p. xxiv (1971). Here the Cappaerts are causing the water level in Devil’s Hole to drop by their heavy pumping. See Corker, supra; see also Water Policies for the Future- — -Final Report to the President and to the Congress of the United States by the National Water Commission 233 (1973). It appears that Nevada itself may recognize the potential interrelationship between surface and ground water since Nevada applies the law of prior appropriation to both. Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 533.010 et seq., 534.020, 534.080, 534.090 (1973). See generally F. Tre-lease, Water Law — Resource Use and Environmental Protection 457-552 (2d ed. 1974); C. Meyers & A. Tar-lock, Water Resource Management 553-634 (1971). Thus, since the implied-reservation-of-water-rights doctrine is based on the necessity of water for the purpose of the federal reservation, we hold that the United States can protect its water from subsequent diversion, whether the diversion is of surface or ground water.
Ill
State Law
Petitioners in both cases argue that the Federal Government must perfect its implied water rights according to state law. They contend that the Desert Land Act of 1877, 19 Stat. 377, 43 U. S. C. § 321, and its predecessors severed nonnavigable water from public land, subjecting it to state law. That Act, however, provides that patentees of public land acquire only title to land through the patent and must acquire water rights in nonnavigable water in accordance with state law. Cali fornia Oregon Power Co. v. Beaver Portland Cement Co., 295 U. S. 142, 162 (1935); see Morreale, Federal-State Conflicts Over Western Waters — A Decade of Attempted “Clarifying Legislation,” 20 Rutgers L. Rev. 423, 432 (1966). This Court held in FPC v. Oregon, 349 U. S. 435, 448 (1955), that the Desert Land Act does not apply to water rights on federally reserved land.
The Cappaert petitioners argue that FPC v. Oregon, supra, must be overruled since, inter alia, the Court was unaware at the time that case was decided that there was no longer any public land available for homesteading. However, whether or not there was public land available for homesteading in 1955 is irrelevant to the meaning of the 1877 Act. The Desert Land Act still provides that the water rights of those who received their land from federal patents are to be governed by state law. That there may be no more federal land available for homesteading does not mean the Desert Land Act now applies to all federal land. Since the Act is inapplicable, determination of reserved water rights is not governed by state law but derives from the federal purpose of the reservation; the fact that the water rights here reserved apply to nonnavigable rather than navigable waters is thus irrelevant.
Since FPC v. Oregon, supra, was decided, several bills have been introduced in Congress to subject at least some federal water uses to state appropriation doctrines, but none has been enacted into law. The most recent bill, S. 28, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., was introduced on January 25, 1971, and reintroduced under the same number in the 93d Cong., 1st Sess., on January 4, 1973. See Morreale, supra.
Federal water rights are not dependent upon state law or state procedures and they need not be adjudicated only in state courts; federal courts have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1345 to adjudicate the water rights claims of the United States. Colorado River Water Cons. Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S., at 807-809. The McCarran Amendment, 66 Stat. 560, 43 U. S. C. § 666, did not repeal § 1345 jurisdiction as applied to water rights. 424 U. S., at 808-809. Nor, as Nevada suggests, is the McCarran Amendment a substantive statute, requiring the United States to “perfect its water rights in the state forum like all other land owners.” Brief for Nevada 37. The McCarran Amendment waives United States sovereign immunity should the United States be joined as a party in a state-court general water rights’ adjudication, Colorado River Water Cons. Dist. v. United States, supra, at 808, and the policy evinced by the Amendment may, in the appropriate case, require the United States to adjudicate its water rights in state forums. Id., at 817-820.
IY
Res Judicata
Finally, Nevada, as intervenor in the Cappaerts’ suit, argued in the Court of Appeals that the United States was barred by res judicata or collateral estoppel from litigating its water-rights claim in federal court. Nevada bases this conclusion on the fact that the National Park Service filed a protest to the Cappaerts’ pumping permit application in the state administrative proceeding. Since we reject that contention, we need not consider whether the issue was timely and properly raised. We note only that the United States was not made a party to the state administrative proceeding; nor was the United States in privity with the Cappaerts. See Blonder-Tongue Labs., Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313, 320-326 (1971). When the United States appeared to protest in the state proceeding it did not assert any federal water-rights claims, nor did it seek to adjudicate any claims until the hydrological studies as to the effects of the Cappaerts’ pumping had been completed. The fact that the United States did not attempt to adjudicate its water rights in the state proceeding is not significant since the United States was not a party. The State Water Engineer’s decree explicitly stated that it was “subject to existing rights”; thus, the issue raised in the District Court was not decided in the proceedings before the State Engineer. See Blonder-Tongue Labs., Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, supra, at 323. Cf. United States v. Utah Constr. & Min. Co., 384 U. S. 394, 422 (1966).
We hold, therefore, that as of 1952 when the United States reserved Devil’s Hole, it acquired by reservation water rights in unappropriated appurtenant water sufficient to maintain the level of the pool to preserve its scientific value and thereby implement Proclamation No. 2961. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The final paragraphs of the Proclamation withdrawing Devil’s Hole from the public domain recite:
“Now, Therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by section 2 of the act of June 8, 1906, 34 Stat. 225 (16 U. S. C. 431), do proclaim that, subject to the provisions of the act of Congress approved June 13, 1933, 48 Stat. 139 (16 U. S. C. 447), and to all valid existing rights, the following-described tract of land in Nevada is hereby added to and reserved as a part of the Death Valley National Monument, as a detached unit thereof:
“Mount Diablo Meridian, Nevada T. 17 S., R. 50 E., sec. 36, SW %SE%.
“Warning is hereby expressly given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this addition to the said monument and not to locate or settle on any of the lands thereof.”
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1345 provides as follows:
“Except as otherwise provided by Act of Congress, the district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions, suits or proceedings commenced by the United States, or by any agency or officer thereof expressly authorized to sue by Act of Congress.”
On appeal from the preliminary injunction, the Court of Appeals, in response to a motion from the Cappaerts to modify the injunction to permit them to pump to 3.7 feet below the copper marker, had permitted the Cappaerts to pump so long as the water level did not drop more than 3.3 feet below the marker. 483 F. 2d 432 (1973).
Nevada is asking, in effect, that the Court overrule Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546 (1963), and United States v. District Court for Eagle County, 401 U. S. 520 (1971), to the extent that they hold that the implied-reservation doctrine applies to all federal enclaves since in so holding those cases did not balance the “competing equities.” Brief for Nevada 15. However, since balancing the equities is not the test, those cases need not be disturbed.
The District Court and the Court of Appeals correctly held that neither the Cappaerts nor their predecessors in interest had acquired any water rights as of 1952 when the United States’ water rights vested. Part of the land now comprising the Cappaerts’ ranch was patented by the United States to the Cappaerts’ predecessors as early as 1890. None of the patents conveyed water rights because the Desert Land Act of 1877, 19 Stat. 377, 43 U. S. C. § 321, provided that such patents pass title only to land, not water. Pat-entees acquire water rights by “bona fide prior appropriation,” as determined by state law. California Oregon Power Co. v. Beaver Portland Cement Co., 295 U. S. 142 (1935). Under Nevada law water rights can be created only by appropriation for beneficial use. Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 533.030, 534.020, 533.325 (1973). Jones v. Adams, 19 Nev. 78, 6 P. 442 (1885). Under the doctrine of prior appropriation, the first to divert and use water beneficially establishes a right to its continued use as Jong as the water is beneficially diverted. See Colorado River Water Cons. Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 805 (1976). See also J. Sax, Water Law, Planning & Policy — Cases and Materials, 218-224 (1968). Neither the Cappaerts nor their predecessors in interest appropriated any water until after 1952.
Some Cappaert wells are on land acquired from the United States in 1969 through a land exchange under § 8 of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1272, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 315g (b). In this exchange the Cappaerts received land within one mile of Devil’s Hole under a patent granting them "all rights, privileges, immunities and appurtenances . . . subject to any vested and accrued water rights for mining, agriculture, manufacturing or other ;purposes. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) The federal water rights in Devil’s Hole had vested 17 years before that exchange.
The 1952 Proclamation forbids unauthorized persons to “appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature” from the reservation. Since water is a “feature” of the reservation, the Cappaerts, by their pumping, are “appropriating” or “removing” this feature in violation of the Proclamation.
Petitioners in both cases argue that the effect of applying the implied-reservation doctrine to diversions of groundwater is to prohibit pumping from the entire 4,500 square miles above the aquifer that supplies water to Devil's Hole. First, it must be emphasized that the injunction limits but does not prohibit pumping. Second, the findings of fact in this case relate only to wells within 2% miles of Devil’s Hole. No proof was introduced in the District Court that pumping from the same aquifer that supplies Devil’s Hole, but at a greater distance from Devil’s Hole, would significantly lower the level in Devil’s Hole. Nevada notes that such pumping “will in time affect the water level in Devil’s Hole.” Brief for Nevada 25. There was testimony from a research hydrologist that substantial pumping 40 miles away “[ojver a period of perhaps decades [would have] a small effect.” App. 79.
The predecessors of the Desert Land Act of 1877 are the Act of July 26, 1866, c. 262, 14 Stat. 251, and the Act of July 9, 1870, 16 Stat. 217. Those Acts provided that water rights vested under state law or custom are protected. However, the Cappaerts did not have any vested water rights in 1952. See n. 5, supra.
The cases relied upon by the Cappaerts are not to the contrary. E. g., United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725 (1950); Ickes v. Fox, 300 U. S. 82 (1937); Dority v. New Mexico ex rel. Bliss, 341 U. S. 924 (1951). None involve a federal reservation and all involve a determination whether water rights had vested under state law. Here a federal reservation is involved and neither the Cappaerts nor their predecessors in interest had any vested water rights in 1952 when the United States’ water rights vested.
Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U. S. 589 (1945), also relied upon by the Cappaerts, involved a federal reservation pursuant to the Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902, 32 Stat. 388, which directs the Secretary of the Interior to “proceed in conformity with [state] laws” and which provides that “the right to the use of water acquired under the provisions of this Act shall be appurtenant to the land irrigated, and beneficial use shall be the basis, the measure, and the limit of the right.” In Nebraska v. Wyoming, the Court noted that the United States had acted in conformity with state law. The Court said: “We intimate no opinion whether a different procedure might have been followed so as to appropriate and reserve to the United States all of these water rights. No such attempt was made.” 325 U. S., at 615. Here the United States acquired reserved water rights through a reservation authorized, not by the Reclamation Act, but by the Antiquities Act.
Nevada argues that the discussion of the implied-reservation doctrine in FPC v. Oregon was dictum as that case involved the supremacy of the Federal Power Act, 49 Stat. 863, 16 U. S. C. §§ 791a-825r (1952 ed., Supp. II) over state law. To the extent that the Federal Power Act authorized reservation of unappropriated water for the electrical needs of the federal project, so too did the Antiquities Act authorize implicit reservation of unappropriated water for the purposes of the Devil’s Hole reservation.
See n. 2, supra.
The eases petitioners in both cases rely upon involve parties who collaterally attacked an administrative determination. Here the United States was never a party.
The United States requested either that the permits be denied or decision postponed until the studies were completed. While the State Engineer did not postpone decision on the permit application, the Cappaerts’ attorney said that the studies “will go forward whether or not the applications are granted; so let’s not make the mistake of thinking that if these applications are granted the studies are moot, they are not.” App. 307.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
A decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has deprived petitioners of an injunction which a lower equity court of the State had granted to prohibit certain picketing by respondent labor union. The court below reviewed the national Labor Management Relations Act and our applicable decisions, and concluded: “In our opinion such provisions for a comprehensive remedy precluded any State action by way of a different or additional remedy for the correction of the identical grievance.” The correctness of this ruling is the sole issue here. We granted certiorari.
Petitioners were engaged in the trucking business and had twenty-four employees, four of whom were members of respondent union. The trucking operations formed a link to an interstate railroad. No controversy, labor dispute or strike was in progress, and at no time had petitioners objected to their employees joining the union. Respondents, however, placed rotating pickets, two at a time, at petitioners’ loading platform. None were employees of petitioners. They carried signs reading “Local 776 Teamsters Union (A. F. of L.) wants Employees of Central Storage & Transfer Co. to join them to gain union wages, hours and working conditions.” Picketing was orderly and peaceful, but drivers for other carriers refused to cross this picket line, and, as most of petitioners’ interchange of freight was with unionized concerns, their business fell off as much as 95%. The courts below found that respondents’ purpose in picketing was to coerce petitioners into compelling or influencing their employees to join the union.
The equity court held that respondents’ conduct violated the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act. The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth held, quite correctly, we think, that petitioners’ grievance fell within the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board to prevent unfair labor practices. It therefore inferred that state remedies were precluded. The dissenting judge thought the federal remedy inadequate, as a practical matter, because the slow administrative processes of the National Labor Relations Board could not prevent imminent and irreparable damage to petitioners. Since our decisions have not specifically denied the power of state courts to enjoin such injury, he thought the injunction should be sustained.
The national Labor Management Relations Act, as we have before pointed out, leaves much to the states, though Congress has refrained from telling us how much. We must spell out from conflicting indications of congressional will the area in which state action is still permissible.
This is not an instance of injurious conduct which the National Labor Relations Board is without express power to prevent and which therefore either is “governable by the State or it is entirely ungoverned.” In such cases we have declined to find an implied exclusion of state powers. International Union v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 245, 254. Nor is this a case of mass picketing, threatening of employees, obstructing streets and highways, or picketing homes. We have held that the state still may exercise “its historic powers over such traditionally local matters as public safety and order and the use of streets and highways.” Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Board, 315 U. S. 740, 749. Nothing suggests that the activity enjoined threatened a probable breach of the state’s peace or would call for extraordinary police measures by state or city authority. Nor is there any suggestion that respondents’ plea of federal jurisdiction and pre-emption was frivolous and dilatory, or that the federal Board would decline to exercise its powers once its jurisdiction was invoked.
Congress has taken in hand this particular type of controversy where it affects interstate commerce. In language almost identical to parts of the Pennsylvania statute, it has forbidden labor unions to exert certain types of coercion on employees through the medium of the employer. It is not necessary or appropriate for us to surmise how the National Labor Relations Board might have decided this controversy had petitioners presented it to that body. The power and duty of primary decision lies with the Board, not with us. But it is clear that the Board was vested with power to entertain petitioners’ grievance, to issue its own complaint against respondents and, pending final hearing, to seek from the United States District Court an injunction to prevent irreparable injury to petitioners while their case was being considered. The question then is whether the State, through its courts, may adjudge the same controversy and extend its own form of relief.
Congress did not merely lay down a substantive rule of law to be enforced by any tribunal competent to apply law generally to the parties. It went on to confide primary interpretation and application of its rules to a specific and specially constituted tribunal and prescribed a particular procedure for investigation, complaint and notice, and hearing and decision, including judicial reliei pending a final administrative order. Congress evidently considered that centralized administration of specially designed procedures was necessary to obtain uniform application of its substantive rules and to avoid these diversities and conflicts likely to result from a variety of local procedures and attitudes toward labor controversies. Indeed, Pennsylvania passed a statute the same year as its labor relations Act reciting abuses of the injunction in labor litigations attributable more to procedure and usage than to substantive rules. A multiplicity of tribunals and a diversity of procedures are quite as apt to produce incompatible or conflicting adjudications as are different rules of substantive law. The same reasoning which prohibits federal courts from intervening in such cases, except by way of review or on application of the federal Board, precludes state courts from doing so. Cf. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41; Amalgamated Utility Workers v. Consolidated Edison Co., 309 U. S. 261. And the reasons for excluding state administrative bodies from assuming control of matters expressly placed within the competence of the federal Board also exclude state courts from like action. Cf. Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Board, 330 U. S. 767.
This case would warrant little further discussion except for a persuasively presented argument that the National Labor Relations Board enforces only a public right on behalf of the public interest, while state equity powers are invoked by a private party to protect a private right. The public right, it is said, is so distinct and dissimilar from the private right that federal occupancy of one field does not debar a state from continuing to exercise its conventional equity powers over the other. Support for this view is accumulated from the Act itself, its legislative history, some judicial expression, and professional commentary.
It is true that the Act’s preamble emphasizes the predominance of a public interest over private rights of either party to industrial strife, and declares its purpose to proscribe practices on the part of labor and management which are inimical to the general welfare, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce. And some language of the Act seems to contemplate a remedy to supplement, rather than to substitute for, existing ones.
Also, the Senate Committee, reporting the bill, said:
“After a careful consideration of the evidence and proposals before us, the committee has concluded that five specific practices by labor organizations and their agents, affecting commerce, should be defined as unfair labor practices. Because of the nature of certain of these practices, especially jurisdictional disputes, and secondary boycotts and strikes for specifically defined objectives, the committee is convinced that additional procedures must be made available under the National Labor Relations Act in order adequately to protect the public welfare which is inextricably involved in labor disputes.
“. . . Hence we have provided that the Board, acting in the public interest and not in vindication of purely private rights, may seek injunctive relief in the case of all types of unfair labor practices and that it shall also seek such relief in the case of strikes and boycotts defined as unfair labor practices . . .
We are also reminded that this Court, in Amalgamated Utility Workers v. Consolidated Edison Co., supra, at 265, recognized this distinction by saying, “The Board as a public agency acting in the public interest, not any private person or group, not any employee or group of employees, is chosen as the instrument to assure protection from the described unfair conduct in order to remove obstructions to interstate commerce.” Various statements may also be cited in which the Board would appear to have recognized a distinction between public and private rights or interest in labor controversies.
It often is convenient to describe particular claims as invoking public or private rights, and this handy classification is doubtless valid for some purposes. But usually the real significance and legal consequence of each term will depend upon its context and the nature of the interests it is invoked to distinguish.
Statutes may be called public because the rights conferred are of general application, while laws known as private affect few or selected individuals or localities. Or public rights may mean those asserted by the state as a party either in criminal or civil proceedings. Again, the body of learning we call conflict of laws elsewhere is called private international law because it is applied to adjustment of private interests, while public international law is applicable to the relations between states. At other times, rights will be characterized by the body of law from which they are derived; but such distinction between public and private law is less sharp and significant in this country, where one system of law courts applies both, than in the Continental practice which administers public law through a system of courts separate from that which deals with private law questions. Perhaps in this country the most usual differentiation is between the legal rights or duties enforced through the administrative process and those left to enforcement on private initiative in the law courts.
Federal law has largely developed and expanded as public law in this latter sense. It consists of substituting federal statute law applied by administrative procedures in the public interest in the place of individual suits in courts to enforce common-law doctrines of private right. This evolution, sharply contested, and presenting many problems, has taken place in many other fields as well as in labor law. For example,, the common law recognized a shipper’s right to have a common carrier transport his goods for reasonable rates, and the right was enforceable in the courts. But this private right proved too costly and sporadic to be effective as transport became a vast enterprise. As to interstate commerce, this right was superseded by the Interstate Commerce Act, which, in the public interest, authorized a public tribunal to prescribe reasonable rates and to award reparations for excessive ones. Of course, this put an end to private litigation in state and federal courts to determine, in the first instance, what rate for carriage is reasonable, although that Act did not expressly abolish the pre-existing private rights.
Even if we were to accept as significant the distinction between public and private rights and regard the national Labor Management Relations Act as enforcing only public rights, the same reasoning would prevent us from assuming that the Pennsylvania labor statute declares rights of any different category. It is true that petitioners sought an injunction to restrain damage to their own business. But the injunction appears to have been granted because the picketing violated the state statute, and neither the statutory language nor the opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court warrants a conclusion that the statute protects private rights, as most authorities would define the term. Passed in 1937, the statute recites that the growing inequality of bargaining power between employers and employees “substantially and adversely affects the general welfare of the State” and that certain practices tend to create “industrial strife and unrest, which are inimical to the public safety and welfare, and frequently endanger the public health.” Encouragement of collective bargaining is declared “the public policy of the State.” And one subsection reads: “This act shall be deemed an exercise of the police power of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the protection of the public welfare, prosperity, health, and peace of the people of the Commonwealth.”
This language is comparable, on the state level, to the language in the federal Act. If Congress was protecting a public, as opposed to a purely private, interest, the same could be said of the Pennsylvania Legislature. The State Supreme Court has not said otherwise. The court opinion, of course, did not analyze in detail the state law basis for injunction in this case because it found lack of state jurisdiction, and the dissenting opinion discussed the jurisdictional aspect of the case and did not reach the merits. But we find no basis at all for petitioners’ argument that the equity courts, which in Pennsylvania enforce the labor relations statute, would enforce rights of any different category, or of any less public or more private character, than those enforced by the National Labor Relations Board.
Further, even if we were to assume, with petitioners, that distinctly private rights were enforced by the state authorities, it does not follow that the state-and federal authorities may supplement each other in cases of this type. The conflict lies in remedies, not rights. The same picketing may injure both public and private rights. But when two separate remedies are brought to bear on the same activity, a conflict is imminent. It must be remembered that petitioners’ state remedy was a suit for an injunction prohibiting the picketing. The federal Board, if it should find a violation of the national Labor Management Relations Act, would issue a cease-and-desist order and perhaps obtain a temporary injunction to preserve the status quo. Or if it found no violation, it would dismiss the complaint, thereby sanctioning the picketing. To avoid facing a conflict between the state and federal remedies, we would have to assume either that both authorities will always agree as to whether the picketing should continue, or that the State’s temporary injunction will be dissolved as soon as the federal Board acts. But experience gives no assurance of either alternative, and there is no indication that the statute left it open for such conflicts to arise.
The detailed prescription of a procedure for restraint of specified types of picketing would seem to imply that other picketing is to be free of other methods and sources of restraint. For the policy of the national Labor Management Relations Act is not to condemn all picketing but only that ascertained by its prescribed processes to fall within its prohibitions. Otherwise, it is implicit in the Act that the public intérest is served by freedom of labor to use the weapon of picketing. For a state to impinge on the area of labor combat designed to be free is quite as much an obstruction of federal policy as if the state were to declare picketing free for purposes or by methods which the federal Act prohibits.
Whatever purpose a classification of rights as public or private may serve, it is too unsettled and ambiguous to introduce into constitutional law as a dividing line between federal and state power or jurisdiction. Perhaps the clearest thing to emerge from the best-considered literature on this subject is that the two terms are not mutually exclusive, that the two classifications overlap, and that they are of little help in cases such as we have here. In those cases where this Court has employed the term, it has been chiefly as an aid in statutory construction. Cf. Federal Trade Commission v. Klesner, 280 U. S. 19.
Our decisions dealing with injunctions have been much concerned with the existence and nature of private property rights, but no case is cited or recalled in which this Court has recognized the distinction between private and public rights to reach such consequences as are urged here. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41; Frost v. Corporation Commission, 278 U. S. 515; Cavanaugh v. Looney, 248 U. S. 453; International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U. S. 215; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564; In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200.
We conclude that when federal power constitutionally is exerted for the protection of public or private interests, or both, it becomes the supreme law of the land and cannot be curtailed, circumvented or extended by a state procedure merely because it will apply some doctrine of private right. To the extent that the private right may conflict with the public one, the former is superseded. To the extent that public interest is found to require official enforcement instead of private initiative, the latter will ordinarily be excluded. Of course, Congress, in enacting such legislation as we have here, can save alternative or supplemental state remedies by express terms, or by some clear implication, if it sees fit.
On the basis of the allegations, the petitioners could have presented this grievance to the National Labor Relations Board. The respondents were subject to being summoned before that body to justify their conduct. We think the grievance was not subject to litigation in the tribunals of the State.
Judgment affirmed.
373 Pa. 19, 94 A. 2d 893. The equity court’s opinion is reported at 62 Dauphin County Rep. 339.
345 U. S. 991.
The Pennsylvania statute does not specifically prohibit the type of union conduct charged in the complaint. However, the court reasoned that the union was attempting to force petitioners to violate § 6 (c) of the statute, which provides that “It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer .... (c) By discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment, or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization . . . Pa. Laws 1937, 1172, Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., 1952, Tit. 43, §211.6.
E. g., Algoma Plywood Co. v. Wisconsin Board, 336 U. S. 301, 313; Bethlehem. Steel Co. v. New York Board, 330 U. S. 767, 773; Hill v. Florida ex rel. Watson, 325 U. S. 538, 539 (and see concurring and dissenting opinions, pp. 544, 547); Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Board, 315 U. S. 740, 748-751.
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents— ... (2) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee in violation of subsection (a) (3) or to discriminate against an employee with respect to whom membership in such organization has been denied or terminated on some ground other than his failure to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership . . . .” §8 (b), 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. III) §158 (b).
Subsection (a) (3) reads in part: “It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer— ... (3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization . . . .” 61 Stat. 140, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) § 158 (a).
“The Board shall have power, upon issuance of a complaint as provided in subsection (b) charging that any person has engaged in or is engaging in an unfair labor practice, to petition any district court of the United States (including the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia), within any district wherein the unfair labor practice in question is alleged to have occurred or wherein such person resides or transacts business, for appropriate temporary relief or restraining order. Upon the filing of any such petition the court shall cause notice thereof to be served upon such person, and thereupon shall have jurisdiction to grant to the Board such temporary relief or restraining order as it deems just and proper.” § 10 (j), 61 Stat. 149, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 160 (j). Temporary injunctions have been granted by the district courts-upon application by the Board following issuance of complaints charging violations of § 8 (b) (2), Brown v. National Union, 104 F. Supp. 685; Douds v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 99 F. Supp. 474; Jaffee v. Newspaper & Mail Deliverers’ Union, 97 F. Supp. 443; Penello v. International Union, 88 F. Supp. 935, and of other sections of the Act. Curry v. Union de Trabaja-dores de la Industria, 86 F. Supp. 707; Madden v. International Union, 79 F. Supp. 616; Douds v. Local 294, 75 F. Supp. 414. See Labor Board v. Denver Building & Construction Trades Council, 341 U. S. 675, 682; Herzog v. Parsons, 86 U. S. App. D. C. 198, 203, 181 F. 2d 781, 786. See also 61 Stat. 155, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 178, granting similar initiative powers to the Attorney General when strikes or lockouts imperil the national health or safety.
“ (a) Under prevailing economic conditions developed with the aid of governmental authority for owners of property to organize in the corporate and other forms of ownership association, the individual unorganized worker is commonly helpless to exercise actual liberty of contract and to protect his freedom of labor, and thereby to obtain acceptable terms and conditions of employment, wherefore, though he should be free to decline to associate with his fellows, it is necessary that he have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment, and that he shall be free from the interference, restraint or coercion of employers of labor or their agents in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.
“(b) Equity procedure that permits a complaining party to obtain sweeping injunctive relief that is not preceded by or conditioned upon notice to and hearing of the responding party or parties or that permits sweeping injunctions to issue after hearing based upon written affidavits alone and not wholly or in part upon examination, confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses in open court is peculiarly subject to abuse in labor litigation for the reasons that—
“(1) The status quo cannot be maintained, but is necessarily altered by the injunction.
“(2) Determination of issues of veracity and of probability of fact from affidavits of the opposing parties that are contradictory and under the circumstances untrustworthy rather than from oral examination in open court is subject to grave error.
“(3) Error in issuing the injunctive relief is usually irreparable to the opposing party; and
“ (4) Delay incident to the normal course of appellate practice frequently makes ultimate correction of error in law or in fact unavailing in the particular case.” Pa. Laws 1937, 1198, Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., 1952, Tit. 43, § 206b.
Rose, The Labor Management Relations Act and the State’s Power to Grant Relief, 39 Va. L. Rev. 765 (1953); Hall, The Taft-Hartley Act v. State Regulation, 1 Journal of Public Law 97 (1952).
“Industrial strife which interferes with the normal flow of commerce and with the full production of articles and commodities for commerce, can be avoided or substantially minimized if employers, employees, and labor organizations each recognize under law one another’s legitimate rights in their relations with each other, and above all recognize under law that neither party has any right in its relations with any other to engage in acts or practices which jeopardize the public health, safety, or interest.
“It is the purpose and policy of this Act, in order to promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce, to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the ot-her, to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations whose activities affect commerce, to define and proscribe practices on the part of labor and management which affect commerce and are inimical to the general welfare, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce.” § 1 (b), 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 141 (b).
“. . . This power shall not be affected by any other means of adjustment or prevention that has been or may be established by agreement, law, or otherwise . . . .” § 10 (a), 61 Stat. 146, 29 U.S. C. (Supp.III) § 160 (a).
S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 8.
Cf. Republic Steel Corp. v. Labor Board, 311 U. S. 7, 10: “The Act does not prescribe penalties or fines in vindication of public rights or provide indemnity against community losses as distinguished from the protection and compensation of employees.”
See, e. g., Brief for the Board, pp. 14, 43, Montgomery Building & Construction Trades Council v. Ledbetter Erection Co., 344 U. S. 178.
See Unity v. Burrage, 103 U. S. 447. Blackstone noted that “the courts of law are bound to take notice judicially and ex officio” of public laws, as contrasted with private laws. 1 Commentaries (15th ed. 1809), 85. The Acts of Congress are classified in publication according to their public or private nature. Some state constitutions make special provisions for private or local bills. See Cloe and Marcus, Special and Local Legislation, 24 Ky. L. J. 351 (1936), for a tabulation of these provisions. The difference in classification is particularly striking in the field of divorce, which was formerly beset by private and local bills. See Maynard v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190. Many state constitutions now specifically prohibit private laws in the field of divorce. E. g., Ala. Const., Art. 4, § 104 (1); Wyo. Const., Art. 3, § 27.
Holland, Elements of Jurisprudence (6th ed. 1893), 112, declares this to be “. . . the radical distinction between Rights, and consequently between the departments of Law.”
Goodrich, Conflict of Laws (3d ed. 1949), §§ 1, 5; Cheshire, Private International Law (4th ed. 1952), 16.
“Since the work of Dicey, the contrast between Continental systems, which distinguish between administrative law and private law and have a separate system of law Courts for each, and the Anglo-American system, which only knows one law and one system of law, is familiar to Anglo-American lawyers. No doubt at one time this gave expression to a profound diversity in the attitude taken by the two groups of legal systems towards the relations between authority and individual. . . . But it is commonplace today that this difference, so eloquently stated by Dicey) is in substance essentially a matter of the past, and that even in his own time it was only partly true. . . . There is today a vast body of administrative law both in Britain and the United States, but it has not yet been given a definite place in the legal system as has been done with administrative law in many Continental countries. . . . Such bodies as the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Agricultural Marketing Boards or, in the United States, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the National Labour Relations Board, the Federal Power Commission and hundreds of others are, in fact, bodies whose status is governed by public law and which would on the Continent come under administrative jurisdiction. . . .” Friedmann, Legal Theory (2d ed. 1949), 345.
Pollock, A First Book of Jurisprudence (6th ed. 1929), 95-98, gives an illuminating discussion. He states in part: “Rules of private law may be said to have remained in a stage where all rules of law probably were in remote times: that is to say, the State provides judgment and justice, but only on the request and action of the individual citizen: those who desire judgment must come and ask for it. Accordingly the special field of such rules is that part of human affairs in which individual interests predominate, and are likely to be asserted on the whole with sufficient vigour, and moreover no public harm is an obvious or necessary consequence of parties not caring to assert their rights in particular cases. . . . There fall more specially under rules of public law the duties and powers of different authorities in the State, making up what is usually known as the law of the Constitution; also the special bodies of law governing the armed forces of the State, and the administration of its other departments; laws regulating particular trades and undertakings in the interest of public health or safety; and in short all State enterprise and all active interference of the State with the enterprises of private men. . . .” Pp. 96-97.
2 Kent, Commentaries (14th ed. 1896), *598-599; Story, Commentaries on the Law of Bailments (3d ed. 1843), §§ 508, 549; Lough v. Outerbridge, 143 N. Y. 271, 38 N. E. 292; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Jones, 149 Ill. 361, 374, 37 N. E. 247, 250; see Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 133-134.
§§ 11, 15, 16, 24 Stat. 383, 384; § 216, 49 Stat. 558, as amended, 49 U. S. C. §§ 11, 15, 16, 316.
Texas & P. R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 443-444; Lewis-Simas-Jones Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 283 U. S. 654, 661.
§§ 2 (a), (c), (e), Pa. Laws 1937, 1169, 1170, Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., 1952, Tit. 43, §§211.2 (a), (c), (e).
The same court has said of the Act in a different factual context: “It is inimical to the public interests, as declared in the preamble to our act, that those deprived of a particular employment, where such status is due to what is determined to be unlawful conduct on the part of the employer, should be deprived of compensation or wages when the employee by a reasonable effort could have secured employment which he was physically and mentally fitted to perform. If this rule is not followed the purposes of the act will not be fulfilled and the community will suffer.” W. T. Grant Co. v. United Retail Employees, 347 Pa. 224, 226, 31 A. 2d 900, 901.
International Union v. William, D. Baker Co., 100 F. Supp. 773, illustrates the potentialities of conflict. A disagreement arose between a union and several contracting associations over a collective bargaining agreement. The agreement contained a no-strike provision. The union, contending that the agreement had come to an end, threatened to strike. The association obtained an injunction in the Pennsylvania courts restraining the members of the union from striking. The union prayed for an injunction in federal district court to prevent the associations from enforcing their state decree. The federal court held that, even if exclusive jurisdiction over the subject matter was in the federal courts, it had no power to enjoin enforcement of the state injunction. Whether this conclusion be correct or not (for a critical comment see Note, 48 Northwestern U. L. Rev. 383 (1953)), the case exemplifies the type of difficulty inherent in recognizing state supplemental relief in an otherwise exclusive federal field.
Pollock, n. 18, supra, at 99, says, “It will be seen, therefore, that the topics of public and private law are by no means mutually exclusive. On the contrary their application overlaps with regard to a large proportion of the whole mass of acts and events capable of having legal consequences.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A federal court of appeals normally will not correct a legal error made in criminal trial court proceedings unless the defendant first brought the error to the trial court’s attention. See United States v. Olano, 507 U. S. 725, 731 (1993). But Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), creating an exception to the normal rule, says that “[a] plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the [trial] court’s attention.” (Emphasis added.) The Rule does not say explicitly, however, as of just what time the error must be “plain.” Must the lower court ruling be plainly erroneous as of the time the lower court made the error? Or can an error still count as “plain” if the erroneous nature of that ruling is not “plain” until the time of appellate review?
The case before us concerns a District Court’s decision on a substantive legal question that was unsettled at the time the trial court acted, thus foreclosing the possibility that any error could have been “plain” then. Before the case was final and at the time of direct appellate review, however, the question had become settled in the defendant’s favor, making the trial court’s error “plain”—but not until that later time. In our view, as long as the error was plain as of that later time—the time of appellate. review—the error is “plain” within the meaning of the Rule. And the Court of Appeals “may . . . conside[r]” the error even though it was “not brought to the [trial] court’s attention.” Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52(b).
I
In early 2010, Armarcion Henderson, the petitioner, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court to a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. 646 F. 3d 223, 224 (CA5 2011). The District Judge accepted the plea and, in June 2010, he sentenced Henderson to an above-Guidelines prison term- of 60 months. Ibid. The judge entered the longer sentence to “try to help” Henderson by qualifying him for an in-prison drug rehabilitation program, a program that would provide “the treatment and the counseling that this defendant needs right now.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 35a, 40a.
Henderson’s counsel did not object. Indeed, the judge asked counsel if there was “any reason why that sentence as stated should not be imposed.” Id., at 41a. And counsel replied, “Procedurally, no.” Ibid. Subsequently, Henderson appealed, claiming, among other things, that the District Court had “plainly” erred in sentencing him to an above-Guidelines prison term solely for rehabilitative purposes. 646 F. 3d, at 224.
In 2011, after Henderson was sentenced but before Henderson’s appeal was heard, this Court decided Tapia v. United States, 564 U. S. 319. There, we held that it is error for a court to “impose or lengthen a prison sentence to enable an offender to complete a treatment program or otherwise to promote rehabilitation.” Id., at 335. Given Tapia, Henderson’s sentence was unlawful, and the District Court’s decision to impose that sentence was erroneous. But, since Henderson’s counsel had not objected in the trial court, the Court of Appeals could not correct the error unless Rule 52(b) applied. The Rule, however, applies only if the error was “plain.” The error was not plain before Tapia• it was plain after Tapia. Thus, the Fifth Circuit had to determine the temporal scope of Rule 52(b)’s words “plain error.”
The appeals court decided that Rule 52(b) did not give it the authority to correct the trial court’s error. 646 F. 3d, at 225. The appellate panel pointed out that, “[b]efore Tapia, there was a circuit split on whether a district court can consider a defendant’s rehabilitative needs to lengthen a sentence.” Ibid. The panel added that the Fifth Circuit had “not pronounced on the question” before Henderson was sentenced. Ibid. Thus, at the time when the District Court reached its decision, the law in that Circuit was unsettled. The Court of Appeals concluded that “Henderson cannot show that the error in his case was plain, . . . because an error is plain only if it was clear under current law at the time of trial.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Fifth Circuit denied rehearing en banc by a divided vote. 665 F. 3d 160 (2011) (per curiam) (7 to 10). Henderson filed a petition for certiorari. And we granted the petition to resolve differences among the Circuits. Compare, e. g., United States v. Cordery, 656 F. 3d 1103, 1107 (CA10 2011) (time of review), with, e. g., United States v. Mouling, 557 F. 3d 658, 664 (CADC 2009) (time of error).
II
A
Is the time for determining “plainness” the time when the error is committed, or can an error be “plain” if it is not plain until the time the error is reviewed? The question reflects a conflict between two important, here competing, legal principles. On the one hand, “ ‘[n]o procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right,’ or a right of any other sort, ‘may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it.’ ” Olano, 507 U. S., at 731 (quoting Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, 444 (1944)). This principle favors assessing plainness limited to the time the error was committed.
On the other hand, “[t]he general rule ... is that an appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision.” Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham, 393 U. S. 268, 281 (1969). See Ziffrin v. United States, 318 U. S. 73, 78 (1943). Indeed, Chief Justice Marshall wrote long ago:
“It is in the general true that the province of an appellate court is only to enquire whether a judgment when rendered was erroneous or not. But if subsequent to the judgment and before the decision of the appellate court, a law intervenes and positively changes the rule which governs, the law must be obeyed, or its obligation denied.... In such a case the court must decide according to existing laws, and if it be necessary to set aside a judgment, rightful when rendered, but which cannot be affirmed but in violation of law, the judgment must be set aside.” United States v. Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch 103, 110 (1801).
This principle favors assessing plainness at the time of review.
Rule 52(b) itself makes clear that the first principle is not absolute. Indeed, we have said that a “ ‘rigid and undeviating judicially declared practice under which courts of review would invariably and under all circumstances decline to consider all questions which had not previously been specifically urged would be out of harmony with . . . the rules of fundamental justice.”’ Olano, supra, at 732 (quoting Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U. S. 552, 557 (1941); ellipsis in original). But neither is the second principle absolute. Even where a new rule of law is at issue, Rule 52(b) does not give a court of appeals authority to overlook a failure to object unless an error not only “affect[s] substantial rights” but also “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Olano, supra, at 732 (internal quotation marks omitted; brackets in original). Because the two principles here point in different directions and neither is absolute, we cannot decide this conflict simply by looking to one rather than to the other.
The text of Rule 52(b) does not resolve the problem. It does not say that a court of appeals may consider an “error that was plain”—language that would look to the past. Rather, it simply says that a court of appeals may consider “[a] plain error.” And that language leaves the temporal question open. But see infra, at 279.
Neither does precedent answer the temporal question—at least not directly. Olano is clearly relevant. There, we said that Rule 52(b) authorizes an appeals court to correct a forfeited error only if (1) there is “an error,” (2) the error is “plain,” and (3) the error “affectfs] substantial rights.” 507 U. S., at 732 (internal quotation marks omitted). Pointing out that Rule 52 “is permissive, not mandatory,” id., at 735, we added (4) that “the standard that should guide the exercise of remedial discretion under Rule 52(b)” is whether “the error ‘seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings/” id., at 736 (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U. S. 157, 160 (1936); brackets in original). At the same time, we said that “[w]e need not consider the special case where the error was unclear at the time of trial but becomes clear on appeal because the applicable law has been clarified.” 507 U. S., at 734. That is the case now before us.
Johnson v. United States, 520 U. S. 461 (1997), is also relevant. We there considered a trial court’s decision that was clearly correct under Circuit law when made but which, by the time of review, had become plainly erroneous due to an intervening authoritative legal decision. We concluded that, “where the law at the time of trial was settled and clearly contrary to the law at the time of appeal[,] it is enough that an error be ‘plain’ at the time of appellate consideration.” Id., at 468. As in Olano, however, we declined to decide whether that same rule should apply where the law is unsettled at the time of error but plain at the time of review. 520 U. S., at 467-468. As we have said, this is precisely the case now before us.
B
The text, precedents, and background principles do not directly dictate a result here. But prior precedent has helped to shape current law. And that precedent, read in light of those underlying principles, leads us to interpret Rule 52(b)’s phrase “plain error” as applying at the time of review. Given Johnson, a “time of error” interpretation would prove highly, and unfairly, anomalous.
Consider the lay of the post -Johnson legal land: No one doubts that an (unobjected to) error by a trial judge will ordinarily fall within Rule 52(b)’s word “plain” as long as the trial court’s decision was plainly incorrect at the time it was made. E. g., Olano, supra, at 734. That much is common ground. Johnson then adds that, at least in one circumstance, an (unobjected to) error by a trial judge will also fall within Rule 52(b)’s word “plain” even if the judge was not plainly incorrect at the time it was made. That is the circumstance where an error is “plain” even if the trial judge’s decision was plainly correct at the time when it was made but subsequently becomes incorrect based on a change in law. 520 U. S., at 468. And, since by definition the trial judge did not commit plain error at the time of the ruling, Johnson explicitly rejects applying the words “plain error” as of the time when the trial judge acted. Instead, Johnson deems it “enough that an error be ‘plain’ at the time of appellate consideration” for that error to fall within Rule 52(b)’s category of “plain error.” Ibid.
But if the Rule’s words “plain error” cover both (1) trial court decisions that were plainly correct at the time when the judge made the decision and (2) trial court decisions that were plainly mcorrect at the time when the judge made the decision, then why should they not also cover (3) cases in the middle—i. e., where the law at the time of the trial judge’s decision was neither clearly correct nor incorrect, but unsettled?
To hold to the contrary would bring about unjustifiably different treatment of similarly situated individuals. Imagine three virtually identical defendants, each from a different circuit, each sentenced in January to identical long prison terms, and each given those long sentences for the same reason, namely, to obtain rehabilitative treatment. Imagine that none of them raises an objection. In June, the Supreme Court holds this form of sentencing unlawful. And, in December, each of the three different circuits considers the claim that the trial judge’s January-imposed prison term constituted a legal error. Imagine farther that in the first circuit the law in January made the trial court’s decision clearly lawful as of the time when the judge made it; in the second circuit, the law in January made the trial court’s decision clearly unlawful as of the time when the judge made it; and in the third circuit, the law in January was unsettled.
To apply Rule 52(b)’s words “plain error” as of the time of appellate review would treat all three defendants alike. It would permit all three to go on to argue to the appellate court that the trial court error affected their “substantial rights” and “seriously affectfed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Olano, 507 U. S., at 732 (internal quotation marks omitted). To interpret “plain error” differently, however, would treat these three virtually identical defendants differently, allowing only the first two defendants, but not the third defendant, potentially to qualify for Rule 52(b) relief. All three defendants suffered from legal error; all three failed to object; and all three would benefit from the new legal interpretation. What reason is there to give two of these three defendants the benefits of a new rule of law, but not the third? Cf. Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch, at 110.
There is no practical ground for making this distinction. To the contrary, to distinguish and treat more harshly cases where a circuit’s law was unclear would simply promote arguments about whether the law of the circuit initially was unclear (rather than clearly settled one way or the other). And these arguments are likely to be particularly difficult to resolve where what is at issue is a matter of legal degree, not kind. To what extent, for example, did a prosecutor’s closing argument go too far down the road of prejudice? A “time of error” interpretation also would require courts of appeals to play a kind of temporal ping-pong, looking at the law that now is to decide whether “error” exists, looking at the law that then was to decide whether the error was “plain,” and looking at the circumstances that now are to decide whether the defendant has satisfied Olano’s third and fourth criteria. Thus, the “time of error” interpretation woüld make the appellate process yet more complex and time consuming.
We recognize, as the Solicitor General points out, that a “time of error” rule, even if confined to instances in which the law is uncertain, would in such cases provide an added incentive to counsel to call the lower court judge’s attention to the matter at a time when that judge could quickly take remedial action. And, even if no remedy is offered, the lower court judge’s analysis may help the court of appeals to decide the legal question. See Brief for United States 30-32. See also Mouling, 557 F. 3d, at 664. We disagree with the Solicitor General, however, in that we also believe that, in the present context, any added incentive has little, if any, practical importance.
That is because counsel normally has other good reasons for calling a trial court’s attention to potential error—for example, it is normally to the advantage of counsel and his client to get the error speedily corrected. And, even where that is not so, counsel cannot rely upon the “plain error” rule to make up for a failure to object at trial. After all, that rule will help only if (1) the law changes in the defendant’s favor, (2) the change comes after trial but before the appeal is decided, (3) the error affected the defendant’s “substantial rights,” and (4) the error “seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Olano, supra, at 732 (internal quotation marks omitted). If there is a lawyer who would deliberately forgo objection now because he perceives some slightly expanded chance to argue for “plain error” later, we suspect that, like the unicorn, he finds his home in the imagination, not the courtroom.
The upshot is that a “time of review” interpretation furthers the basic Schooner Peggy principle that “an appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision.” Thorpe, 393 U. S., at 281. It works little, if any, practical harm upon the competing administrative principle that insists that counsel call a potential error to the trial court’s attention. And, it is consistent with the basic purpose of Rule 52(b), namely, the creation of a fairness-based exception to the general requirement that an objection be made at trial. See supra, at 271-272.
At the same time, the competing “time of error” rule is out of step with our precedents, creates unfair and anomalous results, and works practical administrative harm. Thus, in the direct appeals of cases that are not yet final, we consider the “time of review” interpretation the better reading of Rule 52’s words “plain error.”
)—I 1—1 1—<
The Solicitor General makes several other important arguments, but they fail to lead us to a different conclusion. First, the Government argues that the purpose of plain-error review is to ensure “the integrity of the [trial] proceedings.” Brief for United States 33-34. In turn, the argument goes, appellate courts should consider only (1) errors that counsel called to the court’s attention and (2) errors that the trial court should have known' about regardless, namely, those that then were plain. Expanding on this theme, one Court of Appeals described plain error as “error that is so clear-cut, so obvious, a competent district judge should be able to avoid it without benefit of objection. When the state of the law is unclear at trial and only becomes clear as a result of later authority, the district court’s error is perforce not plain; we expect district judges to be knowledgeable, not clairvoyant.” United States v. Turman, 122 F. 3d 1167, 1170 (CA9 1997) (citation omitted).
This approach, however, overlooks the way in which the plain-error rule—Rule 52(b)—restricts the appellate court’s authority to correct an error to those errors that would, in fact, seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Cf. United States v. Farrell, 672 F. 3d 27, 36-37 (CA1 2012) (considering the issue from this perspective). And the approach runs headlong into Johnson. The error in Johnson was not an error that the District Court should have known about at the time. It was the very opposite: The District Judge should have known that his ruling (at the time he made it) was not error; and perhaps not even clairvoyance could have led him to hold to the contrary. Cf. Khan v. State Oil Co., 93 F. 3d 1358, 1362-1364 (CA7 1996) (registering disagreement with this Court’s precedent while following it nonetheless); State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 20-22 (1997) (approving of that approach).
Rather, Johnson makes clear that plain-error review is not a grading system for trial judges. It has broader purposes, including in part allowing courts of appeals better to identify those instances in which the application of a new rule of law to cases on appeal will meet the demands of fairness and judicial integrity. See Johnson, 520 U. S., at 467-468; Olano, 507 U. S., at 732.
Second, the Government fears that our holding will lead to too many claims of “plain error.” Brief for United States 26-28. After all, courts of appeals, not just the Supreme Court, clarify the law through their opinions. When a court of appeals does so, will not all defendants, including many who never objected in the court below, insist that the court of appeals now judge their cases according to the new rule? And will “plain error” in such cases not then disappear, leaving only simple “error” in its stead?
The answer to this claim is that a new rule of law, set forth by an appellate court, cannot automatically lead that court to consider all contrary determinations by trial courts plainly erroneous. Many such new rules, as we have pointed out, concern matters of degree, not kind. And a lower court ruling about such matters (say, the nature of a closing argument), even if now wrong (in light of the new appellate holding), is not necessarily plainly wrong. The Rule’s requirement that an error be “plain” means that lower court decisions that are questionable but not plainly wrong (at time of trial or at time of appeal) fall outside the Rule’s scope.
And there are other reasons for concluding that our holding will not open any “plain error” floodgates. As we have said, the Rule itself contains other screening criteria. The error must have affected the defendant’s substantial rights and it must have seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Olano, supra, at 732. When courts apply these latter criteria, the fact that a defendant did not object, despite unsettled law, may well count against the grant of Rule 52(b) relief. Moreover, the problem here arises only when there is a new rule of law, when the law was previously, unsettled, and when the District Court reached a decision contrary to the subsequent rule. These limitations may well explain the absence of any account before us of “plain error” inundation in those Circuits that already follow the interpretation we now adopt. See, e. g., Farrell, supra, at 36-37; Cordery, 656 F. 3d, at 1107; United States v. Garcia, 587 F. 3d 509, 519-520 (CA2 2009); United States v. Ross, 77 F. 3d 1525, 1539 (CA7 1996).
Finally, the Government points out that Rule 52(b) is written mostly in the past tense. It says that a “plain error .. . may be considered even though it was not brought to the court’s attention.” (Emphasis added.) This use of the past tense, the Government argues, refers to a “plain error” that was not “brought to the court’s attention” back then, when the error occurred. And that linguistic fact, in turn, means that the error must have been plain at that time. Brief for United States 18-22.
Whatever the merits of this textual argument, however, Johnson forecloses it. The error at issue in that case was not even an error, let alone plain, at the time when the defendant might have “brought [it] to the court’s attention.” Nonetheless, we found the error to be “plain error.” We cannot square the Government’s textual argument with our holding in that case.
IV
For these reasons, we conclude that whether a legal question was settled or unsettled at the time of trial, “it is enough that an error be ‘plain’ at the time of appellate consideration” for “[t]he second part of the [four-part] Olano test [to be] satisfied.” Johnson, supra, at 468. The contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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.
When a criminal conviction is invalidated by a reviewing court and no retrial will occur, is the State obliged to refund fees, court costs, and restitution exacted from the defendant upon, and as a consequence of, the conviction? Our answer is yes. Absent conviction of a crime, one is presumed innocent. Under the Colorado law before us in these cases, however, the State retains conviction-related assessments unless and until the prevailing defendant institutes a discrete civil proceeding and proves her innocence by clear and convincing evidence. This scheme, we hold, offends the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process.
I
A
Two cases are before us for review. Petitioner Shannon Nelson, in 2006, was convicted by a Colorado jury of five counts-two felonies and three misdemeanors-arising from the alleged sexual and physical abuse of her four children. 362 P.3d 1070, 1071 (Colo.2015) ; App. 25-26. The trial court imposed a prison sentence of 20 years to life and ordered Nelson to pay court costs, fees, and restitution totaling $8,192.50. 362 P.3d, at 1071. On appeal, Nelson's conviction was reversed for trial error. Ibid. On retrial, a new jury acquitted Nelson of all charges. Ibid.
Petitioner Louis Alonzo Madden, in 2005, was convicted by a Colorado jury of attempting to patronize a prostituted child and attempted third-degree sexual assault by force. See 364 P.3d 866, 867 (Colo.2015). The trial court imposed an indeterminate prison sentence and ordered Madden to pay costs, fees, and restitution totaling $4,413.00. Ibid. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed one of Madden's convictions on direct review, and a postconviction court vacated the other. Ibid. The State elected not to appeal or retry the case. Ibid.
Between Nelson's conviction and acquittal, the Colorado Department of Corrections withheld $702.10 from her inmate account, $287.50 of which went to costs and fees and $414.60 to restitution. See 362 P.3d, at 1071, and n. 1. Following Madden's conviction, Madden paid Colorado $1,977.75, $1,220 of which went to costs and fees and $757.75 to restitution. See 364 P.3d, at 867. The sole legal basis for these assessments was the fact of Nelson's and Madden's convictions. Absent those convictions, Colorado would have no legal right to exact and retain petitioners' funds.
Their convictions invalidated, both petitioners moved for return of the amounts Colorado had taken from them. In Nelson's case, the trial court denied the motion outright. 362 P.3d, at 1071. In Madden's case, the postconviction court allowed the refund of costs and fees, but not restitution. 364 P.3d, at 867-868.
The same Colorado Court of Appeals panel heard both cases and concluded that Nelson and Madden were entitled to seek refunds of all they had paid, including amounts allocated to restitution. See People v. Nelson, 369 P.3d 625, 628-629 (2013) ; People v. Madden, --- P.3d ----, ----, 2013 WL 1760869, *1 (Apr. 25, 2013). Costs, fees, and restitution, the court held, must be "tied to a valid conviction," 369 P.3d, at 627-628, absent which a court must "retur[n] the defendant to the status quo ante," - -- P.3d at ----, 2013 WL 1760869, at *2.
The Colorado Supreme Court reversed in both cases. A court must have statutory authority to issue a refund, that court stated. 362 P.3d, at 1077, 364 P.3d, at 868. Colorado's Compensation for Certain Exonerated Persons statute (Exoneration Act or Act), Colo.Rev.Stat. §§ 13-65-101, 13-65-102, 13-65-103 (2016), passed in 2013, "provides the proper procedure for seeking a refund," the court ruled. 362 P.3d, at 1075, 1077. As no other statute addresses refunds, the court concluded that the Exoneration Act is the "exclusive process for exonerated defendants seeking a refund of costs, fees, and restitution." Id., at 1078. Because neither Nelson nor Madden had filed a claim under the Act, the court further determined, their trial courts lacked authority to order a refund. Id., at 1075, 1078 ; 364 P.3d, at 867. There was no due process problem, the court continued, because the Act "provides sufficient process for defendants to seek refunds of costs, fees, and restitution that they paid in connection with their conviction." 362 P.3d, at 1078.
Justice Hood dissented in both cases. Because neither petitioner has been validly convicted, he explained, each must be presumed innocent. Id., at 1079 (Nelson ); 364 P.3d, at 870 (adopting his reasoning from Nelson in Madden ). Due process therefore requires some mechanism "for the return of a defendant's money," Justice Hood maintained, 362 P.3d, at 1080 ; as the Exoneration Act required petitioners to prove their innocence, the Act, he concluded, did not supply the remedy due process demands, id., at 1081. We granted certiorari. 579 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 30, 195 L.Ed.2d 902 (2016).
B
The Exoneration Act provides a civil claim for relief "to compensate an innocent person who was wrongly convicted." 362 P.3d, at 1075. Recovery under the Act is available only to a defendant who has served all or part of a term of incarceration pursuant to a felony conviction, and whose conviction has been overturned for reasons other than insufficiency of evidence or legal error unrelated to actual innocence. See § 13-65-102. To succeed on an Exoneration Act claim, a petitioner must show, by clear and convincing evidence, her actual innocence of the offense of conviction. §§ 13-65-101(1), 13-65-102(1). A successful petitioner may recoup, in addition to compensation for time served, "any fine, penalty, court costs, or restitution... paid... as a result of his or her wrongful conviction." Id., at 1075 (quoting § 13-65-103(2)(e)(V) ).
Under Colorado's legislation, as just recounted, a defendant must prove her innocence by clear and convincing evidence to obtain the refund of costs, fees, and restitution paid pursuant to an invalid conviction. That scheme, we hold, does not comport with due process. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Colorado.
II
The familiar procedural due process inspection instructed by Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), governs these cases. Colorado argues that we should instead apply the standard from Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437, 445, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 (1992), and inquire whether Nelson and Madden were exposed to a procedure offensive to a fundamental principle of justice. Medina "provide[s] the appropriate framework for assessing the validity of state procedural rules" that "are part of the criminal process." Id., at 443, 112 S.Ct. 2572. Such rules concern, for example, the allocation of burdens of proof and the type of evidence qualifying as admissible. These cases, in contrast, concern the continuing deprivation of property after a conviction has been reversed or vacated, with no prospect of reprosecution. See Kaley v. United States, 571 U.S. ----, ----, n. 4, 134 S.Ct. 1090, 1110 n. 4, 188 L.Ed.2d 46 (2014) (ROBERTS, C.J., dissenting) (explaining the different offices of Mathews and Medina ). Because no further criminal process is implicated, Mathews "provides the relevant inquiry." 571 U.S., at ---- n. 4, 134 S.Ct., at 1110 n. 4.
III
Under the Mathews balancing test, a court evaluates (A) the private interest affected; (B) the risk of erroneous deprivation of that interest through the procedures used; and (C) the governmental interest at stake. 424 U.S., at 335, 96 S.Ct. 893. All three considerations weigh decisively against Colorado's scheme.
A
Nelson and Madden have an obvious interest in regaining the money they paid to Colorado. Colorado urges, however, that the funds belong to the State because Nelson's and Madden's convictions were in place when the funds were taken. Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-31. But once those convictions were erased, the presumption of their innocence was restored. See, e.g., Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U.S. 578, 585, 108 S.Ct. 1981, 100 L.Ed.2d 575 (1988) (After a "conviction has been reversed, unless and until [the defendant] should be retried, he must be presumed innocent of that charge."). "[A]xiomatic and elementary,"
the presumption of innocence "lies at the foundation of our criminal law." Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 453, 15 S.Ct. 394, 39 L.Ed. 481 (1895). Colorado may not retain funds taken from Nelson and Madden solely because of their now-invalidated convictions, see supra, at 1253 - 1254, and n. 3, for Colorado may not presume a person, adjudged guilty of no crime, nonetheless guilty enough for monetary exactions.
That petitioners prevailed on subsequent review rather than in the first instance, moreover, should be inconsequential. Suppose a trial judge grants a motion to set aside a guilty verdict for want of sufficient evidence. In that event, the defendant pays no costs, fees, or restitution. Now suppose the trial court enters judgment on a guilty verdict, ordering cost, fee, and restitution payments by reason of the conviction, but the appeals court upsets the conviction for evidentiary insufficiency. By what right does the State retain the amount paid out by the defendant? "[I]t should make no difference that the reviewing court, rather than the trial court, determined the evidence to be insufficient." Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 11, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). The vulnerability of the State's argument that it can keep the amounts exacted so long as it prevailed in the court of first instance is more apparent still if we assume a case in which the sole penalty is a fine. On Colorado's reasoning, an appeal would leave the defendant emptyhanded; regardless of the outcome of an appeal, the State would have no refund obligation. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 41, 44.
B
Is there a risk of erroneous deprivation of defendants' interest in return of their funds if, as Colorado urges, the Exoneration Act is the exclusive remedy? Indeed yes, for the Act conditions refund on defendants' proof of innocence by clear and convincing evidence. § 13-65-101(1)(a). But to get their money back, defendants should not be saddled with any proof burden. Instead, as explained supra, at 1255 - 1256, they are entitled to be presumed innocent.
Furthermore, as Justice Hood noted in dissent, the Act provides no remedy at all for any assessments tied to invalid misdemeanor convictions ( Nelson had three). 362 P.3d, at 1081, n. 1 ; see § 13-65-102(1)(a). And when amounts a defendant seeks to recoup are not large, as is true in Nelson's and Madden's cases, see supra, at 1253, the cost of mounting a claim under the Exoneration Act and retaining a lawyer to pursue it would be prohibitive.
Colorado argued on brief that if the Exoneration Act provides sufficient process to compensate a defendant for the loss of her liberty, the Act should also suffice "when a defendant seeks compensation for the less significant deprivation of monetary assessments paid pursuant to a conviction that is later overturned." Brief for Respondent 40. The comparison is inapt. Nelson and Madden seek restoration of funds they paid to the State, not compensation for temporary deprivation of those funds. Petitioners seek only their money back, not interest on those funds for the period the funds were in the State's custody. Just as the restoration of liberty on reversal of a conviction is not compensation, neither is the return of money taken by the State on account of the conviction.
Colorado also suggests that "numerous pre- and post-deprivation procedures"-including the need for probable cause to support criminal charges, the jury-trial right, and the State's burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt-adequately minimize the risk of erroneous deprivation of property. Id., at 31; see id., at 31-35. But Colorado misperceives the risk at issue. The risk here involved is not the risk of wrongful or invalid conviction any criminal defendant may face. It is, instead, the risk faced by a defendant whose conviction has already been overturned that she will not recover funds taken from her solely on the basis of a conviction no longer valid. None of the above-stated procedures addresses that risk, and, as just explained, the Exoneration Act is not an adequate remedy for the property deprivation Nelson and Madden experienced.
C
Colorado has no interest in withholding from Nelson and Madden money to which the State currently has zero claim of right. "Equitable [c]onsiderations," Colorado suggests, may bear on whether a State may withhold funds from criminal defendants after their convictions are overturned. Brief for Respondent 20-22. Colorado, however, has identified no such consideration relevant to petitioners' cases, nor has the State indicated any way in which the Exoneration Act embodies "equitable considerations."
IV
Colorado's scheme fails due process measurement because defendants' interest in regaining their funds is high, the risk of erroneous deprivation of those funds under the Exoneration Act is unacceptable, and the State has shown no countervailing interests in retaining the amounts in question. To comport with due process, a State may not impose anything more than minimal procedures on the refund of exactions dependent upon a conviction subsequently invalidated.
* * *
The judgments of the Colorado Supreme Court are reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice GORSUCH took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Justice ALITO, concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the judgments of the Colorado Supreme Court must be reversed, but I reach that conclusion by a different route.
I
The proper framework for analyzing these cases is provided by Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 (1992). Medina applies when we are called upon to "asses[s] the validity of state procedural rules which... are part of the criminal process," id., at 443, 112 S.Ct. 2572 and that is precisely the situation here. These cases concern Colorado's rules for determining whether a defendant can obtain a refund of money that he or she was required to pay pursuant to a judgment of conviction that is later reversed. In holding that these payments must be refunded, the Court relies on a feature of the criminal law, the presumption of innocence. And since the Court demands that refunds occur either automatically or at least without imposing anything more than "minimal" procedures, see ante, at 1257, it appears that they must generally occur as part of the criminal case. For these reasons, the refund obligation is surely "part of the criminal process" and thus falls squarely within the scope of Medina. The only authority cited by the Court in support of its contrary conclusion is a footnote in a dissent. See ante, at 1255 (citing Kaley v. United States, 571 U.S. ----, ----, n. 4, 134 S.Ct. 1090, 1110 n. 4, 188 L.Ed.2d 46 (2014) (opinion of ROBERTS, C.J.)). Under Medina, a state rule of criminal procedure not governed by a specific rule set out in the Bill of Rights violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment only if it offends a fundamental and deeply rooted principle of justice. 505 U.S., at 445, 112 S.Ct. 2572. And "[h]istorical practice is probative of whether a procedural rule can be characterized as fundamental." Id., at 446, 112 S.Ct. 2572. Indeed, petitioners invite us to measure the Colorado scheme against traditional practice, reminding us that our " 'first due process cases' " recognized that " 'traditional practice provides a touchstone for constitutional analysis,' " Brief for Petitioners 26 (quoting Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 U.S. 415, 430, 114 S.Ct. 2331, 129 L.Ed.2d 336 (1994) ). Petitioners then go on to argue at some length that "[t]he traditional rule has always been that when a judgment is reversed, a person who paid money pursuant to that judgment is entitled to receive the money back." Brief for Petitioners 26; see id., at 26-30. See also Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae 4-14 (discussing traditional practice).
The Court, by contrast, turns its back on historical practice, preferring to balance the competing interests according to its own lights. The Court applies the balancing test set out in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), a modern invention "first conceived"
to decide what procedures the government must observe before depriving persons of novel forms of property such as welfare or Social Security disability benefits. Dusenbery v. United States, 534 U.S. 161, 167, 122 S.Ct. 694, 151 L.Ed.2d 597 (2002). Because these interests had not previously been regarded as "property," the Court could not draw on historical practice for guidance. Mathews has subsequently been used more widely in civil cases, but we should pause before applying its balancing test in matters of state criminal procedure. "[T]he States have considerable expertise in matters of criminal procedure and the criminal process is grounded in centuries of common-law tradition." Medina, supra, at 445-446, 112 S.Ct. 2572. Applying the Mathews balancing test to established rules of criminal practice and procedure may result in "undue interference with both considered legislative judgments and the careful balance that the Constitution strikes between liberty and order." Medina, supra, at 443, 112 S.Ct. 2572. Where long practice has struck a particular balance between the competing interests of the State and those charged with crimes, we should not lightly disturb that determination. For these reasons, Medina's historical inquiry, not Mathews, provides the proper framework for use in these cases.
II
Under Medina, the Colorado scheme at issue violates due process. American law has long recognized that when an individual is obligated by a civil judgment to pay money to the opposing party and that judgment is later reversed, the money should generally be repaid. See, e.g., Northwestern Fuel Co. v. Brock, 139 U.S. 216, 219, 11 S.Ct. 523, 35 L.Ed. 151 (1891) ("The right of restitution of what one has lost by the enforcement of a judgment subsequently reversed has been recognized in the law of England from a very early period..."); Bank of United States v. Bank of Washington, 6 Pet. 8, 17, 8 L.Ed. 299 (1832) ("On the reversal of an erroneous judgment, the law raises an obligation in the party to the record, who has received the benefit of the erroneous judgment, to make restitution to the other party for what he has lost"). This was "a remedy well known at common law," memorialized as "a part of the judgment of reversal which directed 'that the defendant be restored to all things which he has lost on occasion of the judgment aforesaid.' " 2 Ruling Case Law § 248, p. 297 (W. McKinney and B. Rich eds. 1914); Duncan v. Kirkpatrick, 13 Serg. & Rawle 292, 294 (Pa.1825).
As both parties acknowledge, this practice carried over to criminal cases. When a conviction was reversed, defendants could recover fines and monetary penalties assessed as part of the conviction. Brief for Respondent 20-21, and n. 7; Reply Brief 7-8, 11; see, e.g., Annot., Right To Recover Back Fine or Penalty Paid in Criminal Proceeding, 26 A.L.R. 1523, 1532, § VI(a) (1923) ("When a judgment imposing a fine, which is paid, is vacated or reversed on appeal, the court may order restitution of the amount paid... "); 25 C.J. § 39, p. 1165 (W. Mack, W. Hale, & D. Kiser eds. 1921) ("Where a fine illegally imposed has been paid, on reversal of the judgment a writ of restitution may issue against the parties who received the fine").
The rule regarding recovery, however, "even though general in its application, [was] not without exceptions." Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Florida, 295 U.S. 301, 309, 55 S.Ct. 713, 79 L.Ed. 1451 (1935) (Cardozo, J.). The remedy was "equitable in origin and function," and return of the money was " 'not of mere right,' " but "'rest[ed] in the exercise of a sound discretion.' " Id., at 309, 310, 55 S.Ct. 713 (quoting Gould v. McFall, 118 Pa. 455, 456, 12 A. 336 (1888) ). This was true in both civil and criminal cases. See, e.g., 25 C. J., at 1165 (noting that "restitution [of fines paid on a conviction later reversed] is not necessarily a matter of right"); Annot., 26 A.L.R., at 1532, § VI(a) (Restitution for fines upon reversal of a conviction "is not a matter of strict legal right, but rather one for the exercise of the court's discretion"). The central question courts have asked is whether "the possessor will give offense to equity and good conscience if permitted to retain [the successful appellant's money]." Atlantic Coast Line, supra, at 309, 55 S.Ct. 713.
This history supports the Court's rejection of the Colorado Exoneration Act's procedures. The Act places a heavy burden of proof on defendants, provides no opportunity for a refund for defendants (like Nelson) whose misdemeanor convictions are reversed, and excludes defendants whose convictions are reversed for reasons unrelated to innocence. Brief for Respondent 8, 35, n. 18. These stringent requirements all but guarantee that most defendants whose convictions are reversed have no realistic opportunity to prove they are deserving of refunds. Colorado has abandoned historical procedures that were more generous to successful appellants and incorporated a court's case-specific equitable judgment. Instead, Colorado has adopted a system that is harsh, inflexible, and prevents most defendants whose convictions are reversed from demonstrating entitlement to a refund. Indeed, the Colorado General Assembly made financial projections based on the assumption that only one person every five years would qualify for a financial award under the Exoneration Act. Colorado Legislative Council Staff Fiscal Note, State and Local Revised Fiscal Impact, HB 13-1230, p. 2 (Apr. 22, 2013), online at http://leg.colorado.gov (as last visited Apr. 17, 2017). Accordingly, the Exoneration Act does not satisfy due process requirements. See Cooper v. Oklahoma, 517 U.S. 348, 356, 116 S.Ct. 1373, 134 L.Ed.2d 498 (1996) (A state rule of criminal procedure may violate due process where "a rule significantly more favorable to the defendant has had a long and consistent application").
III
Although long-established practice supports the Court's judgment, the Court rests its decision on different grounds. In its Mathews analysis, the Court reasons that the reversal of petitioners' convictions restored the presumption of their innocence and that "Colorado may not presume a person, adjudged guilty of no crime, nonetheless guilty enough for monetary exactions." Ante, at 1256. The implication of this brief statement is that under Mathews, reversal restores the defendant to the status quo ante, see ante, at 1253. But the Court does not confront the obvious implications of this reasoning.
For example, if the status quo ante must be restored, why shouldn't the defendant be compensated for all the adverse economic consequences of the wrongful conviction? After all, in most cases, the fines and payments that a convicted defendant must pay to the court are minor in comparison to the losses that result from conviction and imprisonment, such as attorney's fees, lost income, and damage to reputation. The Court cannot convincingly explain why Mathews'amorphous balancing test stops short of requiring a full return to the status quo ante when a conviction is reversed. But Medina does.
The American legal system has long treated compensation for the economic consequences of a reversed conviction very differently from the refund of fines and other payments made by a defendant pursuant to a criminal judgment. Statutes providing compensation for time wrongfully spent in prison are a 20th-century innovation: By 1970, only the Federal Government and four States had passed such laws. King, Compensation of Persons Erroneously Confined by the State, 118 U. Pa. L.Rev. 1091, 1109 (1970) ; United States v. Keegan, 71 F.Supp. 623, 626 (S.D.N.Y.1947) ("[T]here seems to have been no legislation by our Government on this subject" until 1938). Many other jurisdictions have done so since, but under most such laws, compensation is not automatic. Instead, the defendant bears the burden of proving actual innocence (and, sometimes, more). King, supra, at 1110 ("The burden of proving innocence in the compensation proceeding has from the start been placed upon the claimant"); see also Kahn, Presumed Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The Burden of Proof in Wrongful Conviction Claims Under State Compensation Statutes, 44 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 123, 145 (2010) (Most U.S. compensation statutes "require that claimants prove their innocence either by a preponderance of the evidence or by clear and convincing evidence" (footnote omitted)). In construing the federal statute, courts have held that a compensation proceeding "is not... a criminal trial" and that the burden of proof can be placed on the petitioner. United States v. Brunner, 200 F.2d 276, 279 (C.A.6 1952). As noted, Colorado and many other States have similar statutes designed narrowly to compensate those few persons who can demonstrate that they are truly innocent. The Court apparently acknowledges that these statutes pose no constitutional difficulty. That is the correct conclusion, but it is best justified by reference to history and tradition.
IV
The Court's disregard of historical practice is particularly damaging when it comes to the question of restitution. The Court flatly declares that the State is "obliged to refund... restitution" in just the same way as fees and court costs. Ante, at 1252. This conclusion is not supported by historical practice, and it overlooks important differences between restitution, which is paid to the victims of an offense, and fines and other payments that are kept by the State.
Although restitution may be included in a criminal judgment, it has many attributes of a civil judgment in favor of the victim. This is clear under Colorado law. Although the obligation to pay restitution is included in the defendant's sentence, restitution results in a final civil judgment against the defendant in favor of the State and the victim. Colo.Rev.Stat. § 18-1.3-603(4)(a)(I) (2016). Entitlement to restitution need not be established beyond a reasonable doubt or in accordance with standard rules of evidence or criminal procedure. People v. Pagan, 165 P.3d 724, 729 (Colo.App.2006) ; Colo.Rev.Stat. §§ 18-1.3-603(2) - (3). And the judgment may be enforced either by the State or the victim. §§ 16-18.5-106(2), §§ 16-18.5-107(1)-(4).
The Court ignores the distinctive attributes of restitution, but they merit attention. Because a restitution order is much like a civil judgment, the reversal of the defendant's criminal conviction does not necessarily undermine the basis for restitution. Suppose that a victim successfully sues a criminal defendant civilly and introduces the defendant's criminal conviction on the underlying conduct as (potentially preclusive) evidence establishing an essential element of a civil claim. See, e.g., 2 K. Broun, McCormick on Evidence § 298, 473 - 477 (7th ed.2013) (discussing the admissibility, and potential preclusive effect, of a criminal conviction in subsequent civil litigation). And suppose that the defendant's criminal conviction is later reversed for a trial error that did not (and could not) infect the later civil proceeding: for example, the admission of evidence barred by the exclusionary rule or a Confrontation Clause violation. It would be unprecedented to suggest that due process requires unwinding the civil judgment simply because it rests in part on a criminal conviction that has since been reversed. And a very similar scenario could unfold with respect to a Colorado restitution judgment. The only salient difference would be that, in the Colorado case, the civil judgment would have been obtained as part of the criminal proceeding itself. It is not clear (and the Court certainly does not explain) why that formal distinction should make a substantive difference.
It is especially startling to insist that a State must provide a refund after enforcing a restitution judgment on the victims' behalf in reliance on a final judgment that is then vacated on collateral review. Faced with this fact pattern, the Ninth Circuit declined to require reimbursement, reasoning that the Government was a mere "escrow agent" executing a then-valid final judgment in favor of a third party. United States v. Hayes, 385 F.3d 1226, 1230 (2004).
The Court regrettably mentions none of this. Its treatment of restitution is not grounded in any historical analysis, and-save for a brief footnote, ante, at 1253, n. 3-the Court does not account for the distinctive civil status of restitution under Colorado law (or the laws of the many other affected jurisdictions that provide this remedy to crime victims).
Nor does the Court consider how restitution's unique characteristics might affect the balance that it strikes under Mathews. Ante, at 1257. The Court summarily rejects the proposition that " 'equitable considerations' " might militate against a blanket rule requiring the refund of money paid as restitution, see ibid., but why is this so? What if the evidence amply establishes that the defendant injured the victims to whom restitution was paid but the defendant's conviction is reversed on a ground that would be inapplicable in a civil suit? In that situation, is it true, as the Court proclaims, that the State would have "no interest" in withholding a refund? Would the Court reach that conclusion if state law mandated a refund from the recipients of the restitution? And if the States and the Federal Government are always required to foot the bill themselves, would that risk discourage them from seeking restitution-or at least from providing funds to victims until the conclusion of appellate review?
It was unnecessary for the Court to issue a sweeping pronouncement on restitution. But if the Court had to address this subject to dispose of these cases, it should have acknowledged that-at least in some circumstances-refunds of restitution payments made under later reversed judgments are not constitutionally required.
* * *
For these reasons, I concur only in the judgment.
Of the $287.50 for costs and fees, $125 went to the victim compensation fund and $162.50 to the victims and witnesses assistance and law enforcement fund (VAST fund). See 362 P.3d 1070, 1071, n. 1 (Colo.2015).
Of the $1,220 for costs and fees, $125 went to the victim compensation fund and $1,095 to the VAST fund ($1,000 of which was for the special advocate surcharge). See App. 79; 364 P.3d 866, 869 (Colo.2015).
See Colo.Rev.Stat. § 24-4.1-119(1)(a) (2005) (levying victim-compensation-fund fees for "each criminal action resulting in a conviction or in a deferred judgment and sentence"); § 24-4.2-104(1)(a)(1)(I) (2005) (same, for VAST fund fees); § 24-4.2-104(1)(a)(1)(II) (same, for special advocate surcharge); § 18-1.3-603(1) (2005) (with one exception, "[e]very order of conviction... shall include consideration of restitution"). See also 362 P.3d, at 1073 ("[T]he State pays the cost of criminal cases when a defendant is acquitted." (citing Colo.Rev.Stat. § 16-18-101(1) (2015) )). Under Colorado law, a restitution order tied to a criminal conviction is rendered as a separate civil judgment. See § 18-1.3-603(4)(a) (2005). If the conviction is reversed, any restitution order dependent on that conviction is simultaneously vacated. See People v. Scearce, 87 P.3d 228, 234-235 (Colo.App.2003).
While these cases were pending in this Court, Colorado passed new legislation to provide "[r]eimbursement of amounts paid following a vacated conviction." See Colo. House Bill 17-1071 (quoting language for Colo.Rev.Stat. § 18-1.3-603, the new provision). That legislation takes effect September 1, 2017, and has no effect on the cases before us.
Prior to the Exoneration Act, the Colorado Supreme Court recognized the competence of courts, upon reversal of a conviction, to order the refund of monetary exactions imposed on a defendant solely by reason of the conviction. Toland v. Strohl, 147 Colo. 577, 586, 364 P.2d 588, 593 (1961).
Compensation under the Exoneration Act includes $70,000 per year of incarceration for
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner brought this diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado alleging that respondent’s negligent construction, maintenance,.and supervision of a scaffold platform used in the construction of a missile silo near Elizabeth, Colorado, had proximately caused her father’s fatal plunge from the platform during the course of his employment as Night Silo Captain for Sverdrup & Parcel, an engineering firm engaged in the construction of a missile launcher system in the silo. At the close of the petitioner’s evidence and again at the close of all the evidence, respondent moved for a directed verdict. The trial judge denied both'motions and submitted the case to a jury, which returned a verdict for petitioner for $25,000.
Respondent then moved for judgment notwithstanding the jury’s verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial, in accordance with Rule 50 (b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The trial court denied the motions and entered judgment for petitioner on the jury’s verdict. Respondent appealed, claiming that its motion for judgment n. o. v. should have been granted. Petitioner, as agpellee, urged only that the jury’s verdict should be upheld.
The Court of Appeals held that the evidence at trial was insufficient to establish either negligence by respondent or proximate cause and reversed the judgment of the District Court “with instructions to dismiss the action.” Without filing a petition for rehearing in the Court of Appeals, petitioner then sought a writ of cer-tiorari, presenting the question whether the Court of Appeals could, consistent with the 1963 amendments to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules and with the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a right to jury trial, direct the trial court to dismiss the action. Our order allowing certiorari directed the parties’ attention to whether Rule 50 (d) and our decisions in Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U. S. 212; Globe Liquor Co. v. San Roman, 332 U. S. 571; and Weade v. Dichmann, Wright & Pugh, Inc., 337 U. S. 801, permit this disposition by a court of appeals despite Rule 50 (c)(2), which gives a party whose jury verdict is set aside by a trial court 10 days in which to invoke- the trial court’s discretion to order a new trial. We affirm.
Under Rule 50 (b), if a party moves for a directed verdict at the close of the evidence and if the trial judge elects to send the case to the jury, the judge is “deemed” to have reserved decision on the motion. If the ‘jury returns a contrary verdict, the party may within 10 days move to have judgment entered in accordance with his motion for directed verdict. This procedure is consistent with decisions of this Court rendered prior to the adoption of the Federal Rules in 1938. Compare Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, 295 U. S. 654, with Slocum v. New York Life Ins. Co., 228 U. S. 364, and Aetna Ins. Co. v. Kennedy, 301 U. S. 389. And it is settled that Rule 50 (b) does not violate the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a. jury trial. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U. S. 243.
The question here is whether the Court of Appeals, after reversing the denial of a defendant’s Rule 5j) (b) motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, may itself order dismissal or direct entry of judgment for defendant. As far as the Seventh Amendment’s right to jury trial is concerned, there is no greater restriction on the province of the jury when an appellate court enters judgmént n. o. v. than when a trial court does; consequently, there is no constitutional bar to an appellate court granting judgment n. o. v. See Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, supra. Likewise, the statutory grant of appellate jurisdiction to the courts of appeals is certainly broad enough to include the power to direct entry of judgment n. o. v. on appeal. Section 2106 of Title 28 provides that,
“The Supreme Court or any other court of appellate jurisdiction may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or reverse any judgment, decree, or order of a court lawfully brought before it for review, and may remand the cause and direct the entry of such appropriate judgment, decree, or order, or require such further proceedings to be had as may be just under the circumstances.”
See Bryan v. United States, 338 U. S. 552.
This brings us to Federal Rules 50 (c) and 50 (d), which were added to Rule 50 in 1963 to clarify the proper practice under this Rule. Though Rule 50 (d) is more pertinent to the facts of this case, it is useful to examine these interrelated provisions together. Rule 50 (c) governs the case where a trial court has granted a motion for judgment n. o. v. Rule 50 (c)(1) explains that, if the verdict loser has joined a motion for new trial with his motion for judgment n. o. v., the trial judge should rule conditionally on the new trial motion when he grants judgment n. o. v. If he conditionally grants a new trial, and if the court of appeals reverses his grant of judgment n. o. v., Rule 50(c)(1) provides that “the new trial shall proceed unless the" appellate court has otherwise ordered.” On the other hand, if the trial.judge conditionally denies the motion for new trial, and if his - grant of judgment n. o. v. is reversed on appeal, “subsequent proceedings shall be in accordance with the order of the appellate .court.” As the Advisory Committee’s Note to Rule 50 (c) makes clear, Rule 50 (c)(1) contemplates that the appellate court will review on appeal both ■ the grant of judgment n. o. v. and, if necessary, the trial cohrt’s conditional disposition of the motion for new trial. This review necessarily includes the power to grant or to deny a new trial in appropriate cases.
Rule 50 (d) is applicable to cases such as this one where the trial court has denied a motion for judgment n. o. v. Rule 50 (d) expressly preserves to the party who prevailed in the district court the right to urge that the court of appeals grant a new trial should the jury’s verdict be set aside on appeal. Rule 50 (d) also emphasizes that “nothing in this' rule precludes” the court of appeals “from determining that the appellee is entitled to a new trial, or from directing the trial court to determine whether a new trial .shall be granted.” Quite properly, this Rule recognizes that the appellate court may prefer that the trial judge pass first upon the appel-lee’s new trial suggestion. Nevertheless, consideration of the new trial question “in the first instance” is lodged with the court of appeals. And Rule 50 (d) is permissive in the nature of its direction to the court of appeals: as in Rule 50 (c)(1), there is nothing in Rule 50 (d) indicating that the court of appeals may not direct entry of judgment n. o. v. in appropriate cases.
Rule 50 (c)(2), n. 2, supra, is on its face inapplicable to the situation presented here. That Rule regulates the verdict winner’s opportunity to move for a new trial if the trial court has granted a Rule 50 (b) motion for judgment n. o. v. In this case, the trial Court denied judgment n. o. v. and respondent appealed. Jurisdiction over the case then passed to the Court of Appeals, and petitioner’s right to seek a new trial in the trial court after her jury verdict was set aside became dependent upon the disposition by the Court of Appeals under Rule 50 (d).
As the Advisory Committee explained, these 1963 amendments were not intended to “alter the effects of a jury verdict or. the scope of appellate review,” as articulated in the prior decisions of this Court. 31 F. R. D. 645. In Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., supra, the defendant moved for a directed verdict, but the trial judge sent the case to the jury. After a jury verdict for the plaintiff, the trial court denied defendant’s motion for a new trial. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed and ordered the entry of judgment n. o. v. This Court reversed the Court of Appeals on the ground that the defendant had not moved for judgment n. o. v. in the trial court, but only for a new trial, and consequently the Court of Appeals was precluded from directing any disposition other than a new trial. See also Globe Liquor Co. v. San Roman, supra. In Johnson v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 344 U. S. 48, this Court held that a verdict loser’s motion to “set aside” the jury’s verdict did not comply with Rule 50 (b)’s requirement of a timely motion for judgment n. o. v. and therefore that the Court of Appeals could not direct entry of judgment n. o. v. And in Weade v. Dichmann, Wright & Pugh, Inc., supra, where a proper motion for judgment n. o. v. was made and denied in the trial court, we modified a Court of Appeals decision directing entry of judgment n. o. v. because there were “suggestions in the complaint and evidence” of an alternative theory of liability which had not been passed upon by the jury and therefore which might justify the grant of a new trial. 337 U. S., at 808-809.
The opinions in the above cases make it clear that an appellate court may not order judgment n. o. v. where the verdict loser has failed strictly to comply with-the procedural requirements of Rule 50 (b), -or where the record reveals a new trial issue which has not been resolved. Part of the Court’s concern has been to protect the rights of the party whose jury verdict has been set aside on appeal and who may have valid grounds for a new trial, some or all of which should be passed upon by the district court, rather than the court of appeals, because of the trial judge’s first-hand knowledge of witnesses, testimony, and issues — because of his “feel” for the overall case. These are very valid concerns to which the court of appeals should be constantly alert. Where a defendant moves for n. o. v. in the trial court, the plaintiff may present, in connection with that motion or with a separate motion after n. o. v. is granted, his grounds for a new trial or voluntary nonsuit. Clearly, where he retains his verdict in the trial court and the defendant appeals, plaintiff should have the opportunity which 50 (d) affords him to press those same or different grounds in the court of appeals. And .obviously judgment for defendant-appellant should not be ordered where the plaintiff-appellee urges grounds for a nonsuit or new trial which should more appropriately be addressed to the trial court.
But these considerations do not justify an ironclad rule that the court of appeals should never order dismissal or judgment for defendant when the plaintiff’s verdict has been set aside on appeal. Such a rule would not serve the purpose of Rule 50. to speed litigation and to avoid unnecessary retrials. Nor do any of our cases mandate such a rule. Indeed, in Pence v. United States, 316 U. S. 332, we affirmed a Court of Appeals decision reversing the trial court’s failure to grant judgment n. o. v. And in New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Henagan, 364 U. S. 441, this Court itself directed entry of judgment for a verdict loser whose proper request for judgment n. o. v. had been wrongly denied by the District Court and by the Court of Appeals. In view of these cases, the language of Rule 50 (d), and the statutory grant of broad appellate jurisdiction, we think a more discriminating approach is preferable to the inflexible rule for which the petitioner contends.
There are, on the one hand, situations where the defendant’s grounds for setting aside the- jury’s verdict raise questions of subject matter jurisdiction or disposi-tive issues of law which, if resolved in defendant’s favor, must necessarily terminate the litigation. The court of appeals may hold in an employer’s suit against a union, for example, that the case is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, or in a libel, suit, that the defendant was absolutely privileged t"o publish the disputed statement. In such situations, and others like them, there can be no reason whatsoever to prevent the court of appeals from ordering dismissal of the action or the entry of judgment for the defendant.
On the other hand, where the court of appeals sets aside the jury’s verdict because the evidence was insufficient to send the case to the jury, it is not so clear that the litigation should be terminated. Although many of the plaintiff-appellee’s possible grounds for a new trial, such as inadequacy of the verdict, will iiot survive a decision that the case should not have gone to the jury in the first place, there remain important considerations which may entitle him to a new trial. The erroneous exclusion of evidence which would have strengthened his case is an important possibility. Another is that the trial court itself caused the insufficiency in plaintiff-appellee’s case by erroneously placing too high a burden of proof on him at trial. But issues like these are issues of law with which the courts of appeals regularly and characteristically must deal. The district court in all likelihood has already ruled on these questions in the course of the trial and, in any event, has no special advantage or competence in dealing with them. They are precisely the kind of issues that the losing defendant below may bring to the court of appeals without ever moving for a new trial in the district court. Cf. Globe Liquor Co. v. San Roman, 332 U. S. 571, 574. Likewise, if the plaintiff's verdict is set aside by the trial court on defendant's motion for judgment n. o. v., plaintiff may bring these Very grounds directly to the court of appeals without moving for a new trial in the district court. Final action on these issues normally rests with the court of appeals.
A plaintiff whose jury verdict is set aside by the trial court on defendant’s motion for judgment n. o. v. may ask the trial judge to grant a voluntary nonsuit to give plaintiff another chance to fill a gap in his proof. Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U. S., at 217. The plaintiff-appellee should have this same opportunity when his verdict is set aside on appeal. Undoubtedly, in many cases this question will call for an exercise of the trial court’s discretion. However, there is no substantial reason why the appellee should not present the matter to the court of appeals, which can if necessary remand the case to permit initial consideration by the district court.
In these cases where the challenge of the defendant-appellant is,to the sufficiency of the evidence, the record in the court of appeals will very likely be a full one. Thus, the appellee will not be required to designate ahd print additional parts of the record to substantiate his grounds for a nonsuit (or a new trial), and it should not be an undue burden in the course of arguing for his verdict to indicate in his brief why he is entitled to a new trial should his judgment be set aside. Moreover, the appellee can choose for his own convenience, when to make his case for a new trial: he may bring his grounds for new trial to the trial judge’s attention when defendant first makes an n. o. v. .motion, he may argue this question in his brief to the court of appeals, or he may in suitable situations seek rehearing from the court of appeals after his judgment has been reversed.
In our view, therefore, Rule 50 (d) makes express and adequate provision for the opportunity — which the plaintiff-appellee had without this rule — to present his grounds for a new trial in the event his verdict is set aside by the court of appeals. If he does so in his brief — or in a petition for rehearing if the court of appeals has directed entry of judgment for appellant— the court of appeals may make final disposition of the issues presented, except those which in its informed discretion should be reserved for the tri&l court. If appellee presents no new trial issues in his brief or in a petition for rehearing, the court of appeals may, in any event, order a new trial on its own motion or refer the question to the district court, based on factors encountered in its own review of the case. Compare Weade v. Dichmann, Wright & Pugh, Inc., supra.
In the case before us, petitioner won a verdict in the District Court which survived respondent’s motion for judgment n. o. v. In the Court of Appeals the issue was the sufficiency of the evidence and that court set aside the verdict. Petitioner, as appellee, suggested no grounds for a new trial in the event her judgment was reversed, nor did she petition for rehearing in the Court of Appeals, even though that court had directed a' dismissal of her case. Neither was it suggested that the record was insufficient to present any new trial issues or that any other reason required a remand to the District Court. Indeed, in her brief in the Court of Appeals, petitioner stated, “This law' suit was fairly tried and the jury was properly instructed.” It was, of course, incumbent on the Court of Appeals to consider the new trial question in the light of its own experience with the case. But we will not assume that the court ignored its duty in this respect, although it would have been better had its opinion expressly dealt with the new trial question.
In a short passage at the end of her brief to this Court, petitioner suggested that she has a valid ground for a new trial in the District Court’s exclusion of opinion testimony by her witnesses concerning whether respondent’s scaffold platform was adequate for the job it was intended to perform. This matter was not raised in the Court of Appeals or in the petition for a writ of certiorari, even though the relevant portions of the transcript were made a part of the record on appeal. Under these circumstances, we see no cause for deviating from our normal policy of not considering issues which have not been presented to the Court of Appeals and which are not properly presented for review here. Supreme Court Rule 40 (1)(d)(2). See J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 428-429; California v. Taylor, 353 U. S. 553, 556-557, n. 2.
Petitioner’s case in this Court is pitched on the total lack of power in the Court of Appeals to direct entry of judgment for respondent. We have rejected that argument and therefore affirm.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Fortas, while agreeing with the Court’s construction of Rule 50, would reverse the judgment because in their view the evidence of negligence and proximate cause was sufficient to go to the jury. .
“(b) Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict. When-_ ever a motion for a directed verdict made at the close of all the evidence is denied or for any reason is not granted, the court is deemed to have submitted the action to the jury subject to a later determination of the legal questions raised by the motion. Not. later than 10 days aftér entry of judgment, a party who has moved for a directed verdict may move to have the verdict and any judgment entered thereon set aside and to have judgment entered in accordance with his motion for a directed verdict . . . . A motion for a new trial may be joined with this motion, or a new trial may be prayed for in the alternative. If a verdict was returned the court may allow the judgment to stand or may reopen the judgment and either order a new trial or direct the entry of judgment as if the requested verdict had been directed. . . .”
Principally, the amendments added new subdivisions (c) and (d) to Rule 50:
“(c) Same: Conditional Ridings on Grant of Motion.
“(1) If the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, provided for in subdivision, (b) of this rule, is granted, the court shall also rule on the motion for a new trial, if any, by determining whether it should be granted if the judgment is thereafter vacated or reversed, and shall specify the grounds for granting or denying the motion for the new trial. If the motion for a new trial is thus conditionally granted, the order thereon does not affect the finality of the judgment. In case the motion for a new trial has been conditionally granted and the judgment is reversed on appeal, the new trial shall proceed unless the appellate court has otherwise ordered. In case the motion for a new trial has been conditionally denied, the appellee on appeal may assert error in'that denial; and if the judgment is reversed on appeal, subsequent proceedings shall be in accordance with the order of the appellate court.
“(2) The party whose verdict has been set aside on motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict may serve a motion for a new trial pursuant to Rule 59 not later than 10 days after entry of the judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
“(d) Same: Denial of Motion. If the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict is .denied, the party who prevailed on that motion may, as appellee, assert grounds entitling him to a new trial in the event the appellate court concludes that the trial court erred in denying the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. If the appellate court reverses the judgment, nothing in this rule precludes it from determining that the appellee is entitled to a new trial, or from directing the trial court to determine whether a new 'trial shall be granted.”
Petitioner presented the following question in her petition for a writ of certiorari: >•
“Do Rules 50 (d) and 38 (a) Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States preclude the Court of Appeals from instructing the trial court to dismiss an action wherein the trial court denied the defendant’s motions for new trial and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and entered judgment for the plaintiff?”
In view of the question presented by petitioner and our order granting certiorari, we do not consider whether the Court of Appeals correctly held that petitioner’s evidence of negligence and proximate cause was insufficient to go to the jury.
The Advisory Committee explains: “If the motion for new trial has been conditionally granted . . . [t]he party against whom the judgment n. o. v. was entered below may, as appellant, besides seeking to overthrow that judgment, also attack the condi-tional grant of the new trial. And the appellate court, if it reverses the judgment n. o. v., may in an appropriate case also reverse the conditional grant of the new trial and direct that judgment be entered on the verdict.” 31 F. R. D. 645. See Lind v. Schenley Indus. Inc., 278 F. 2d 79 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1960), cert. denied, 364 U. S. 835; Moist Cold Refrigerator Co. v. Lou Johnson Co., 249 F. 2d 246 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1957), cert. denied, 356 U. S. 968; Bailey v. Slentz, 189 F. 2d 406 (C. A. 10th Cir. 1951). See also Tribble v. Bruin, 279 F. 2d 424 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1960).
Since the decision in Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., six courts of appeals have reversed the denial of a Rule SO (b) motion and directed entry of judgment n. o. v. in addition to the Tenth Circuit’s decision in this case. See, e. g., Capital Transit Co. v. Gamble, 82 U. S. App. D. C. 57, 160 F. 2d 283; Stopper v. Manhattan Life Ins. Co., 241 F. 2d 465 (C. A. 3d Cir.), cert. denied, 355 U. S. 815; Richmond Television Corp. v. United States, 354 F. 2d 410 (C. A. 4th Cir.); Mills v. Mitsubishi Shipping Co., 358 F. 2d 609 (C. A. 5th Cir.); Lappin v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 337 F. 2d 399 (C. A. 7th Cir.); Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Pistolesi, 160 F. 2d 668 (C. A. 9th Cir.). The other, circuits had rendered similar decisions prior to Cone. See Ferro Concrete Constr. Co. v. United States, 112 F. 2d 488 (C. A. 1st Cir.), cert. denied, 311 U. S. 697; Brennan v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 115 F. 2d 555 (C. A. 2d Cir.), cert. denied, 312 U. S. 685; Connecticut Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Lanahan, 113 F. 2d 935, modifying 112 F. 2d 375 (C. A. 6th Cir.); Federal Sav. & Loan Ins. Corp. v. Kearney Trust Co., 151 F. 2d 720 (C. A. 8th Cir.).
The Advisory Committee’s Note to Rule 50(c)(2) explains: “Even if the verdict-winner makes no motion for a new trial, he is entitled upon his appeal from the judgment n. o. v. not only to urge that that judgment should be reversed and judgment entered upon the verdict, but that errors were committed during the trial which at the. least entitle him to a new trial.” 31 F. R. D. 646.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Attorney General sought and obtained in the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania an injunction against the continuation of an industry-wide strike of workers in the basic steel industry pursuant to § 208 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 155, 29 U. S. C. § 178. We granted certiorari, post, p. 878, to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 271 F. 2d 676, affirming the District Court. In pertinent part, § 208 provides that if the District Court—
“finds that ... [a] threatened or.actual strike or lock-out—
“ (i) affects an entire industry or a substantial part thereof engaged in trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or with foreign nations, or engaged-in the production of goods for commerce; and "
“(ii) if permitted to occur or to continue, will imperil the national health or safety, it-shall have jurisdiction to enjoin-any such strike or lock-out, or the continuing thereof, and to make such other orders . as may be appropriate.”
The arguments of the parties here and in the lower courts have addressed themselves in considerable part to the propriety of the District Court’s exercising its equitable jurisdiction to enjoin the strike in question once the findings set forth above had been made. These argument's have ranged widely into broad issues óf national labor policy, the availability of other remedies to the Executive, the effect of a labor injunction on the collective bargaining process, consideration of the conduct of the parties to the labor dispute in their negotiations, and conjecture as to the course of those negotiations in the future. We do not believe that Congress in passing the statute intended that the issuance of injunctions should depend upon judicial inquiries of this nature. Congress was not concerned with the merits of the parties’/ positions or the conduct of their negotiations. Its basic purpose seems to have been to see that vital production should be resumed or continued for a time while further efforts were made to settle the dispute. To carry out its purposes, Congress carefully surrounded the injunction proceedings with "detailed procedural devices and limitations. The public report of a board of inquiry, the exercise of political and executive responsibility personally by the President in directing' the commencement of injunction proceedings, the-statutory provisions looking toward an adjustment of the dispute during the injunction’s pendency, and the limited duration of the injunction, represent a- congressional determination of policy factors involved in the difficult problem of national emergency strikes. This congressional determination of the policy factors is of course binding on the courts.
The statute imposes upon the courts the duty of finding, upon the evidence adduced, whether a strike or lockout meets the statutory conditions of breadth of involvement and peril to the national health or safety. We have accordingly reviewed the-concurrent findings of the two lower courts. Petitioner here contests the findings that the continuation of the strike would imperil the national health and safety. The parties dispute the meaning of the statutory term “national health”; the Government insists that the term comprehends the country’s general well-being, its economic health; petitioner urges that simply the physical health of the citizenry is meant. We need not resolve this question, for we think the judgment below is amply supported on the ground that the strike imperils the national safety. Here we rely upon the evidence of the strike’s effect on specific defense projects; we need not pass on the Government’s contention that “national safety” in this context should be given a broader, construction and application. .
The petitioner suggests that a .selective reopening of some of the steel mills would suffice to fulfill specific defense needs. The statute was designed to provide a ■ public remedy in times of emergency; we cannot construe it to require that the United States either formulate a reorganization of the affected industry to satisfy its defense needs without the complete reopening of closed facilities, or demonstrate in court the unfeasibility of such a reorganization. There is no room in the statute for this requirement which the petitioner seeks to impose on the Government.
We are of opinion that, the provision in question as applied here is not violative of the constitutional limitation prohibiting courts from exercising powers of a legislative or executive nature, powers not capable of being conferred upon a court exercising solely “the judicial power of the United States.” Keller v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 261 U. S. 428; Federal Radio Comm’n v. General Elec. Co., 281 U. S. 464. Petitioner contends that the statute is constitutionally invalid because it does not set up any standard of lawful or unlawful con-.. duct on the part of labor or management. But the statute does recognize certain rights in the public to have unimpeded for a time production in industries vital to the national health or safety. It makes the United States the guardian of these rights in litigation. Cf. United States v. American Bell Tel. Co., 128 U, S. 315, 370; Sanitary District of Chicago v. United States, 266 U. S. 405. The availability of relief, in the common judicial form of an injunction, depends on findings, of fact, to be judicially made. Of the matters decided judicially, there is no review by other agencies of the Government. Cf. Gordon v. United States, 2 Wall.. 561, 117 U. S. 697. We conclude that the statute entrusts the courts only with the determination of a “case or controversy,” on which the judicial power can operate, not containing any element capable of only legislative or executive determination. We do not find that the termination of the injunction after a specified time, or the machinery established in an attempt to obtain a peaceful settlement of the underlying dispute during the injunction’s pendency, detracts from this conclusion.
The result is that the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, affirming that of the District Court, is affirmed. Our mandate shall issue forthwith.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Harlan: In'joining the Court’s opinion we note our intention to file in due course an amplification of pur views upon the issues involved which- could not be prepared within the time limitations imposed by the necessity of a prompt adjudication in this case.
The evidence in this regard is reflected in the District Court's findings of fact Nos. 15 (a), (b), (c), and (d), as follows:
“(a) Certain items of steel required in top priority military missile programs of the United States, are not made by any mill now operating, nor available from any inventory or from imports. Any further delay in resumption of steel production would result in an irretrievable loss of time in the supply of weapons systems essential to the national defense plans of the United States and its’allies.
“(b) The planned program of space activities under the direction of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been delayed by the strike and will be further delayed if it is continued. Specifically, project MERCURY, the nation’s manned satellite program, which has the highest national priority, has been delayed by reason of delay in construction of buildings essential to its opera-, tion. This program is important to the security of the nation.’ Other planned space programs will be delayed or threatened with delay by a continuation of the strike.
“ (c) Nuclear Submarines and the naval shipbuilding program other than submarines, including new construction, modernization, and conversion, have been affected by. reason of the inability to secure boilers, compressors, and other component parts requiring steel. Products of the steel industry are indispensable to the manufacture' of such items and delay in their production will irreparably injure national defense and imperil the national safety.
“(d) Exported steel products’are vital to the support of United States, bases overseas and for the use of NATO allies and similar collective security groups. The steel strike, if permitted to continue, will seriously impair these programs, thus imperiling the national safety.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint on March 27, 1950, following a charge filed August 3, 1949, by the International Woodworkers of America, Local 6-7, against respondent, Dant & Russell, Ltd. The charge was filed in accordance with the procedure of the Act, § 10 (b), and was based on violations of § 8 (a) (1) and (3). After the usual proceedings, the Board ordered respondent to take appropriate remedial action to correct the charged unfair labor practices. The International Woodworkers Union was and is an affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. There were on file with the Board at the time the charge was made the non-Communist affidavits executed by the officers of the local union as required by § 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, § 101. Affidavits executed by the officers of the C. I. 0. were filed with the Board prior to the issuance of the complaint but subsequent to the filing of the charge.
Section 9 (h) of the Act provided, at the time of the filing of the charge and the issuance of the complaint, that
“No investigation shall be made by the Board of any question affecting commerce concerning the representation of employees, raised by a labor organization under subsection (c) of this section, no petition under section 9 (e)(1) shall be entertained, and no complaint shall be issued pursuant to a charge made by a labor organization under subsection (b) of section 10, unless there is on file with the Board an affidavit executed ... by each officer of such labor organization and the officers of any national or international labor organization of which it is an affiliate . . . that he is not a member of the Communist Party . . . .”
Respondent challenged the order on the ground that the Board could not issue a valid complaint based on a charge by a union if the charging union was not in compliance with § 9 (h) when the charge was filed in spite of the fact that at the time the complaint was issued, the union was in full compliance. In response to this challenge, the Board held that § 9 (h) required compliance “at the time of the issuance of the complaint, rather than at the time of the filing of the charge.” On petition for enforcement, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit set aside the order on the single ground that, under i 9 (h), “the Board was not empowered to entertain the charge or to issue the complaint or the order.” This followed, according to the court, because our decision in Labor Board v. Highland Park Mfg. Co., 341 U. S. 322, had construed § 9 (h) as prohibiting the issuance of any complaint by the Board unless the charging labor organization was in full compliance at the time its charge was filed.
We do not think the Highland Park opinion supports the Court of Appeals opinion in the present case. That former opinion, dealing with a charge that the employer violated § 8 (a) (5) by refusing to bargain with the bargaining agent of the employees, § 9 (a), held only that the C. I. 0. was a “national or international labor organization” within the meaning of § 9 (h). For that reason the C. I. 0. was required to file non-Communist affidavits as a prerequisite to the achievement of full compliance status by its affiliates. There, the C. I. O.’s compliance with § 9 (h) occurred almost a year after the complaint had issued. Since compliance subsequent to the issuance of the complaint also occurred in the other decisions relied on by the court below, language in them concerning the institution of proceedings was not directed at charges under § 8 (a) (3) and therefore there was no occasion for those courts to analyze § 9 (h) to determine its applicability to the present situation.
In respondent’s view, and in the view of the Courts of Appeals that have considered this issue, § 9 (h) precludes noncomplying unions from filing “valid” charges, and prohibits the Board from taking any action on a charge filed by a noncomplying union. We do not agree. Section 9 (h) prohibited the Board from doing three things. It specifically stated that “unless” the prerequisite affidavits had been filed, the Board shall not (1) make an “investigation” as authorized by § 9 (c) concerning the representation of employees; (2) entertain a “petition under section 9 (e)(1),” as it then stood; or (3) issue a “complaint . . . pursuant to a charge made by a labor organization under subsection (b) of section 10.” It does not by its terms preclude either the filing of a charge by a noncomplying labor organization or the entertainment of the charge by the Board.
The “unless” clause limits the issuance of a “complaint.” It has no specific reference to the phrase “pursuant to a charge made by a labor organization.” If Congress had intended to enact such a requirement for the filing of the charge, it would have been a simple matter to have stated that “no charge shall be entertained.” We think the purpose of the “pursuant” phrase is to make it clear that the “unless” limitation on the issuance of complaints is restricted to charges filed by such labor organizations and does not apply to charges filed by individuals, or by employers against such organizations. The phrase so construed follows the pattern of the first phrase in § 9 (h) which applies to proceedings by employees for collective bargaining representation “raised by a labor organization under subsection (c) of this section.” That there is no such qualifying clause in § 9 (h) for the union-shop election clause provision of §9 (e)(1), as it then read, is in accord with this construction, for all petitions for such an election would then have been filed on behalf of a union.
The requirements for non-Communist affidavits in § 9 (h) make it unlawful for the Board to investigate a petition by a labor organization under § 9 (c) for collective bargaining representation. Likewise the absence of such affidavits kept the Board from entertaining a petition for a union-shop election under §9 (e)(1). The careful specification in § 9 (h) that these affidavits must be filed before investigation, entertainment or complaint shows that § 9 (h) was not directed at the filing of a charge. Such particularity distinguishes between charge and complaint.
This has been the position of the Board from the enactment of the Labor Management Relations Act. Section 102.13 (b) (2) of the Board’s Rules and Regulations, effective August 18, 1948, defines compliance with § 9 (h) of the Act in terms of requiring the affidavits to be “executed contemporaneously with the charge (or petition).” This, however, is a direction as to what should be done and is not an interpretation by the Board of the requirement of § 9 (h). According to § 102.13 (b), the definition of compliance is set down, “For the purpose of the regulations in this part.” The Board had made it clear in § 101.3 of these Rules that there is a 10-day period of grace given to charging unions to achieve compliance status. The Board states it has followed a practice of extending this period upon a proper showing that the union is making a diligent effort to comply. An interpretation that the Act permits the filing of a charge prior to compliance with § 9 (h) is the same as that made by the Board in an opinion as early as December 16, 1948, In the Matter of Southern Fruit Distributors, 80 N. L. R. B. 1283. That opinion was handed down by the Board before our ruling in the Highland Park case and the position has been maintained, though the Board failed to set out fully in its opinions the reason for its conclusion.
Respondent urges that the above construction of § 9 (h) weakens the over-all purpose of the section in that it allows the Board to provide noncomplying labor organizations with substantial benefits by the filing of the charge without any assurance of compliance.
Phrased differently, the argument is that the benefits of the Act may not flow to a labor organization unless the non-Communist affidavits are on file. We agree with the argument, and believe that it is in accord with our interpretation of § 9 (h). Since the remedial processes of the Act to cure practices forbidden by § 8 (a)(3) can only be invoked by the issuance of a complaint, we do not see how a noncomplying labor organization can be said to benefit from the fact that it need not be in compliance at the date of the filing of the charge. The filing of a charge, which is subject to dismissal within 10 days under the Board’s rule, unless reasonable assurance is given by the filing union that it will comply with the affidavit requirement, is of no benefit to the charging union unless it is followed by the issuance of a complaint. Absent the issuance of a complaint, the filing of a charge is a useless act.
Another factor militating against the construction of the Act adopted below arises out of the fluid and elective nature of the official personnel of labor unions. As a practical matter, elections of new officers, changes in organizational structures, difficulties and delays in auditing financial statements or in obtaining information with respect to the numerous details which § 9 (f) and (g) requires, make compliance at a given moment, or continuous compliance, a matter of happenstance. Under § 9 (f) and (g) the filing of union financial and organizational reports is also a condition precedent to the issuance of complaints under subsection (b) of § 10 of the Act. It would seem that the construction of § 9 (h) urged by respondent would lead to a like construction of §9 (f) and (g). Such normal noncompliance at the time of filing a charge should not work to frustrate the Act’s purpose of remedying unfair labor practices committed against unions which do have leadership willing to comply.
Finally, respondent makes the argument that its position is supported by the legislative history of § 9 (h). But in the face of the specific words of the statute, the legislative history does not persuade us. It contains no discussion of the necessity of filing § 9 (h) affidavits before filing the charge. The purpose of § 9 (h) was to stop the use of the Labor Board by union leaders unwilling to be limited in government by the processes of reason. That purpose was sought through the elimination of such leaders rather than by making difficult the union’s compliance with the Act. The legislative comments are to be read in that light. Indeed those comments are so lacking in definitiveness on the point here at issue that both parties suggest that § 9 (h) itself best shows the purpose of Congress.
We hold that the sought-for congressional intent is found in the language of the Act; and as we have found it, the decision below must be reversed.
Reversed.
National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U. S. C. § 158:
“ (a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title;
“(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization: Provided,
29 U. S. C. § 160:
“(b) Whenever it is charged that any person has engaged in or is engaging in any such unfair labor practice, the Board . . . shall have power to issue and cause to be served upon such person a complaint stating the charges in that respect, and containing a notice of hearing before the Board
Section 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 146, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §159 (h).
The clause “no petition under section 9 (e) (1) shall be entertained” was deleted by Act of October 22, 1951, 65 Stat. 601.
195 F. 2d 299, 300. The Courts of Appeals for the Third and Fifth Circuits have taken similar positions where the affidavits were filed prior to the issuance of the complaints in Labor Board v. Nina Dye Works Co., Inc., 198 F. 2d 362; and Labor Board v. American Thread Co., 198 F. 2d 137, respectively. Each of these cases agreed with the analysis and conclusion of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the present case. See judgment of this Court reversing these decisions entered today, post, p. 924.
84 N. L. R. B. 744, 745.
Labor Board v. Postex Cotton Mills, 181 F. 2d 919; Labor Board v. J. I. Case Co., 189 F. 2d 599; Labor Board v. Clark Shoe Co., 189 F. 2d 731.
See S. 655, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., introduced by Senator Taft to amend § 9 (h) by forbidding entertainment by the Board of a charge under § 10 (b) unless the required affidavits are filed.
29 CFR §102.13:
“(b) For the purpose of the regulations in this part, compliance with section 9 (h) of the act means in the case of a national or international labor organization, that it has filed with the general counsel in Washington, D. C., and in the case of a local labor organization, that any national or international labor organization of which it is an affiliate or constituent body has filed with the general counsel in Washington, D. C., and that the labor organization has filed with the regional director in the region in which the proceeding is pending:
“(2) An affidavit by each officer referred to in subparagraph (1) of this paragraph, executed contemporaneously with the charge (or petition) or within the preceding 12-month period, stating that he is not a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such party, and that he does not believe in, and is not a member of or supports any organization that believes in or teaches, the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods.”
29 CFR §101.3:
“(b) In addition, the labor organization and every national or international labor organization of which it is an affiliate or constituent unit must have complied with section 9 (h) of the act as follows: At the time of filing -the charge (or petition) or prior thereto, or within a reasonable period not to exceed 10 days thereafter, the national or international labor organization shall have on file with the general counsel in Washington, D. C., and the local labor organization shall have on file with the regional director in the region in which the proceeding is pending, or in which it customarily files cases, a declaration by an authorized agent executed contemporaneously or within the preceding 12-month period listing the titles of all offices of the filing organization and stating the names of the incumbents, if any, in each such office and the date of expiration of each incumbent’s term, and an affidavit from each such officer, executed contemporaneously or within the preceding 12-month period, stating that he is not a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such party and that he does not believe in, and is not a member of nor supports any organization that believes in or teaches the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods.”
Respondent asserts that this practice, which was followed by the Board in this case, contravenes § 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act. That section requires every agency to publish in the Federal Register “statements of the general course and method by which its functions are channeled and determined, including the nature and requirement of all formal or informal procedures available,” and provides that “[n]o person shall in any manner be required to resort to organization or procedure not so published.” 5 U. S. C. § 1002 (a). The Board’s practice of extending the 10-day period on a proper showing by the labor organization can hardly be called a procedure to which respondent was required to resort.
In the Matter of H & H Manufacturing Co., Inc., 87 N. L. R. B. 1373. Compare a contrary position taken by the Third Circuit in Labor Board v. Nina Dye Works Co., Inc., 198 F. 2d 362.
N. L. R. B. Rules and Regulations and Statement of Procedure, 29 CFR §§ 101.3 and 102.13.
29 U. S. C. § 159:
“(f) ... No investigation shall be made by the Board of any question affecting commerce concerning the representation of employees, raised by a labor organization under subsection (c) of this section, and no complaint shall be issued pursuant to a charge made by a labor organization under subsection (b), of section 160 of this title, unless such labor organization and any national or international labor organization of which such labor organization is an affiliate or constituent unit (A) shall have prior thereto filed with the Secretary of Labor copies of its constitution and bylaws and a report, in such form as the Secretary may prescribe, showing— ....
“ (g) ... It shall be the obligation of all labor organizations to file annually with the Secretary of Labor, in such form as the Secretary of Labor may prescribe, reports bringing up to date the information required to be supplied in the initial filing by subsection (f) (A) of this section, and to file with the Secretary of Labor and furnish to its members annually financial reports in the form and manner prescribed in subsection (f) (B) of this section. No labor organization shall be eligible for certification under this section as the representative of any employees, and no complaint shall issue under section 160 of this title with respect to a charge filed by a labor organization unless it can show that it and any national or international labor organization of which it is an affiliate or constituent unit has complied with its obligation under this subsection.”
The House Conference Report No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 46, speaks of the filing of the required data as a condition to the labor organization’s receiving “benefits under the act.” To the same effect see the analysis of the Act at 93 Cong. Rec. 6534. Senator Taft, in analyzing the differences between the Senate bill and the Conference Report, stated: “Subsection 9 (h) of the conference agreement embodies the principle . . . which would have prevented a labor organization from being eligible for certification if any of its . . . officers were members or affiliates of the Communist Party .... There was a similar provision in the House bill .... In reconciling the two provisions the conferees took into account the fact that representation proceedings might be indefinitely delayed if the Board was required to investigate the character of all the local and national officers as well as the character of the officers of the parent body or federation. The conference agreement provides that no certification shall be made or any complaint issued unless the labor organization in question submits affidavits executed by each of its officers ... to the effect that they are not members or affiliates” of organizations accepting the doctrine of violence in government. 93 Cong. Rec. 6444.
Referring to subsections 9 (f) and (g), containing provisions regarding financial reports, similar to those of § 9 (h), Senator Taft stated that “[t]he filing of such report is a condition of certification as bargaining agent under the law, and is also a condition of the right to file any charges under the . . . Act.” 93 Cong. Rec. 3839. Congressman Hartley’s remarks were that the section “prohibits labor organizations from invoking the processes of the act unless all of the officers file affidavits with the board that they are not members of the Communist Party . . . .” 93 Cong. Rec. 6383. In the House Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 51-52, it was stated that the bill which was enacted made several changes with respect to § 9 (f) and (g). “First, the filing of the information and reports is made a condition ... to eligibility for filing petitions for representation and eligibility for making changes.” To the same effect see also the subsequent statement of Congressman Hartley, in his book, “Our New National Labor Policy,” at pp. 162-163.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must decide whether federal law pre-empts the New Hampshire design-defect claim under which respondent Karen Bartlett recovered damages from petitioner Mutual Pharmaceutical, the manufacturer of sulindac, a generic nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). New Hampshire law imposes a duty on manufacturers to ensure that the drugs they market are not unreasonably unsafe, and a drug's safety is evaluated by reference to both its chemical properties and the adequacy of its warnings. Because Mutual was unable to change sulindac's composition as a matter of both federal law and basic chemistry, New Hampshire's design-defect cause of action effectively required Mutual to change sulindac's labeling to provide stronger warnings. But, as this Court recognized just two Terms ago in PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, 564 U.S. ----, 131 S.Ct. 2567, 180 L.Ed.2d 580 (2011), federal law prohibits generic drug manufacturers from independently changing their drugs' labels. Accordingly, state law imposed a duty on Mutual not to comply with federal law. Under the Supremacy Clause, state laws that require a private party to violate federal law are pre-empted and, thus, are "without effect." Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 746, 101 S.Ct. 2114, 68 L.Ed.2d 576 (1981).
The Court of Appeals' solution-that Mutual should simply have pulled sulindac from the market in order to comply with both state and federal law-is no solution. Rather, adopting the Court of Appeals' stop-selling rationale would render impossibility pre-emption a dead letter and work a revolution in this Court's pre-emption case law.
Accordingly, we hold that state-law design-defect claims that turn on the adequacy of a drug's warnings are pre-empted by federal law under PLIVA. We thus reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals below.
I
Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), ch. 675, 52 Stat. 1040, as amended, 21 U.S.C. § 301 et seq., drug manufacturers must gain approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before marketing any drug in interstate commerce. § 355(a). In the case of a new brand-name drug, FDA approval can be secured only by submitting a new-drug application (NDA). An NDA is a compilation of materials that must include "full reports of [all clinical]
investigations," § 355(b)(1)(A), relevant nonclinical studies, and "any other data or information relevant to an evaluation of the safety and effectiveness of the drug product obtained or otherwise received by the applicant from any source," 21 C.F.R. §§ 314.50(d)(2) and (5)(iv) (2012). The NDA must also include "the labeling proposed to be used for such drug," 21 U.S.C. § 355(b)(1)(F) ; 21 C.F.R. § 314.50(c)(2)(i), and "a discussion of why the [drug's] benefits exceed the risks under the conditions stated in the labeling," 21 C.F.R. § 314.50(d)(5)(viii) ; § 314.50(c)(2)(ix). The FDA may approve an NDA only if it determines that the drug in question is "safe for use" under "the conditions of use prescribed, recommended, or suggested in the proposed labeling thereof." 21 U.S.C. § 355(d). In order for the FDA to consider a drug safe, the drug's "probable therapeutic benefits must outweigh its risk of harm." FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 140, 120 S.Ct. 1291, 146 L.Ed.2d 121 (2000).
The process of submitting an NDA is both onerous and lengthy. See Report to Congressional Requesters, Government Accountability Office, Nov. 2006, New Drug Development, 26 Biotechnology L. Rep. 82, 94 (2007) (A typical NDA spans thousands of pages and is based on clinical trials conducted over several years). In order to provide a swifter route for approval of generic drugs, Congress passed the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, 98 Stat. 1585, popularly known as the "Hatch-Waxman Act." Under Hatch-Waxman, a generic drug may be approved without the same level of clinical testing required for approval of a new brand-name drug, provided the generic drug is identical to the already-approved brand-name drug in several key respects.
First, the proposed generic drug must be chemically equivalent to the approved brand-name drug: it must have the same "active ingredient" or "active ingredients," "route of administration," "dosage form," and "strength" as its brand-name counterpart. 21 U.S.C. §§ 355(j)(2)(A)(ii) and (iii). Second, a proposed generic must be "bioequivalent" to an approved brand-name drug. § 355(j)(2)(A)(iv). That is, it must have the same "rate and extent of absorption" as the brand-name drug. § 355(j)(8)(B). Third, the generic drug manufacturer must show that "the labeling proposed for the new drug is the same as the labeling approved for the [approved brand-name] drug." § 355(j)(2)(A)(v).
Once a drug-whether generic or brand-name-is approved, the manufacturer is prohibited from making any major changes to the "qualitative or quantitative formulation of the drug product, including active ingredients, or in the specifications provided in the approved application." 21 C.F.R. § 314.70(b)(2)(i). Generic manufacturers are also prohibited from making any unilateral changes to a drug's label. See §§ 314.94(a)(8)(iii), 314.150(b)(10) (approval for a generic drug may be withdrawn if the generic drug's label "is no longer consistent with that for [the brand-name] drug").
II
In 1978, the FDA approved a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pain reliever called "sulindac" under the brand name Clinoril. When Clinoril's patent expired, the FDA
approved several generic sulindacs, including one manufactured by Mutual Pharmaceutical. 678 F.3d 30, 34 (C.A.1 2012) (case below); App. to Pet. for Cert. 144a-145a. In a very small number of patients, NSAIDs-including both sulindac and popular NSAIDs such as ibuprofen, naproxen, and Cox2-inhibitors-have the serious side effect of causing two hypersensitivity skin reactions characterized by necrosis of the skin and of the mucous membranes: toxic epidermal necrolysis, and its less severe cousin, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. 678 F.3d, at 34, 43-44; Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary 1872 (31st ed. 2007); Physicians' Desk Reference 146-147, 597 (6th ed. 2013); Friedman, Orlet, Still, & Law, Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis Due to Administration of Celecobix (Celebrex ), 95 Southern Medical J. 1213, 1213-1214 (2002).
In December 2004, respondent Karen L. Bartlett was prescribed Clinoril for shoulder pain. Her pharmacist dispensed a generic form of sulindac, which was manufactured by petitioner Mutual Pharmaceutical. Respondent soon developed an acute case of toxic epidermal necrolysis. The results were horrific. Sixty to sixty-five percent of the surface of respondent's body deteriorated, was burned off, or turned into an open wound. She spent months in a medically induced coma, underwent 12 eye surgeries, and was tube-fed for a year. She is now severely disfigured, has a number of physical disabilities, and is nearly blind.
At the time respondent was prescribed sulindac, the drug's label did not specifically refer to Stevens-Johnson Syndrome or toxic epidermal necrolysis, but did warn that the drug could cause "severe skin reactions" and "[f]atalities." App. 553; 731 F.Supp.2d 135, 142 (D.N.H.2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). However, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis were listed as potential adverse reactions on the drug's package insert. 678 F.3d, at 36, n. 1. In 2005-once respondent was already suffering from toxic epidermal necrolysis -the FDA completed a "comprehensive review of the risks and benefits, [including the risk of toxic epidermal necrolysis ], of all approved NSAID products." Decision Letter, FDA Docket No. 2005P-0072/CP1, p. 2 (June 22, 2006), online at http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/05p0072/05p-0072-pav0001-vol1.pdf (as visited June 18, 2013, and available in Clerk of Court's case file). As a result of that review, the FDA recommended changes to the labeling of all NSAIDs, including sulindac, to more explicitly warn against toxic epidermal necrolysis. App. 353-354, 364, 557-561, 580, and n. 8.
Respondent sued Mutual in New Hampshire state court, and Mutual removed the case to federal court. Respondent initially asserted both failure-to-warn and design-defect claims, but the District Court dismissed her failure-to-warn claim based on her doctor's "admi[ssion] that he had not read the box label or insert." 678 F.3d, at 34. After a 2-week trial on respondent's design-defect claim, a jury found Mutual liable and awarded respondent over $21 million in damages.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. 678 F.3d 30. As relevant, it found that neither the FDCA nor the FDA's regulations pre-empted respondent's design-defect claims. It distinguished PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, 564 U.S. ----, 131 S.Ct. 2567 -in which the Court held that failure-to-warn claims against generic manufacturers are pre-empted by the FDCA's prohibition on changes to generic drug labels-by arguing that generic manufacturers facing design-defect claims could simply "choose not to make the drug at all" and thus comply with both federal and state law. 678 F.3d, at 37. We granted certiorari. 568 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 694, 184 L.Ed.2d 496 (2012).
III
The Supremacy Clause provides that the laws and treaties of the United States "shall be the supreme Law of the Land... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." U.S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2. Accordingly, it has long been settled that state laws that conflict with federal law are "without effect." Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S., at 746, 101 S.Ct. 2114; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 427, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). See also Gade v. National Solid Wastes Management Assn., 505 U.S. 88, 108, 112 S.Ct. 2374, 120 L.Ed.2d 73 (1992) ("[U]nder the Supremacy Clause, from which our pre-emption doctrine is derived, any state law, however clearly within a State's acknowledged power, which interferes with or is contrary to federal law, must yield" (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Even in the absence of an express pre-emption provision, the Court has found state law to be impliedly pre-empted where it is "impossible for a private party to comply with both state and federal requirements." English v. General Elec. Co., 496 U.S. 72, 79, 110 S.Ct. 2270, 110 L.Ed.2d 65 (1990). See also Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 142-143, 83 S.Ct. 1210, 10 L.Ed.2d 248 (1963) ("A holding of federal exclusion of state law is inescapable and requires no inquiry into congressional design where compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility for one engaged in interstate commerce").
In the instant case, it was impossible for Mutual to comply with both its state-law duty to strengthen the warnings on sulindac's label and its federal-law duty not to alter sulindac's label. Accordingly, the state law is pre-empted.
A
We begin by identifying petitioner's duties under state law. As an initial matter, respondent is wrong in asserting that the purpose of New Hampshire's design-defect cause of action "is compensatory, not regulatory." Brief for Respondent 19. Rather, New Hampshire's design-defect cause of action imposes affirmative duties on manufacturers.
Respondent is correct that New Hampshire has adopted the doctrine of strict liability in tort as set forth in Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. See 2 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A (1963 and 1964) (hereinafter Restatement 2d). See Buttrick v. Arthur Lessard & Sons, Inc., 110 N.H. 36, 37-39, 260 A.2d 111, 112-113 (1969).
Under the Restatement-and consequently, under New Hampshire tort law-"[o]ne who sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his property is subject to liability for physical harm thereby caused" even though he "has exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of the product." Restatement 2d § 402A, at 347-348.
But respondent's argument conflates what we will call a "strict-liability" regime (in which liability does not depend on negligence, but still signals the breach of a duty) with what we will call an "absolute-liability" regime (in which liability does not reflect the breach of any duties at all, but merely serves to spread risk). New Hampshire has adopted the former, not the latter. Indeed, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has consistently held that the manufacturer of a product has a "duty to design his product reasonably safely for the uses which he can foresee." Thibault v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 118 N.H. 802, 809, 395 A.2d 843, 847 (1978). See also Reid v. Spadone Mach. Co., 119 N.H. 457, 465, 404 A.2d 1094, 1099 (1979) ("In New Hampshire, the manufacturer is under a general duty to design his product reasonably safely for the uses which he can foresee" (internal quotation marks omitted));
Chellman v. Saab-Scania AB, 138 N.H. 73, 78, 637 A.2d 148, 150 (1993) ("The duty to warn is part of the general duty to design, manufacture and sell products that are reasonably safe for their foreseeable uses"); cf. Simoneau v. South Bend Lathe, Inc., 130 N.H. 466, 469, 543 A.2d 407, 409 (1988) ("We limit the application of strict tort liability in this jurisdiction by continuing to emphasize that liability without negligence is not liability without fault"); Price v. BIC Corp., 142 N.H. 386, 390, 702 A.2d 330, 333 (1997) (cautioning "that the term 'unreasonably dangerous' should not be interpreted so broadly as to impose absolute liability on manufacturers or make them insurers of their products"). Accordingly, respondent is incorrect in arguing that New Hampshire's strict-liability system "imposes no substantive duties on manufacturers." Brief for Respondent 19.
B
That New Hampshire tort law imposes a duty on manufacturers is clear. Determining the content of that duty requires somewhat more analysis. As discussed below in greater detail, New Hampshire requires manufacturers to ensure that the products they design, manufacture, and sell are not "unreasonably dangerous." The New Hampshire Supreme Court has recognized that this duty can be satisfied either by changing a drug's design or by changing its labeling. Since Mutual did not have the option of changing sulindac's design, New Hampshire law ultimately required it to change sulindac's labeling.
Respondent argues that, even if New Hampshire law does impose a duty on drug manufacturers, that duty does not encompass either the "duty to change sulindac's design" or the duty "to change sulindac's labeling." Brief for Respondent 30 (capitalization and emphasis deleted). That argument cannot be correct. New Hampshire imposes design-defect liability only where "the design of the product created a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user."
Vautour v. Body Masters Sports Industries, Inc., 147 N.H. 150, 153, 784 A.2d 1178, 1181 (2001) ; Chellman, supra, at 77, 637 A.2d, at 150. To determine whether a product is "unreasonably dangerous," the New Hampshire Supreme Court employs a "risk-utility approach" under which "a product is defective as designed if the magnitude of the danger outweighs the utility of the product." Vautour, supra, at 154, 784 A.2d, at 1182 (internal quotation marks omitted). That risk-utility approach requires a "multifaceted balancing process involving evaluation of many conflicting factors." Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Thibault,supra, at 809, 395 A.2d, at 847 (same).
While the set of factors to be considered is ultimately an open one, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has repeatedly identified three factors as germane to the risk-utility inquiry: "the usefulness and desirability of the product to the public as a whole, whether the risk of danger could have been reduced without significantly affecting either the product's effectiveness or manufacturing cost, and the presence and efficacy of a warning to avoid an unreasonable risk of harm from hidden dangers or from foreseeable uses." Vautour,supra, at 154, 784 A.2d, at 1182; see also Price, supra, at 389, 702 A.2d, at 333 (same); Chellman, supra, at 77-78, 637 A.2d, at 150 (same).
In the drug context, either increasing the "usefulness" of a product or reducing its "risk of danger" would require redesigning the drug: A drug's usefulness and its risk of danger are both direct results of its chemical design and, most saliently, its active ingredients. See 21 C.F.R. § 201.66(b)(2) (2012) ("Active ingredient means any component that is intended to furnish pharmacological activity or other direct effect in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or to affect the structure of any function of the body of humans" (italics deleted)).
In the present case, however, redesign was not possible for two reasons. First, the FDCA requires a generic drug to have the same active ingredients, route of administration, dosage form, strength, and labeling as the brand-name drug on which it is based. 21 U.S.C. §§ 355(j)(2)(A)(ii) - (v) and (8)(B) ; 21 C.F.R. § 320.1(c). Consequently, the Court of Appeals was correct to recognize that "Mutual cannot legally make sulindac in another composition." 678 F.3d, at 37. Indeed, were Mutual to change the composition of its sulindac, the altered chemical would be a new drug that would require its own NDA to be marketed in interstate commerce. See 21 C.F.R. § 310.3(h) (giving examples of when the FDA considers a drug to be new, including cases involving "newness for drug use of any substance which composes such drug, in whole or in part"). Second, because of sulindac's simple composition, the drug is chemically incapable of being redesigned. See 678 F.3d, at 37 ("Mutual cannot legally make sulindac in another composition (nor it is apparent how it could alter a one-molecule drug anyway)").
Given the impossibility of redesigning sulindac, the only way for Mutual to ameliorate the drug's "risk-utility" profile-and thus to escape liability-was to strengthen "the presence and efficacy of [sulindac's ] warning" in such a way that the warning "avoid[ed] an unreasonable risk of harm from hidden dangers or from foreseeable uses." Vautour, supra, at 154, 784 A.2d, at 1182. See also Chellman, 138 N.H., at 78, 637 A.2d, at 150 ("The duty to warn is part of the general duty to design, manufacture and sell products that are reasonably safe for their foreseeable uses. If the design of a product makes a warning necessary to avoid an unreasonable risk of harm from a foreseeable use, the lack of warning or an ineffective warning causes the product to be defective and unreasonably dangerous" (citation omitted)). Thus, New Hampshire's design-defect cause of action imposed a duty on Mutual to strengthen sulindac's warnings.
For these reasons, it is unsurprising that allegations that sulindac's label was inadequate featured prominently at trial. Respondent introduced into evidence both the label for Mutual's sulindac at the time of her injuries and the label as revised in 2005 (after respondent had suffered her injuries). App. 553-556. Her counsel's opening statement informed the jury that "the evidence will show you that Sulindac was unreasonably dangerous and had an inadequate warning, as well.... You will hear much more evidence about why this label was inadequate in relation to this case." Tr. 110-112 (Aug. 17, 2010). And, the District Court repeatedly instructed the jury that it should evaluate sulindac's labeling in determining whether Mutual's sulindac was unreasonably dangerous. See App. 514 (jury instruction that the jury should find "a defect in design" only if it found that "Sulindac was unreasonably dangerous and that a warning was not present and effective to avoid that unreasonable danger"); ibid. (jury instruction that no design defect exists if "a warning was present and effective to avoid that unreasonable danger"). Finally, the District Court clarified in its order and opinion denying Mutual's motion for judgment as a matter of law that the adequacy of sulindac's labeling had been part of what the jury was instructed to consider. 760 F.Supp.2d 220, 231 (2011) ("if the jury found that sulindac's risks outweighed its benefits, then it could consider whether the warning-regardless of its adequacy-reduced those risks... to such an extent that it eliminated the unreasonable danger"). Thus, in accordance with New Hampshire law, the jury was presented with evidence relevant to, and was instructed to consider, whether Mutual had fulfilled its duty to label sulindac adequately so as to render the drug not "unreasonably dangerous." In holding Mutual liable, the jury determined that Mutual had breached that duty.
C
The duty imposed by federal law is far more readily apparent. As PLIVA made clear, federal law prevents generic drug manufacturers from changing their labels. See 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2577 ("Federal drug regulations, as interpreted by the FDA, prevented the Manufacturers from independently changing their generic drugs' safety labels"). See also 21 U.S.C. § 355(j)(2)(A)(v) ("[T]he labeling proposed for the new drug is the same as the labeling approved for the [approved brand-name] drug"); 21 C.F.R. §§ 314.94(a)(8)(iii), 314.150(b)(10) (approval for a generic drug may be withdrawn if the generic drug's label "is no longer consistent with that for [the brand-name] drug"). Thus, federal law prohibited Mutual from taking the remedial action required to avoid liability under New Hampshire law.
D
When federal law forbids an action that state law requires, the state law is "without effect." Maryland, 451 U.S., at 746, 101 S.Ct. 2114. Because it is impossible for Mutual and other similarly situated manufacturers to comply with both state and federal law, New Hampshire's warning-based design-defect cause of action is pre-empted with respect to FDA-approved drugs sold in interstate commerce. IV
The Court of Appeals reasoned that Mutual could escape the impossibility of complying with both its federal- and state-law duties by "choos[ing] not to make [sulindac] at all." 678 F.3d, at 37. We reject this "stop-selling" rationale as incompatible with our pre-emption jurisprudence. Our pre-emption cases presume that an actor seeking to satisfy both his federal- and state-law obligations is not required to cease acting altogether in order to avoid liability. Indeed, if the option of ceasing to act defeated a claim of impossibility, impossibility pre-emption would be "all but meaningless." 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2579.
The incoherence of the stop-selling theory becomes plain when viewed through the lens of our previous cases. In every instance in which the Court has found impossibility pre-emption, the "direct conflict" between federal- and state-law duties could easily have been avoided if the regulated actor had simply ceased acting.
PLIVA is an obvious example: As discussed above, the PLIVA Court held that state failure-to-warn claims were pre-empted by the FDCA because it was impossible for drug manufacturers like PLIVA to comply with both the state-law duty to label their products in a way that rendered them reasonably safe and the federal-law duty not to change their drugs' labels. Id., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2577-2578. It would, of course, have been possible for drug manufacturers like PLIVA to pull their products from the market altogether. In so doing, they would have avoided liability under both state and federal law: such manufacturers would neither have labeled their products in a way that rendered them unsafe nor impermissibly changed any federally approved label.
In concluding that "it was impossible for the Manufacturers to comply with both their state-law duty to change the label and their federal law duty to keep the label the same," id., at ----, at 2578, the Court was undeterred by the prospect that PLIVA could have complied with both state and federal requirements by simply leaving the market. The Court of Appeals decision below had found that Mensing's state-law failure-to-warn claims escaped pre-emption based on the very same stop-selling rationale the First Circuit relied on in this case. See Mensing v. Wyeth, Inc., 588 F.3d 603, 611 (C.A.8 2009) ("[G]eneric defendants were not compelled to market metoclopramide. If they realized their label was insufficient... they could have simply stopped selling the product"). Moreover, Mensing advanced the stop-selling rationale in its petition for rehearing, which this Court denied. PLIVA, supra ; Pet. for Reh'g in No. 09-993 etc., p. 2. Nonetheless, this Court squarely determined that it had been "impossible" for PLIVA to comply with both its state and federal duties. 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2578.
Adopting the First Circuit's stop-selling rationale would mean that not only PLIVA, but also the vast majority-if not all-of the cases in which the Court has found impossibility pre-emption, were wrongly decided. Just as the prospect that a regulated actor could avoid liability under both state and federal law by simply leaving the market did not undermine the impossibility analysis in PLIVA, so it is irrelevant to our analysis here.
V
The dreadful injuries from which products liabilities cases arise often engender passionate responses. Today is no exception, as Justice SOTOMAYOR's dissent (hereinafter the dissent) illustrates. But sympathy for respondent does not relieve us of the responsibility of following the law.
The dissent accuses us of incorrectly assuming "that federal law gives pharmaceutical companies a right to sell a federally approved drug free from common-law liability," post, at 2483, but we make no such assumption. Rather, as discussed at length above, see supra, at 2473 - 2477, we hold that state-law design-defect claims like New Hampshire's that place a duty on manufacturers to render a drug safer by either altering its composition or altering its labeling are in conflict with federal laws that prohibit manufacturers from unilaterally altering drug composition or labeling. The dissent is quite correct that federal law establishes no safe-harbor for drug companies-but it does prevent them from taking certain remedial measures. Where state law imposes a duty to take such remedial measures, it "actual[ly] conflict[s] with federal law" by making it " 'impossible for a private party to comply with both state and federal requirements.' " Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U.S. 280, 287, 115 S.Ct. 1483, 131 L.Ed.2d 385 (1995) (quoting English, 496 U.S., at 78-79, 110 S.Ct. 2270). The dissent seems to acknowledge that point when it concedes that, "if federal law requires a particular product label to include a complete list of ingredients while state law specifically forbids that labeling practice, there is little question that state law'must yield.' " Post, at 2485 - 2486 (quoting Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 138, 108 S.Ct. 2302, 101 L.Ed.2d 123 (1988) ). What the dissent does not see is that that is this case : Federal law requires a very specific label for sulindac, and state law forbids the use of that label.
The dissent responds that New Hampshire law "merely create[s] an incentive" to alter sulindac's label or composition, post, at 2486, but does not impose any actual "legal obligation," post, at 2489. The contours of that argument are difficult to discern. Perhaps the dissent is drawing a distinction between common-law "exposure to liability," post, at 2488, and a statutory "legal mandate," ibid. But the distinction between common law and statutory law is irrelevant to the argument at hand: In violating a common-law duty, as surely as by violating a statutory duty, a party contravenes the law. While it is true that, in a certain sense, common-law duties give a manufacturer the choice "between exiting the market or continuing to sell while knowing it may have to pay compensation to consumers injured by its product," post, at 2491, statutory "mandate[s]" do precisely the same thing: They require a manufacturer to choose between leaving the market and accepting the consequences of its actions (in the form of a fine or other sanction). See generally Calabresi & Melamed, Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral, 85 Harv. L.Rev. 1089 (1972) (discussing liability rules). And, in any event, PLIVA -which the dissent agrees involved a state-law "requirement that conflicted with federal law," post, at 2489 -dealt with common-law failure-to-warn claims, see PLIVA, supra, at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2573-2574. Because PLIVA controls the instant case, the dissent is reduced to fighting a rearguard action against its reasoning despite ostensibly swearing fealty to its holding.
To suggest that Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U.S. 431, 125 S.Ct. 1788, 161 L.Ed.2d 687 (2005), is to the contrary is simply misleading. The dissent is correct that Bates held a Texas state-law design-defect claim not to be pre-empted. But, it did so because the design-defect claim in question was not a "requirement 'for labeling or packaging'" and thus fell outside the class of claims covered by the express pre-emption provision at issue in that case. Id., at 443-444, 125 S.Ct. 1788 (emphasis in original). Indeed, contrary to the impression one might draw from the dissent, post, at 2488 - 2489, the Bates Court actually blessed the lower court's determination that the State's design-defect claim imposed a pre-emptable "requirement": "The Court of Appeals did, however, correctly hold that the term'requirements' in § 136v(b) reaches beyond positive enactments, such as statutes and regulations, to embrace common-law duties." Bates,supra, at 443, 125 S.Ct. 1788. The dissent offers no compelling reason why the "common-law duty" in this case should not similarly be viewed as a "requirement." We agree, of course, that "determining precisely what, if any, specific requirement a state common-law claim imposes is important." Post, at 2489, n. 5. As Bates makes clear, "[t]he proper inquiry calls for an examination of the elements of the common-law duty at issue; it does not call for speculation as to whether a jury verdict will prompt the manufacturer to take any particular action." 544 U.S., at 445, 125 S.Ct. 1788 (citation omitted). Here, as we have tried to make clear, the duty to ensure that one's products are not "unreasonably dangerous" imposed by New Hampshire's design-defect cause of action, Vautour, 147 N.H., at 153, 784 A.2d, at 1181, involves a duty to make one of several changes. In cases where it is impossible-in fact or by law-to alter a product's design (and thus to increase the product's "usefulness" or decrease its "risk of danger"), the duty to render a product "reasonably safe" boils down to a duty to ensure "the presence and efficacy of a warning to avoid an unreasonable risk of harm from hidden dangers or from foreseeable uses." Id., at 154, 784 A.2d, at 1182. The duty to redesign sulindac's label was thus a part of the common-law duty at issue-not merely an action Mutual might have been prompted to take by the adverse jury verdict here.
Finally, the dissent laments that we have ignored "Congress' explicit efforts to preserve state common-law liability." Post, at 2496. We have not. Suffice to say, the Court would welcome Congress' "explicit" resolution of the difficult pre-emption questions that arise
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
In Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), we held that a state prisoner is entitled to habeas corpus relief if a federal judge finds that “upon the record evidence adduced at the trial no rational trier of fact could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 324. A Nevada jury convicted respondent of rape; the evidence presented included DNA evidence matching respondent’s DNA profile. Nevertheless, relying upon a report prepared by a DNA expert over 11 years after the trial, the Federal District Court applied the Jackson standard and granted the writ. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed. Brown v. Farwell, 525 F. 3d 787 (CA9 2008). We granted certiorari to consider whether those courts misapplied Jackson. Because the trial record includes both the DNA evidence and other convincing evidence of guilt, we conclude that they clearly did.
I
Around 1 a.m. on January 29, 1994, 9-year-old Jane Doe was brutally raped in the bedroom of her trailer. Respondent Troy Brown was convicted of the crime. During and since his trial, respondent has steadfastly maintained his innocence. He was, however, admittedly intoxicated when the crime occurred, and after he awoke on the following morning he told a friend “ ‘he wished that he could remember what did go on or what went on.’ ” App. 309.
Troy and his brother Travis resided near Jane Doe in the same trailer park. Their brother Trent and his wife Raquel lived in the park as well, in a trailer across the street from Jane Doe’s. Both Troy and Trent were acquainted with Jane Doe’s family; Troy had visited Jane Doe’s trailer several times. Jane did not know Travis. The evening of the attack, Jane’s mother, Pam, took Jane to Raquel and Trent’s trailer to babysit while the three adults went out for about an hour. Raquel and Trent returned at about 7:30 p.m. and took Jane home at about 9:30 p.m. Pam stayed out and ended up drinking and playing pool with Troy at a nearby bar called the Peacock Lounge. Troy knew that Jane and her 4-year-old sister were home alone because he answered the phone at the bar when Jane called for her mother earlier that evening.
Troy consumed at least 10 shots of vodka followed by beer chasers, and was so drunk that he vomited on himself while he was walking home after leaving the Peacock at about 12:15 a.m. Jane called her mother to report the rape at approximately 1 a.m. Although it would have taken a sober man less than 15 minutes to walk home, Troy did not arrive at his trailer until about 1:30 a.m. He was wearing dark jeans, a cowboy hat, a black satin jacket, and boots. Two witnesses saw a man dressed in dark jeans, a cowboy hat, and a black satin jacket stumbling in the road between the two trailers shortly after 1 a.m.
The bedroom where the rape occurred was dark, and Jane was unable to conclusively identify her assailant. When asked whom he reminded her of, she mentioned both Troy and his brother Trent. Several days after the rape, she identified a man she saw on television (Troy) as her assailant but then stated that the man who had sent flowers attacked her. It was Trent and Raquel who had sent her flowers, not Troy. She was unable to identify Troy as her assailant out of a photo lineup, and she could not identify her assailant at trial. The night of the rape, however, she said her attacker was wearing dark jeans, a black jacket with a zipper, boots, and a watch. She also vividly remembered that the man “stunk real, real bad” of “cologne, or some beer or puke or something.” Id., at 172-173.
Some evidence besides Jane’s inconsistent identification did not inculpate Troy. Jane testified that she thought she had bitten her assailant, but Troy did not have any bite marks on his hands when examined by a police officer approximately four hours after the attack. Jane stated that her assailant’s jacket had a zipper (Troy’s did not) and that he wore a watch (Troy claimed he did not). Additionally, there was conflicting testimony as to when Troy left the Peacock and when Pam received Jane’s call reporting the rape. The witnesses who saw a man stumbling between the two trailers reported a bright green logo on the back of the jacket, but Troy’s jacket had a yellow and orange logo. Finally, because Jane thought she had left a night light on when she went to bed, the police suspected the assailant had turned off the light. The only usable fingerprint taken from the light did not match Troy’s, and the police did not find Troy’s fingerprints in the trailer.
Other physical evidence, however, pointed to Troy. The police recovered semen from Jane’s underwear and from the rape kit. The State’s expert, Renee Romero, tested the former and determined that the DNA matched Troy’s and that the probability another person from the general population would share the same DNA (the “random match probability”) was only 1 in 3 million. Troy’s counsel did not call his own DNA expert at trial, although he consulted with an expert in advance who found no problems with Romero’s test procedures. At some time before sentencing, Troy’s family had additional DNA testing done. That testing showed semen taken from the rape kit matched Troy’s DNA, with a random match probability of 1 in 10,000.
The jury found Troy guilty of sexual assault and sentenced him to life with the possibility of parole after 10 years. On direct appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court considered Troy’s claim that his conviction was not supported by sufficient evidence, analyzing “whether the jury, acting reasonably, could have been convinced of [Troy’s] guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Brown v. Nevada, 113 Nev. 275, 285, 934 P. 2d 235, 241 (1997) (per curiam). The court rejected the claim, summarizing the evidence of guilt as follows:
“Testimony indicated that Troy left the bar around 12:15 a.m., that Troy lived relatively close to the bar, and that Troy lived very close to Jane Doe. Troy had enough time to get from the bar to Jane Doe’s house and to assault Jane Doe before she made the telephone call to her mother at approximately 1:00 a.m. While Jane Doe could not identify her assailant, her description of his clothing was similar to what Troy was wearing; she also said that her assailant smelled like beer or vomit and testimony indicated that Troy had been drinking beer and had vomited several times that night. Furthermore, testimony indicated that Troy got home at approximately 1:30 a.m., which gave him enough time to assault Jane Doe. Additionally, [witnesses] testified that they saw someone resembling Troy in a black jacket and black hat stumbling in the road near Jane Doe’s house at 1:05 a.m. Troy also washed his pants and shirt when he got home, arguably to remove the blood evidence from his clothes. Finally, the DNA evidence indicated that semen collected from Jane Doe’s underwear matched Troy’s and that only 1 in 3,000,000 other people had matching DNA (the second DNA test indicated that 1 in 10,000 people had matching DNA).” Ibid., 934 P. 2d, at 241-242.
Respondent also argued on appeal that the trial court erred in failing to conduct a pretrial hearing to determine whether the DNA evidence was reliable. The court found respondent had not raised this issue in the trial court and concluded there was no plain error in the trial court’s failure to conduct a hearing. Id., at 284, 934 P. 2d, at 241.
In 2001, respondent sought state postconviction relief, claiming, inter alia, that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to object to the admission of the DNA evidence. He argued that there were a number of foundational problems with the DNA evidence, and that if trial counsel had objected, the evidence would have been excluded or at least its importance diminished. He noted that because trial counsel “totally failed to challenge the DNA evidence in the case,” counsel “failed to preserve valid issues for appeal.” App. 1101. The state postconviction court denied relief, id., at 1489-1499, and the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed, judgt. order reported at 119 Nev. 797, 130 P. 3d 673 (2003).
Respondent thereafter filed this federal habeas petition, claiming there was insufficient evidence to convict him on the sexual assault charges and that the Nevada Supreme Court’s rejection of his claim was both contrary to, and an unreasonable application of, Jackson. He did. not bring a typical Jackson claim, however. Rather than argue that the totality of the evidence admitted against him at trial was constitutionally insufficient, he argued that some of the evidence should be excluded from the Jackson analysis. In particular, he argued that Romero’s testimony related to the DNA evidence was inaccurate and unreliable in two primary respects: Romero mischaracterized the random match probability and misstated the probability of a DNA match among his brothers. Absent that testimony, he contended, there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
In support of his claim regarding the accuracy of Romero’s testimony, respondent submitted a report prepared by Laurence Mueller, a professor in ecology and evolutionary biology (Mueller Report). The District Court supplemented the record with the Mueller Report, even though it was not presented to any state court, because “the thesis of the report was argued during post-conviction.” Brown v. Farwell, No. 3:03-cv-00712-PMP-VPC, 2006 WL 6181129, *5, n. 2 (D Nev., Dec. 14, 2006).
Relying upon the Mueller Report, the District Court set aside the “unreliable DNA testimony” and held that without the DNA evidence “a reasonable doubt would exist in the mind of any rational trier of fact.” Id., at *7. The court granted respondent habeas relief on his Jackson claim.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. 525 F. 3d 787. The court held the Nevada Supreme Court had unreasonably applied Jackson. 525 F. 3d, at 798; see 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). The Court of Appeals first reasoned “the admission of Romero’s unreliable and misleading testimony violated Troy’s due process rights,” so the District Court was correct to exclude it. 525 F. 3d, at 797. It then “weighed the sufficiency of the remaining evidence,” including the District Court’s “catalogue] [of] the numerous inconsistencies that would raise a reasonable doubt as to Troy’s guilt in the mind of any rational juror.” Ibid. In light of the “stark” conflicts in the evidence and the State’s concession that there was insufficient evidence absent the DNA evidence, the court held it was objectively unreasonable for the Nevada Supreme Court to reject respondent’s insuffieieney-of-the-evidence claim. Id., at 798.
We granted certiorari, 555 U. S. 1152 (2009), to consider two questions: the proper standard of review for a Jackson claim on federal habeas, and whether such a claim may rely upon evidence outside the trial record that goes to the reliability of trial evidence.
II
Respondent’s claim has now crystallized into a claim about the import of two specific inaccuracies in the testimony related to the DNA evidence, as indicated by the Mueller Report. The Mueller Report does not challenge Romero’s qualifications as an expert or the validity of any of the tests that she performed. Mueller instead contends that Romero committed the so-called “prosecutor’s fallacy” and that she underestimated the probability of a DNA match between respondent and one of his brothers.
The prosecutor’s fallacy is the assumption that the random match probability is the same as the probability that the defendant was not the source of the DNA sample. See Nat. Research Council, Comm, on DNA Forensic Science, The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence 133 (1996) (“Let P equal the probability of a match, given the evidence genotype. The fallacy is to say that P is also the probability that the DNA at the crime scene came from someone other than the defendant”). In other words, if a juror is told the probability a member of the general population would share the same DNA is 1 in 10,000 (random match probability), and he takes that to mean there is only a 1 in 10,000 chance that someone other than the defendant is the source of the DNA found at the crime scene (source probability), then he has succumbed to the prosecutor’s fallacy. It is further error to equate source probability with probability of guilt, unless there is no explanation other than guilt for a person to be the source of crime-scene DNA. This faulty reasoning may result in an erroneous statement that, based on a random match probability of 1 in 10,000, there is a 0.01% chance the defendant is innocent or a 99.99% chance the defendant is guilty.
The Mueller Report does not dispute Romero’s opinion that only 1 in 3 million people would have the same DNA profile as the rapist. Mueller correctly points out, however, that some of Romero’s testimony — as well as the prosecutor’s argument — suggested that the evidence also established that there was only a 0.000033% chance that respondent was innocent. The State concedes as much. Brief for Petitioners 54. For example, the prosecutor argued at closing the jury could be “99.999967 percent sure” in this case. App. 730. And when the prosecutor asked Romero, in a classic example of erroneously equating source probability with random match probability, whether “it [would] be fair to say ... that the chances that the DNA found in the panties — the semen in the panties — and the blood sample, the likelihood that it is not Troy Brown would be .000033,” id., at 460, Romero ultimately agreed that it was “not inaccurate” to state it that way, id., at 461-462.
Looking at Romero’s testimony as a whole, though, she also indicated that she was merely accepting the mathematical equivalence between 1 in 3 million and the percentage figure. At the end of the colloquy about percentages, she answered affirmatively the court’s question whether the percentage was “the same math just expressed differently.” Id., at 462. She pointed out that the probability a brother would match was greater than the random match probability, which also indicated to the jury that the random match probability is not the same as the likelihood that someone other than Troy was the source of the DNA.
The Mueller Report identifies a second error in Romero’s testimony: her estimate of the probability that one or more of Troy’s brothers’ DNA would match. Romero testified there was a 1 in 6,500 (or 0.02%) probability that one brother would share the same DNA with another. Id., at 469, 472. When asked whether “that change[s] at all with two brothers,” she answered no. Id., at 472. According to Mueller, Romero’s analysis was misleading in two respects. First, she used an assumption regarding the parents under which siblings have the lowest chance of matching that is biologically possible, but even under this stingy assumption she reported the chance of two brothers matching (1 in 6,500) as much lower than it is (1 in 1,024 under her assumption). Second, using the assumptions Mueller finds more appropriate, the probability of a single sibling matching respondent is 1 in 263, the probability that among two brothers one or more would match is 1 in 132, and among four brothers it is 1 in 66. Id., at 1583.
In sum, the two inaccuracies upon which this case turns are testimony equating random match probability with source probability, and an underestimate of the likelihood that one of Troy’s brothers would also match the DNA left at the scene.
III
Although we granted certiorari to review respondent’s Jackson claim, the parties now agree that the Court of Appeals’ resolution of his claim under Jackson was in error. See Brief for Respondent 2-3; Reply Brief for Petitioners 1. Indeed, respondent argues the Court of Appeals did not decide his case under Jackson at all, but instead resolved the question whether admission of Romero’s inaccurate testimony rendered his trial fundamentally unfair and then applied Jackson to determine whether that error was harmless.
Although both petitioners and respondent are now aligned on the same side of the questions presented for our review, the ease is not moot because “the parties continue to seek different relief” from this Court. Pacific Bell Telephone Co. v. linkLine Communications, Inc., 555 U. S. 438, 446 (2009). Respondent primarily argues that we affirm on his proposed alternative ground or remand to the Ninth Circuit for analysis of his due process claim under the standard for harmless error of Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993). The State, on the other hand, asks us to reverse. Respondent and one amicus have also suggested that we dismiss the case as improvidently granted, Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae 27-28, but we think prudential concerns favor our review of the Court of Appeals’ application of Jackson. Cf. Pacific Bell, supra, at 447.
Respondent no longer argues it was proper for the District Court to admit the Mueller Report for the purpose of evaluating his Jackson claim, Brief for Respondent 35, and concedes the “purpose of a Jackson analysis is to determine whether the jury acted in a rational manner in returning a guilty verdict based on the evidence before it, not whether improper evidence violated due process,” id., at 2. There has been no suggestion that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to convict unless some of it was excluded. Respondent’s concession thus disposes of his Jackson claim. The concession is also clearly correct. An “appellate court’s reversal for insufficiency of the evidence is in effect a determination that the government’s ease against the defendant was so lacking that the trial court should have entered a judgment of acquittal.” Lockhart v. Nelson, 488 U. S. 33, 39 (1988). Because reversal for insufficiency of the evidence is equivalent to a judgment of acquittal, such a reversal bars a retrial. See Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1, 18 (1978). To “make the analogy complete” between a reversal for insufficiency of the evidence and the trial court’s granting a judgment of acquittal, Lockhart, 488 U. S., at 42, “a reviewing court must consider all of the evidence admitted by the trial court,” regardless of whether that evidence was admitted erroneously, id., at 41.
Respondent therefore correctly concedes that a reviewing court must consider all of the evidence admitted at trial when considering a Jackson claim. Even if we set that concession aside, however, and assume that the Court of Appeals could have considered the Mueller Report in the context of a Jackson claim, the court made an egregious error in concluding the Nevada Supreme Court’s rejection of respondent’s insuffieieney-of-the-evidence claim “involved an unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law,” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1).
Even if the Court of Appeals could have considered it, the Mueller Report provided no warrant for entirely excluding the DNA evidence or Romero’s testimony from that court’s consideration. The Report did not contest that the DNA evidence matched Troy. That DNA evidence remains powerful inculpatory evidence even though the State concedes Romero overstated its probative value by failing to dispel the prosecutor’s fallacy. And Mueller’s claim that Romero used faulty assumptions and underestimated the probability of a DNA match between brothers indicates that two experts do not agree with one another, not that Romero’s estimates were unreliable.
Mueller’s opinion that “the chance that among four brothers one or more would match is 1 in 66,” App. 1583, is substantially different from Romero’s estimate of a 1 in 6,500 chance that one brother would match. But even if Romero’s estimate is wrong, our confidence in the jury verdict is not undermined. First, the estimate that is more pertinent to this case is 1 in 132 — the probability of a match among two brothers — because two of Troy’s four brothers lived in Utah. Second, although Jane Doe mentioned Trent as her assailant, and Travis lived in a nearby trailer, the evidence indicates that both (unlike Troy) were sober and went to bed early on the night of the crime. Even under Mueller’s odds, a rational jury could consider the DNA evidence to be powerful evidence of guilt.
Furthermore, the Court of Appeals’ discussion of the non-DNA evidence departed from the deferential review that Jackson and § 2254(d)(1) demand. A federal habeas court can only set aside a state-court decision as “an unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law,” § 2254(d)(1), if the state court’s application of that law is “objectively unreasonable,” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 409 (2000). And Jackson requires a reviewing court to review the evidence “in the light most favorable to the prosecution.” 443 U. S., at 319. Expressed more fully, this means a reviewing court “faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences must presume— even if it does not affirmatively appear in the record — that the trier of fact resolved any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution, and must defer to that resolution.” Id., at 326; see also Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 298, 330 (1995) (“The Jackson standard... looks to whether there is sufficient evidence which, if credited, could support the conviction”). The Court of Appeals acknowledged that it must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, but the court’s recitation of inconsistencies in the testimony shows it failed to do that.
For example, the court highlights conflicting testimony regarding when Troy left the Peacock. 525 F. 3d, at 797. It is true that if a juror were to accept the testimony of one bartender that Troy left the bar at 1:30 a.m., then Troy would have left the bar after the attack occurred. Yet the jury could have credited a different bartender’s testimony that Troy left the Peacock at around 12:15 a.m. Resolving the conflict in favor of the prosecution, the jury must have found that Troy left the bar in time to be the assailant. It is undisputed that Troy washed his clothes immediately upon returning home. The court notes this is “plausibly consistent with him being the assailant” but also that he provided an alternative reason for washing his clothes. Ibid. Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the evidence supports an inference that Troy washed the clothes immediately to clean blood from them.
To be sure, the court’s Jackson analysis relied substantially upon a concession made by the State in state postconviction proceedings that “absent the DNA findings, there was insufficient evidence to convict [Troy] of the crime.” App. 1180. But that concession posited a situation in which there was no DNA evidence at all, not a situation in which some pieces of testimony regarding the DNA evidence were called into question. In sum, the Court of Appeals’ analysis failed to preserve “the factfinder’s role as weigher of the evidence” by reviewing “all of the evidence ... in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” Jackson, supra, at 319, and it further erred in finding that the Nevada Supreme Court’s resolution of the Jackson claim was objectively unreasonable.
IV
Resolution of the Jackson claim does not end our consideration of this case because respondent asks us to affirm on an alternative ground. He contends the two errors “in describing the statistical meaning” of the DNA evidence rendered his trial fundamentally unfair and denied him due process of law. Brief for Respondent 4. Because the Ninth Circuit held that “the admission of Romero’s unreliable and misleading testimony violated [respondent’s] due process rights,” 525 F. 3d, at 797, and in respondent’s view merely applied Jackson (erroneously) to determine whether that error was harmless, he asks us to affirm the judgment below on the basis of what he calls his “DNA due process” claim, Brief for Respondent 35.
As respondent acknowledges, in order to prevail on this claim, he would have to show that the state court’s adjudication of the claim was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). The clearly established law he points us to is Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U. S. 98, 114 (1977), in which we held that when the police have used a suggestive eyewitness identification procedure, “reliability is the linchpin in determining” whether an eyewitness identification may be admissible, with reliability determined according to factors set out in Neil v. Biggers, 409 U. S. 188 (1972). Respondent argues that the admission of the inaccurate DNA testimony violated Brathwaite because the testimony was “identification testimony,” 432 U. S., at 114, was “unnecessarily suggestive,” id., at 113, and was unreliable.
Respondent has forfeited this claim, which he makes for the very first time in his brief on the merits in this Court. Respondent did not present his new “DNA due process” claim in his federal habeas petition, but instead consistently argued that Romero's testimony should be excluded from the Jackson analysis simply because it was “unreliable” and that the due process violation occurred because the remaining evidence was insufficient to convict. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 157a (“[Respondent] asserts ... that the DNA evidence was unreliable and should not have been admitted at his trial. If so, then,... the state presented insufficient evidence at trial to prove [respondent] guilty”). In the Ninth Circuit, too, respondent presented only his Jackson claim, and it is, at the least, unclear whether respondent presented his newly minted due process claim in the state courts. Recognizing that his Jackson claim cannot prevail, respondent tries to rewrite his federal habeas petition. His attempt comes too late, however, and he cannot now start over.
* * *
We have stated before that “DNA testing can provide powerful new evidence unlike anything known before.” District Attorney’s Office for Third Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U. S. 52, 62 (2009). Given the persuasiveness of such evidence in the eyes of the jury, it is important that it be presented in a fair and reliable manner. The State acknowledges that Romero committed the prosecutor’s fallacy, Brief for Petitioners 54, and the Mueller Report suggests that Romero’s testimony may have been inaccurate regarding the likelihood of a match with one of respondent’s brothers. Regardless, ample DNA and non-DNA evidence in the record adduced at trial supported the jury’s guilty verdict under Jackson, and we reject respondent’s last minute attempt to recast his claim under Brathwaite. The Court of Appeals did not consider, however, the ineffective-assistance claims on which the District Court also granted respondent habeas relief. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
He denied involvement when a police officer claimed (wrongly) that the police had found his fingerprints in Jane’s bedroom, and he even denied involvement when the sentencing judge told him that acceptance of responsibility would garner him leniency.
Under Nevada law at the time of the trial, the jury, rather than the judge, imposed the sentence for a sexual assault crime if it found the assault resulted in substantial bodily harm. Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. §200.366(3) (Michie 1992). For an assault resulting in substantial bodily harm, the jury had the option of sentencing Troy to life without the possibility of parole or to life with eligibility for parole after 10 years. § 200.366(2)(a). The jury elected the more lenient sentence. The judge sentenced Troy to life with the possibility of parole after 10 years on a second count of sexual assault, to run consecutively. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed Troy’s conviction for one count of child abuse on double jeopardy grounds, and ordered resentencing on the second sexual assault count. Brown v. Nevada, 113 Nev. 275, 934 P. 2d 235 (1997) (per curiam). On resentencing, the judge imposed the same sentence as before.
The District Court also granted habeas relief on respondent’s claim that he was denied effective assistance of counsel with respect to his attorney’s handling of the DNA evidence and failure to adequately investigate the victim’s stepfather as an alternative suspect. Brown v. Farwell, No. 3:03-cv-00712-PMP-VPC, 2006 WL 6181129, *9-*10 (D Nev., Dec. 14, 2006). The Court of Appeals did not consider those claims on appeal, and they are not now before us.
The Court of Appeals also clearly erred in concluding the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision was “contrary to” Jackson. The Court of Appeals held the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision was “contrary to” Jackson because the Nevada court stated a standard that turns on a “reasonable” jury, not a “rational” one, and that assesses whether the jury could have been convinced of a defendant’s guilt, rather than whether it could have been convinced of each element of the crime. Brown v. Farwell, 525 F. 3d 787, 794-795 (CA9 2008). It is of little moment that the Nevada Supreme Court analyzed whether a “reasonable” jury could be convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, rather than asking whether a “rational” one could be convinced of each element of guilt; a reasonable jury could hardly be convinced of guilt unless it found each element satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt.
The State has called our attention to cases in which courts have criticized opinions rendered by Professor Mueller in the past. See Brief for Petitioners 53-54. We need not pass on the relative credibility of the two experts because even assuming that Mueller’s estimate is correct, respondent’s claim fails.
The concession was made in the context of proceedings in which respondent argued that competent counsel would have objected to the admissibility of the DNA evidence on a number of grounds — including Romero’s qualifications, chain-of-custody problems, and failure to follow the proper testing protocol — and might have successfully excluded the DNA evidence altogether. See App. 1099-1100.
The Court of Appeals did reason that Romero’s testimony must be excluded from the Jackson analysis on due process grounds. 525 F. 3d, at 797. But that decision was inextricably intertwined with the claim respondent did make in his federal habeas petition under Jackson. It is dear the Ninth Circuit was never asked to consider — and did not pass upon — the question whether the Nevada Supreme Court entered a decision on direct appeal that was contrary to or an unreasonable application of Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U. S. 98 (1977), or any other clearly established law regarding due process other than Jackson.
The State contends the claim is either not exhausted or procedurally defaulted. The State has objected from the beginning that respondent did not raise a due process claim regarding the reliability of the DNA evidence in state court. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 182a-183a. Respondent consistently answered the State’s exhaustion objection by arguing he presented his Jackson claim in the Nevada Supreme Court. See App. 1521-1526. The Ninth Circuit held respondent exhausted his insufficiency claim. 525 F. 3d, at 793. The court had no occasion to consider whether respondent exhausted any due process claim other than his Jackson claim.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to consider the availability of federal habeas corpus to review a state convict’s claim that testimony was admitted at his trial in violation of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), a claim which the Florida courts have previously refused to consider on the merits because of noncompliance with a state contemporaneous-objection rule. Petitioner Wainwright, on behalf of the State of Florida, here challenges a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordering a hearing in state court on the merits of respondent’s contention.
Respondent Sykes was convicted of third-degree murder after a jury trial in the Circuit Court of DeSoto County. He testified at trial that on the evening of January 8, 1972, he told his wife to summon the police because he had just shot Willie Gilbert. Other evidence indicated that when the police arrived at respondent’s trailer home, they found Gilbert dead of a shotgun wound, lying a few feet from the front porch. Shortly after their arrival, respondent came from across the road and volunteered that he had shot Gilbert, and a few minutes later respondent’s wife approached the police and told them the same thing. Sykes was immediately arrested and taken to the police station.
Once there, it is conceded that he was read his Miranda rights, and that he declined to seek the aid of counsel and indicated a desire to talk. He then made a statement, which was admitted into evidence at trial through the testimony of the two officers who heard it, to the effect that he had shot Gilbert from the front porch of his trailer home. There were several references during the trial to respondent’s consumption of alcohol during the preceding day and to his apparent state of intoxication, facts which were acknowledged by the officers who arrived at the scene. At no time during the trial, however, was the admissibility of any of respondent’s statements challenged by his counsel on the ground that respondent had not understood the Miranda warnings. Nor did the trial judge question their admissibility on his own motion or hold a factfinding hearing bearing on that issue.
Respondent appealed his conviction, but apparently did not challenge the admissibility of the inculpatory statements. He later filed in the trial court a motion to vacate the conviction and, in the State District Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, petitions for habeas corpus. These filings, apparently for the first time, challenged the statements made to police on grounds of involuntariness. In all of these efforts respondent was unsuccessful.
Having failed in the Florida courts, respondent initiated the present action under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, asserting the inadmissibility of his statements by reason of his lack of understanding of the Miranda warnings. The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled that Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964), requires a hearing in a state criminal trial prior to the admission of an inculpatory out-of-court statement by the defendant. It held further that respondent had not lost his right to assert such a claim by failing to object at trial or on direct appeal, since only “exceptional circumstances” of “strategic decisions at trial” can create such a bar to raising federal constitutional claims in a federal habeas action. The court stayed issuance of the writ to allow the state court to hold a hearing on the “voluntariness” of the statements.
Petitioner warden appealed this decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court first considered the nature of the right to exclusion of statements made without a knowing waiver of the right to counsel and the right not to incriminate oneself. It noted that Jackson v. Denno, supra, guarantees a right to a hearing on whether a defendant has knowingly waived his rights as described to him in the Miranda warnings, and stated that under Florida law “[t]he burden is on the State to secure [a] prima facie determination of voluntariness, not upon the defendant to demand it.” 528 F. 2d 522, 525 (1976).
The court then directed its attention to the effect on respondent’s right of Florida Rule Grim. Proc. 3.190 (i), which it described as “a contemporaneous objection rule” applying to motions to suppress a defendant’s inculpatory statements. It focused on this Court’s decisions in Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443 (1965); Davis v. United States, 411 U. S. 233 (1973); and Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), and concluded that the failure to comply with the rule requiring objection at the trial would only bar review of the suppression claim where the right to object was deliberately bypassed for reasons relating to trial tactics. The Court of Appeals distinguished our decision in Davis, supra (where failure to comply with a rule requiring pretrial objection to the indictment was found to bar habeas review of the underlying constitutional claim absent showing of cause for the failure and prejudice resulting), for the reason that “[a] major tenet of the Davis decision was that no prejudice was shown” to have resulted from the failure to object. It found that prejudice is "inherent” in any situation, like the present one, where the admissibility of an incriminating statement is concerned. Concluding that “[t]he failure to object in this case cannot be dismissed as a trial tactic, and thus a deliberate by-pass,” the court affirmed the District Court order that the State hold a hearing on whether respondent knowingly waived his Miranda rights at the time he made the statements.
The simple legal question before the Court calls for a construction of the language of 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (a), which provides that the federal courts shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus “in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” But, to put it mildly, we do not write on a clean slate in construing this statutory provision. Its earliest counterpart, applicable only to prisoners detained by federal authority, is found in the Judiciary Act of 1789. Construing that statute for the Court in Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 202 (1830), Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said:
“An imprisonment under a judgment cannot be unlawful, unless that judgment be an absolute nullity; and it is not a nullity if the Court has general jurisdiction of the subject, although it should be erroneous.”
See Ex parte Kearney, 7 Wheat. 38 (1822).
In 1867, Congress expanded the statutory language so as to make the writ available to one held in state as well as federal custody. For more than a century since the 1867 amendment, this Court has grappled with the relationship between the classical common-law writ of habeas corpus and the remedy provided in 28 U. S. C. § 2254. Sharp division within the Court has been manifested on more than one aspect of the perplexing problems which have been litigated in this connection. Where the habeas petitioner challenges a final judgment of conviction rendered by a state court, this Court has been called upon to decide no fewer than four different questions, all to a degree interrelated with one another: (1) What types of federal claims may a federal habeas court properly consider? (2) Where a federal claim is cognizable by a federal habeas court, to what extent must that court defer to a resolution of the claim in prior state proceedings? (3) To what extent must the petitioner who seeks federal habeas exhaust state remedies before resorting to the federal court? (4) In what instances will an adequate and independent state ground bar consideration of otherwise cognizable federal issues on federal habeas review?
Each of these four issues has spawned its share of litigation. With respect to the first, the rule laid down in Ex parte Watkins, supra, was gradually changed by judicial decisions expanding the availability of habeas relief beyond attacks focused narrowly on the jurisdiction of the sentencing court. See Ex parte Wells, 18 How. 307 (1856); Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163 (1874). Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1880), authorized use of the writ to challenge a conviction under a federal statute where the statute was claimed to violate the United States Constitution. Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309 (1915), and Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86 (1923), though in large part inconsistent with one another, together broadened the concept of jurisdiction to allow review of a claim of “mob domination" of what was in all other respects a trial in a court of competent jurisdiction.
In Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 463 (1938), an indigent federal prisoner’s claim that he was denied the right to counsel at his trial was held to state a contention going to the “power and authority” of the trial court, which might be reviewed on habeas. Finally, in Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101 (1942), the Court openly discarded the concept of jurisdiction — by then more a fiction than anything else — as a touchstone of the availability of federal habeas review, and acknowledged that such review is available for claims of “disregard of the constitutional rights of the accused, and where the writ is the only effective means of preserving his rights.” Id., at 104—105. In Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953), it was made explicit that a state prisoner’s challenge to the trial court’s resolution of dispositive federal issues is always fair game on federal habeas. Only last Term in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), the Court removed from the purview of a federal habeas court challenges resting on the Fourth Amendment, where there has been a full and fair opportunity to raise them in the state court. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 250 (1973) (Powell, J., concurring).
The degree of deference to be given to a state court’s resolution of a federal-law issue was elaborately canvassed in the Court’s opinion in Brown v. Allen, supra. Speaking for the Court, Mr. Justice Reed stated: “[Such] state adjudication carries the weight that federal practice gives to the conclusion of a court of last resort of another jurisdiction on federal constitutional issues. It is not res judicata.” 344 U. S., at 458. The duty of the federal habeas court to hold a factfinding hearing in specific situations, notwithstanding the prior resolution of the issues in state court, was thoroughly explored in this Court’s later decision in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963). Congress addressed this aspect of federal habeas in 1966 when it amended § 2254 to deal with the problem treated in Townsend. 80 Stat. 1105. See LaVallee v. Delle Rose, 410 U. S. 690 (1973).
The exhaustion-of-state-remedies requirement was first articulated by this Court in the case of Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241 (1886). There, a state defendant sought habeas in advance of trial on a claim that he had been indicted under an unconstitutional statute. The writ was dismissed by the District Court, and this Court affirmed, stating that while there was power in the federal courts to entertain such petitions, as a matter of comity they should usually stay their hand pending consideration of the issue in the normal course of the state trial. This rule has been followed in subsequent cases, e. g., Cook v. Hart, 146 U. S. 183 (1892); Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231 (1895); Baker v. Grice, 169 U. S. 284 (1898); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103 (1935), and has been incorporated into the language of § 2254. Like other issues surrounding the availability of federal habeas corpus relief, though, this line of authority has not been without historical uncertainties and changes in direction on the part of the Court. See Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114, 116-117 (1944); Darr v. Burford, 339 U. S. 200 (1950); Irvin v. Dowd, 359 U. S. 394, 405-406 (1959); Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 435 (1963).
There is no need to consider here in greater detail these first three areas of controversy attendant to federal habeas review of state convictions. Only the fourth area — the adequacy of state grounds to bar federal habeas review — is presented in this case. The foregoing discussion of the other three is pertinent here only as it illustrates this Court’s historic willingness to overturn or modify its earlier views of the scope of the writ, even where the statutory language authorizing judicial action has remained unchanged.
As to the role of adequate and independent state grounds, it is a well-established principle of federalism that a state decision resting on an adequate foundation of state substantive law is immune from review in the federal courts. Fox Film Corp. v. Muller, 296 U. S. 207 (1935); Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590 (1875). The application of this principle in the context of a federal habeas proceeding has therefore excluded from consideration any questions of state substantive law, and thus effectively barred federal habeas review where questions of that sort are either the only ones raised by a petitioner or are in themselves dispositive of his case. The area of controversy which has developed has concerned the reviewability of federal claims which the state court has declined to pass on because not presented in the manner prescribed by its procedural rules. The adequacy of such an independent state procedural ground to prevent federal habeas review of the underlying federal issue has been treated very differently than where the state-law ground is substantive. The pertinent decisions marking the Court’s somewhat tortuous efforts to deal with this problem are: Ex parte Spencer, 228 U. S. 652 (1913); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953); Fay v. Noia, supra; Davis v. United States, 411 U. S. 233 (1973); and Francis v. Henderson, 425 U. S. 536 (1976).
In Brown, supra, petitioner Daniels’ lawyer had failed to mail the appeal papers to the State Supreme Court on the last day provided by law for filing, and hand delivered them one day after that date. Citing the state rule requiring timely filing, the Supreme Court of North Carolina refused to hear the appeal. This Court, relying in part on its earlier decision in Ex parte Spencer, supra, held that federal habeas was not available to review a constitutional claim which could not have been reviewed on direct appeal here because it rested on an independent and adequate state procedural ground. 344 U. S., at 486-487.
In Fay v. Noia, supra, respondent Noia sought federal habeas to review a claim that his state-court conviction had resulted from the introduction of a coerced confession in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. While the convictions of his two codefendants were reversed on that ground in collateral proceedings following their appeals, Noia did not appeal and the New York courts ruled that his subsequent coram nobis action was barred on account of that failure. This Court held that petitioner was nonetheless entitled to raise the claim in federal habeas, and thereby overruled its decision 10 years earlier in Brown v. Allen, supra:
“[T]he doctrine under which state procedural defaults are held to constitute an adequate and independent state law ground barring direct Supreme Court review is not to be extended to limit the power granted the federal courts under the federal habeas statute.” 372 U. S., at 399.
As a matter of comity but not of federal power, the Court acknowledged “a limited discretion in the federal judge to deny relief... to an applicant who had deliberately by-passed the orderly procedure of the state courts and in so doing has forfeited his state court remedies.” Id., at 438. In so stating, the Court made clear that the waiver must be knowing and actual — “ 'an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.’ ” Id., at 439, quoting Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S., at 464. Noting petitioner’s “grisly choice” between acceptance of his life sentence and pursuit of an appeal which might culminate in a sentence of death, the Court concluded that there had been no deliberate bypass of the right to have the federal issues reviewed through a state appeal.
A decade later we decided Davis v. United States, supra, in which a federal prisoner's application under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 sought for the first time to challenge the makeup of the grand jury which indicted him. The Government contended that he was barred by the requirement of Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 12 (b) (2) providing that such challenges must be raised “by motion before trial.” The Rule further provides that failure to so object constitutes a waiver of the objection, but that “the court for cause shown may grant relief from the waiver.” We noted that the Rule “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,” 411 U. S., at 241, and held that this standard contained in the Rule, rather than the Fay v. Noia concept of waiver, should pertain in federal habeas as on direct review. Referring to previous constructions of Rule 12(b)(2), we concluded that review of the claim should be barred on habeas, as on direct appeal, absent a showing of cause for the noncompliance and some showing of actual prejudice resulting from the alleged constitutional violation.
Last Term, in Francis v. Henderson, supra, the rule of Davis was applied to the parallel case of a state procedural requirement that challenges to grand jury composition be raised before trial. The Court noted that there was power in the federal courts to entertain an application in such a case, but rested its holding on “considerations of comity and concerns for the orderly administration of criminal justice 425 U. S., at 538-539. While there was no counterpart provision of the state rule which allowed an exception upon some showing of cause, the Court concluded that the standard derived from the Federal Rule should nonetheless be applied in that context since “ ‘[t]here is no reason to... give greater pre-clusive effect to procedural defaults by federal defendants than to similar defaults by state defendants.' ” Id., at 542, quoting Kaufman v. United States, 394 U. S. 217, 228 (1969). As applied to the federal petitions of state convicts, the Davis cause-and-prejudice standard was thus incorporated directly into the body of law governing the availability of federal habeas corpus review.
To the extent that the dicta of Fay v. Noia may be thought to have laid down an all-inclusive rule rendering state contemporaneous-objection rules ineffective to bar review of underlying federal claims in federal habeas proceedings — absent a “knowing waiver” or a “deliberate bypass” of the right to so object — its effect was limited by Francis, which applied a different rule and barred a habeas challenge to the makeup of a grand jury. Petitioner Wainwright in this case urges that we further confine its effect by applying the principle enunciated in Francis to a claimed error in the admission of a defendant's confession.
Respondent first contends that any discussion as to the effect that noncompliance with a state procedural rule should have on the availability of federal habeas is quite unnecessary because in his view Florida did not actually have a contemporaneous-objection rule. He would have us interpret Florida Rule Crim. Proc. 3.190 (i), which petitioner asserts is a traditional “contemporaneous objection rule,” to place the burden on the trial judge to raise on his own motion the question of the admissibility of any inculpatory statement. Respondent’s approach is, to say the least, difficult to square with the language of the Rule, which in unmistakable terms and with specified exceptions requires that the motion to suppress be raised before trial. Since all of the Florida appellate courts refused to review petitioner’s federal claim on the merits after his trial, and since their action in so doing is quite consistent with a line of Florida authorities interpreting the rule in question as requiring a contemporaneous objection, we accept the State's position on this point. See Blatch v. State, 216 So. 2d 261, 264 (Fla. App. 1968); Dodd v. State, 232 So. 2d 235, 238 (Fla. App. 1970); Thomas v. State, 249 So. 2d 510, 512 (Fla. App. 1971).
Respondent also urges that a defendant has a right under Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964), to a hearing as to the voluntariness of a confession, even though the defendant does not object to its admission. But we do not read Jackson as creating any such requirement. In that case the defendant’s objection to the use of his confession was brought to the attention of the trial court, id., at 374, and n. 4, and nothing in the Court’s opinion suggests that a hearing would have been required even if it had not been. To the contrary, the Court prefaced its entire discussion of the merits of the case with a statement of the constitutional rule that was to prove disposi-tive — that a defendant has a “right at some stage in the proceedings to object to the use of the confession and to have a fair hearing and a reliable determination on the issue of voluntariness....” Id., at 376-377 (emphasis added). Language in subsequent decisions of this Court has reaffirmed the view that the Constitution does not require a voluntariness hearing absent some contemporaneous challenge to the use of the confession.
We therefore conclude that Florida procedure did, consistently with the United States Constitution, require that respondent’s confession be challenged at trial or not at all, and thus his failure to timely object to its admission amounted to an independent and adequate state procedural ground which would have prevented direct review here. See Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443 (1965). We thus come to the crux of this case. Shall the rule of Francis v. Henderson, supra, barring federal habeas review absent a showing of “cause” and “prejudice” attendant to a state procedural waiver, be applied to a waived objection to the admission of a confession at trial? We answer that question in the affirmative.
As earlier noted in the opinion, since Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953), it has been the rule that the federal habeas petitioner who claims he is detained pursuant to a final judgment of a state court in violation of the United States Constitution is entitled to have the federal habeas court make its own independent determination of his federal claim, without being bound by the determination on the merits of that claim reached in the state proceedings. This rule of Brown v. Allen is in no way changed by our holding today. Rather, we deal only with contentions of federal law which were not resolved on the merits in the state proceeding due to respondent’s failure to raise them there as required by state procedure. We leave open for resolution in future decisions the precise definition of the “cause”-and-“prejudice” standard, and note here only that it is narrower than the standard set forth in dicta in Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), which would make federal habeas review generally available to state convicts absent a knowing and deliberate waiver of the federal constitutional contention. It is the sweeping language of Fay v. Noia, going far beyond the facts of the case eliciting it, which we today reject.
The reasons for our rejection of it are several. The contemporaneous-objection rule itself is by no means peculiar to Florida, and deserves greater respect than Fay gives it, both for the fact that it is employed by a coordinate jurisdiction within the federal system and for the many interests which it serves in its own right. A contemporaneous objection enables the record to be made with respect to the constitutional claim when the recollections of witnesses are freshest, not years later in a federal habeas proceeding. It enables the judge who observed the demeanor of those witnesses to make the factual determinations necessary for properly deciding the federal constitutional question. While the 1966 amendment to § 2254 requires deference to be given to such determinations made by state courts, the determinations themselves are less apt to be made in the first instance if there is no contemporaneous objection to the admission of the evidence on federal constitutional grounds.
A contemporaneous-objection rule may lead to the exclusion of the evidence objected to, thereby making a major contribution to finality in criminal litigation. Without the evidence claimed to be vulnerable on federal constitutional grounds, the jury may acquit the defendant, and that will be the end of the case; or it may nonetheless convict the defendant, and he will have one less federal constitutional claim to assert in his federal habeas petition. If the state trial judge admits the evidence in question after a full hearing, the federal habeas court pursuant to the 1966 amendment to § 2254 will gain significant guidance from the state ruling in this regard. Subtler considerations as well militate in favor of honoring a state contemporaneous-objection rule. An objection on the spot may force the prosecution to take a hard look at its hole card, and even if the prosecutor thinks that the state trial judge will admit the evidence he must contemplate the possibility of reversal by the state appellate courts or the ultimate issuance of a federal writ of habeas corpus based on the impropriety of the state court’s rejection of the federal constitutional claim.
We think that the rule of Fay v. Noia, broadly stated, may encourage “sandbagging” on the part of defense lawyers, who may take their chances on a verdict of not guilty in a state trial court with the intent to raise their constitutional claims in a federal habeas court if their initial gamble does not pay off. The refusal of federal habeas courts to honor contemporaneous-objection rules may also make state courts themselves less stringent in their enforcement. Under the rule of Fay v. Noia, state appellate courts know that a federal constitutional issue raised for the first time in the proceeding before them may well be decided in any event by a federal habeas tribunal. Thus, their choice is between addressing the issue notwithstanding the petitioner’s failure to timely object, or else face the prospect that the federal habeas court will decide the question without the benefit of their views.
The failure of the federal habeas courts generally to require compliance with a contemporaneous-objection rule tends to detract from the perception of the trial of a criminal case in state court as a decisive and portentous event. A defendant has been accused of a serious crime, and this is the time and place set for him to be tried by a jury of his peers and found either guilty or not guilty by that jury. To the greatest extent possible all issues which bear on this charge should be determined in this proceeding: the accused is in the courtroom, the jury is in the box, the judge is on the bench, and the witnesses, having been subpoenaed and duly sworn, await their turn to testify. Society’s resources have been concentrated at that time and place in order to decide, within the limits of human fallibility, the question of guilt or innocence of one of its citizens. Any procedural rule which encourages the result that those proceedings be as free of error as possible is thoroughly desirable, and the contemporaneous-objection rule surely falls within this classification.
We believe the adoption of the Francis rule in this situation will have the salutary effect of making the state trial on the merits the “main event,” so to speak, rather than a “tryout on the road” for what will later be the determinative federal ha-beas hearing. There is nothing in the Constitution or in the language of § 2254 which requires that the state trial on the issue of guilt or innocence be devoted largely to the testimony of fact witnesses directed to the elements of the state crime, while only later will there occur in a federal habeas hearing a full airing of the' federal constitutional claims which were not raised in the state proceedings. If a criminal defendant thinks that an action of the state trial court is about to deprive him of a federal constitutional right there is every reason for his following state procedure in making known his objection.
The “cause”-and-“prejudice” exception of the Francis rule will afford an adequate guarantee, we think, that the rule will not prevent a federal habeas court from adjudicating for the first time the federal constitutional claim of a defendant who in the absence of such an adjudication will be the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Whatever precise content may be given those terms by later cases, we feel confident in holding without further elaboration that they do not exist here. Respondent has advanced no explanation whatever for his failure to object at trial, and, as the proceeding unfolded, the trial judge is certainly not to be faulted for failing to question the admission of the confession himself. The other evidence of guilt presented at trial, moreover, was substantial to a degree that would negate any possibility of actual prejudice resulting to the respondent from the admission of his inculpatory statement.
We accordingly conclude that the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit must be reversed, and the cause remanded to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida with instructions to dismiss respondent’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus..
It is so ordered.
No written statement was offered into evidence because Sykes refused to sign the statement once it was typed up. Tr. 35.
At one point early in the trial defense counsel did object to admission of any statements made by respondent to the police, on the basis that the basic elements of an offense had not yet been established. The judge ruled that the evidence could be admitted “subject to [the crime’s] being properly established later.” Id., at 16.
In a subsequent state habeas action, the Florida District Court of Appeals, Second District, stated that the admissibility of the postarrest statements had been raised and decided on direct appeal. Sykes v. State, 275 So. 2d 24 (1973). The United States District Court in the present action explicitly found to the contrary, App. to Pet. for Cert. A-21, and respondent does not challenge that finding.
Respondent expressly waived “any contention or allegation as regards ineffective assistance of counsel” at his trial. App. A-47. He advanced an argument challenging the jury instructions relating to justifiable homicide, but the District Court concluded in a single paragraph that the instructions had been adequate.
Rule 3.190 (i):
“Motion to Suppress a Confession or Admissions Illegally Obtained.
“(1) Grounds. Upon motion of the defendant or upon its own motion, the court shall suppress any confession or admission obtained illegally from the defendant.
“(2) Time for Filing. The motion to suppress shall be made prior to trial unless opportunity therefor did not exist or the defendant was not aware of the grounds for the motion, but the court in its discretion may entertain the motion or an appropriate objection at the trial.
“(3) Hearing. The court shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to be decided in order to rule on the motion.”
For divergent discussions of the historic role of federal habeas corpus, compare: Hart, The Supreme Court, 1958 Term, Foreword: The Time Chart of the Justices, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 84 (1959); Reitz, Federal Habeas Corpus: Impact of an Abortive State Proceeding, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 1315 (1961); Brennan, Federal Habeas Corpus and State Prisoners: An Exercise in Federalism, 7 Utah L. Rev. 423 (1961); Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv. L. Rev. 441, 468 (1963); Oaks, Legal History in the High Court — Habeas Corpus, 64 Mich. L. Rev. 451 (1966); Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 IT. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 170-171 (1970) ; and Note, Developments in the Law — Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1038 (1970).
28 U. S. C. §2254:
“(b) An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, or that there is either an absence of available State corrective process or the existence of circumstances rendering such process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner.
“(e) An applicant shall not be deemed to have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, within the meaning of this section, if he has the right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented.”
Not long after Fay, the Court in Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443 (1965), considered the question of the adequacy of a state procedural ground to bar direct Supreme Court review, and concluded that failure to comply with a state contemporaneous-objection rule applying to the admission of evidence did not necessarily foreclose consideration of the underlying Fourth Amendment claim. The state procedural ground would be “adequate,” and thus dispositive of the case on direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court, only where “the State’s insistence on compliance with its procedural rule serves a legitimate state interest.” Id, at 447. Because, the Court reasoned, the purposes of the contemporaneous-objection rule were largely served by the motion for a directed verdict at the close of the State’s case, enforcement of the contemporaneous-objection rule was less than essential and therefore lacking in the necessary “legitimacy” to make it an adequate state ground.
Rather than searching the merits of the constitutional claim, though, the Court remanded for determination whether a separate adequate state ground might exist — that is, whether petitioner had knowingly and deliberately waived his right to object at trial for tactical or other reasons. This was the same type of waiver which the Court in Fay had said must be demonstrated in order to bar review on state procedural grounds in a federal habeas proceeding.
See n. 5, supra.
In Pinto v. Pierce, 389 U. S. 31, 32 (1967), the Court stated: ‘‘Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964), held that a defendant's constitutional rights are violated when his challenged confession is introduced without a determination by the trial judge of its voluntariness after an adequate hearing....”
In Lego v. Twomey, 404 U. S. 477, 478 (1972), we summarized the Jackson holding as conferring the right to a voluntariness hearing on “a criminal defendant who challenges the voluntariness of a confession” sought to be used against him at trial.
Petitioner does not argue, and we do not pause to consider,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we consider the question to whom should a reviewing court defer when the Secretary of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission furnish reasonable but conflicting interpretations of an ambiguous regulation promulgated by the Secretary under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 1590, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §651 et seq. The Court of Appeals concluded that it should defer to the Commission’s interpretation under such circumstances. We reverse.
I — I
<J
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act or Act) establishes a comprehensive regulatory scheme designed “to assure so far as possible . . . safe and healthful working conditions” for “every working man and woman in the Nation.” 29 U. S. C. § 651(b). See generally Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm’n, 430 U. S. 442, 444-445 (1977). To achieve this objective, the Act assigns distinct regulatory tasks to two different administrative actors: the Secretary of Labor (Secretary); and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (Commission), a three-member board appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. 29 U. S. C. §§ 651(b)(3), 661.
The Act charges the Secretary with responsibility for setting and enforcing workplace health and safety standards. See Cuyahoga Valley R. Co. v. United Transportation Union, 474 U. S. 3, 6-7 (1985) (per curiam). The Secretary establishes these standards through the exercise of rulemaking powers. See 29 U. S. C. § 665. If the Secretary (or the Secretary’s designate) determines upon investigation that an employer is failing to comply with such a standard, the Secretary is authorized to issue a citation and to assess the employer a monetary penalty. §§658-659, 666.
The Commission is assigned to “carr[y] out adjudicatory functions” under the Act. § 651(b)(3). If an employer wishes to contest a citation, the Commission must afford the employer an evidentiary hearing and “thereafter issue an order, based on findings of fact, affirming, modifying, or vacating the Secretary’s citation or proposed penalty.” § 659(c). Initial decisions are made by an administrative law judge (ALJ), whose ruling becomes the order of the Commission unless the Commission grants discretionary review. §661(j). Both the employer and the Secretary have the right to seek review of an adverse Commission order in the court of appeals, which must treat as “conclusive” Commission findings of fact that are “supported by substantial evidence.” §660(a)-(b).
B
This case arises from the Secretary’s effort to enforce compliance with OSH Act standards relating to coke-oven emissions. Promulgated pursuant to the Secretary’s rulemaking powers, these standards establish maximum permissible emissions levels and require the use of employee respirators in certain circumstances. See 29 CFR §1910.1029 (1990). An investigation by one of the Secretary’s compliance officers revealed that respondent CF&I Steel Corporation (CF&I) had equipped 28 of its employees with respirators that failed an “atmospheric test” designed to determine whether a respirator provides a sufficiently tight fit to protect its wearer from carcinogenic emissions. As a result of being equipped with these loose-fitting respirators, some employees were exposed to coke-oven emissions exceeding the regulatory limit. Based on these findings, the compliance officer issued a citation to CF&I and assessed it a $10,000 penalty for violating 29 CFR § 1910.1029(g)(3) (1990), which requires an employer to “institute a respiratory protection program in accordance with § 1910.134.” CF&I contested the citation.
The ALJ sided with the Secretary, but the full Commission subsequently granted review and vacated the citation. See CF&I, 12 OSHC 2067 (1986). In the Commission’s view, the “respiratory protection program” referred to in § 1910.1029(g)(3) expressly requires only that an employer train employees in the proper use of respirators; the obligation to assure proper fit of an individual employee’s respirator, the Commission noted, was expressly stated in another regulation, namely, § 1910.1029(g)(4)(i). See 12 OSHC, at 2077-2078. Reasoning, inter alia, that the Secretary’s interpretation of §.1910.1029(g)(3) would render §1910.1029 (g)(4) superfluous, the Commission concluded that the facts alleged in the citation and found by the ALJ did not establish a violation of § 1910.1029(g)(3). See 12 OSHC, at 2078-2079. Because § 1910.1029(g)(3) was the only asserted basis for liability, the Commission vacated the citation. See id., at 2079.
The Secretary petitioned for review in the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which affirmed the Commission’s order. See Dole v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, 891 F. 2d 1495 (1989). The court concluded that the relevant regulations were ambiguous as to the employer’s obligation to assure proper fit of an employee’s respirator. The court thus framed the issue before it as whose reasonable interpretation of the regulations, the Secretary’s or the Commission’s, merited the court’s deference. See id., at 1497. The court held that the Commission’s interpretation was entitled to deference under such circumstances, reasoning that Congress had intended to delegate to the Commission “the normal complement of adjudicative • powers possessed by traditional administrative agencies” and that “[s]uch an adjudicative function necessarily encompasses the power to ‘declare’ the law.” Id., at 1498. Although the court determined that it would “certainly [be] possible to reach an alternate interpretation of the ambiguous regulatory language,” the court nonetheless concluded that the Commission’s interpretation was a reasonable one. Id., at 1500. The court therefore deferred to the Commission’s interpretation without assessing the reasonableness of the Secretary’s competing view. See ibid.
The Secretary thereafter petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari. We granted the petition in order to resolve a conflict among the Circuits on the question whether a reviewing court should defer to the Secretary or to the Commission when these actors furnish reasonable but conflicting interpretations of an ambiguous regulation under the OSH Act. 497 U. S. 1002 (1990).
I — I l — l
It is well established “that an agency s construction of its own regulations is entitled to substantial deference.” Lyng v. Payne, 476 U. S. 926, 989 (1986); accord, Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16-17 (1965). In situations in which “the meaning of [regulatory] language is not free from doubt,” the reviewing court should give effect to the agency’s interpretation so long as it is “reasonable,” Ehlert v. United States, 402 U. S. 99, 105 (1971), that is, so long as the interpretation “sensibly conforms to the purpose and wording of the regulations,” Northern Indiana Pub. Serv. Co. v. Porter County Chapter of Izaak Walton League of America, Inc., 423 U. S. 12, 15 (1975). Because applying an agency’s regulation to complex or changing circumstances calls upon the agency’s unique expertise and policymaking prerogatives, we presume that the power authoritatively to interpret its own regulations is a component of the agency’s delegated lawmaking powers. See Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin, 444 U. S. 555, 566, 568 (1980). The question before us in this case is to which administrative actor — the Secretary or the Commission — did Congress delegate this “interpretive” lawmaking power under the OSH Act.
To put this question in perspective, it is necessary to take account of the unusual regulatory structure established by the Act. Under most regulatory schemes, rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicative powers are combined in a single administrative authority. See, e. g., 15 U. S. C. §41 et seq. (Federal Trade Commission); 15 U. S. C. §§77s-77u (Securities and Exchange Commission); 47 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (Federal Communications Commission). Under the OSH Act, however, Congress separated enforcement and rulemaking powers from adjudicative powers, assigning these respective functions to two different administrative authorities. The purpose of this “split enforcement” structure was to achieve a greater separation of functions than exists within the traditional “unitary” agency, which under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) generally must divide enforcement and adjudication between separate personnel, see 5 U. S. C. § 554(d). See generally Johnson, The Split-Enforcement Model: Some Conclusions from the OSHA and MSHA Experiences, 39 Admin. L. Rev. 315, 317-319 (1987).
This is not the first time that we have been called upon to resolve an OSH Act “jurisdictional” dispute between the Secretary and the Commission. See Cuyahoga Valley R. Co. v. United Transportation Union, 474 U. S., at 3. At issue in Cuyahoga Valley was whether the Commission could conduct an administrative adjudication notwithstanding the Secretary’s motion to vacate the citation. We held that the Commission had no such power. We noted that “enforcement of the Act is the sole responsibility of the Secretary” and concluded that “[a] necessary adjunct of that power is the authority to withdraw a citation and enter into settlement discussions with the employer.” Id., at 6-7. The Commission’s role as “neutral arbiter,” we explained, “plainly does not extend to overturning the Secretary’s decision not to issue or to withdraw a citation.” Id., at 7.
Although the Act does not expressly address the issue, we now infer from the structure and history of the statute, see id., at 6-7, that the power to render authoritative interpretations of OSH Act regulations is a “necessary adjunct” of the Secretary’s powers to promulgate and to enforce national health and safety standards. The Secretary enjoys readily identifiable structural advantages over the Commission in rendering authoritative interpretations of OSH Act regulations. Because the Secretary promulgates these standards, the Secretary is in a better position than is the Commission to reconstruct the purpose of the regulations in question. Moreover, by virtue of the Secretary’s statutory role as enforcer, the Secretary comes into contact with a much greater number of regulatory problems than does the Commission, which encounters only those regulatory episodes resulting in contested citations. Cf. Note, Employee Participation in Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission Proceedings, 85 Colum. L. Rev. 1317, 1331, and n. 90 (1985) (reporting small percentage of OSH Act citations contested between 1979 and 1985). Consequently, the Secretary is more likely to develop the expertise relevant to assessing the ef-feet of a particular regulatory interpretation. Because historical familiarity and policymaking expertise account in the first instance for the presumption that Congress delegates interpretive lawmaking power to the agency rather than to the reviewing court, see, e. g., Mullins Coal Co. v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, 484 U. S. 135, 159 (1987); Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin, supra, at 566; INS v. Stanisic, 395 U. S. 62, 72 (1969), we presume here that Congress intended to invest interpretive power in the administrative actor in the best position to develop these attributes.
The legislative history of the OSH Act supports this conclusion. The version of the Act originally passed by the House of Representatives vested adjudicatory power in the Commission and rulemaking power in an independent standards board, leaving the Secretary with only enforcement power. 116 Cong. Rec. 38716 (1970), reprinted in Legislative History of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (S. 2193, Pub. L. 91-596) (Committee Print prepared by the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare), pp. 1094-1096 (1971) (Legislative History). The Senate version dispensed with the standards board and established the division of responsibilities that survives in the enacted legislation. The Senate Committee Report explained that combining legislative and enforcement powers in the Secretary would result in “a sounder program” because it would make a single administrative actor responsible both for “formulating] rules . . . and for seeing that they are workable and effective in their day-to-day application,” and would allow Congress to hold a single administrative actor politically “accountable for the overall implementation of that program.” S. Rep. No. 91-1282, p. 8 (1970), reprinted in Legislative History 148. Because dividing the power to promulgate and enforce OSH Act standards from the power to make law by interpreting them would make two administrative actors ultimately responsible for implementing the Act’s policy objectives, we conclude that Congress did not expect the Commission to possess authoritative interpretive powers.
For the same reason, we reject the Court of Appeals’ inference that Congress intended “to endow the Commission with the normal complement of adjudicative powers possessed by traditional administrative agencies.” 891 F. 2d, at 1498 (emphasis added). Within traditional agencies — that is, agencies possessing a unitary structure — adjudication operates as an appropriate mechanism not only for factfinding, but also for the exercise of delegated lawmaking powers, including lawmaking by interpretation. See NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 292-294 (1974); SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 201-203 (1947). But in these cases, we concluded that agency adjudication is a generally permissible mode of lawmaking and policymaking only because the unitary agencies in question also had been delegated the power to make law and policy through rulemak-ing. See Bell Aerospace, supra, at 292-294; Chenery Corp., supra, at 202-203. See generally Shapiro, The Choice of Rulemaking or Adjudication in the Development of Administrative Policy, 78 Harv. L. Rev. 921 (1965). Insofar as Congress did not invest the Commission with the power to make law or policy by other means, we cannot infer that Congress expected the Commission to use its adjudicatory power to play a policymaking role. Moreover, when a traditional, unitary agency uses adjudication to engage in lawmaking by regulatory interpretation, it necessarily interprets regulations that it has promulgated. This, too, cannot be said of the Commission’s power to adjudicate.
Consequently, we think the more plausible inference is that Congress intended to delegate to the Commission the type of nonpolicymaking adjudicatory powers typically exercised by a court in the agency-review context. Under this conception of adjudication, the Commission is authorized to review the Secretary’s interpretations only for consistency with the regulatory language and for reasonableness. In addition, of course, Congress expressly charged the Commission with making authoritative findings of fact and with applying the Secretary’s standards to those facts in making a decision. See 29 U. S. C. § 660(a) (Commission’s factual findings “shall be conclusive” so long as “supported by substantial evidence”). The Commission need be viewed as possessing no more power than this in order to perform its statutory role as “neutral arbiter.” See Cuyahoga Valley, 474 U. S., at 7.
CF&I draws a different conclusion from the history and structure of the Act. Congress, CF&I notes, established the Commission in response to concerns that combining, rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicatory power in the Secretary would leave employers unprotected from regulatory bias. Construing the Act to separate enforcement and interpretive powers is consistent with this purpose, CF&I argues, because it protects regulated employers from biased prosecutorial interpretations of the Secretary’s regulations. Indeed, interpretations furnished in the course of administrative penalty actions, according to CF&I, are mere “litigating positions,” undeserving of judicial deference under our precedents. See, e. g., Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 212 (1988).
Although we find these concerns to be important, we think that they are overstated. It is clear that Congress adopted the split-enforcement structure in the OSH Act in order to achieve a greater separation of functions than exists in a conventional unitary agency. See S. Rep. No. 91-1282, supra, at 56, reprinted in Legislative History 195 (individual views of Sen. Javits) (noting that adjudication by independent panel goes beyond division of functions under the APA but defending split-enforcement structure as “more closely [in] accor[d] with traditional notions of due process”). But the conclusion that the Act should therefore be understood to separate enforcement powers from authoritative interpretive powers begs the question just how much Congress intended to depart from the unitary model. Sponsors of the Commission purported to be responding to the traditional objection that an agency head’s participation in or supervision of agency investigations results in biased review of the decisions of the hearing officer, notwithstanding internal separations within the agency. See ibid. See generally 3 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 18.8, pp. 369-370 (2d ed. 1980). Vesting authoritative factfinding and ALJ-review powers in the Commission, an administrative body wholly independent of the administrative enforcer, dispels this concern.
We harbor no doubt that Congress also intended to protect regulated parties from biased interpretations of the Secretary’s regulations. But this objective is achieved when the Commission, and ultimately the court of appeals, review the Secretary’s interpretation to assure that it is consistent with the regulatory language and is otherwise reasonable. Giving the Commission the power to substitute its reasonable interpretations for the Secretary’s might slightly increase regulated parties’ protection from overzealous interpretations. But it would also clearly frustrate Congress’ intent to make a single administrative actor “accountable for the overall implementation” of the Act’s policy objectives by combining legislative and enforcement powers in the Secretary. S. Rep. No. 91-1282, p. 8, reprinted in Legislative History 148.
We are likewise unpersuaded by the contention that the Secretary’s interpretations of regulations will necessarily appear in forms undeserving of judicial deference. Our decisions indicate that agency “litigating positions” are not entitled to deference when they are merely appellate counsel’s “post hoc rationalizations” for agency action, advanced for the first time in the reviewing court. See Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, supra, at 212; Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 168 (1962). Because statutory and regulatory interpretations furnished in this setting occur after agency proceedings have terminated, they do not constitute an exercise of the agency’s delegated lawmaking powers. The Secretary’s interpretation of OSH Act regulations in an administrative adjudication, however, is agency action, not a post hoc rationalization of it. Moreover, when embodied in a citation, the Secretary’s interpretation assumes a form expressly provided for by Congress. See 29 U. S. C. § 658. Under these circumstances, the Secretary’s litigating position before the Commission is as much an exercise of delegated lawmaking powers as is the Secretary’s promulgation of a workplace health and safety standard.
In addition, the Secretary regularly employs less formal means of interpreting regulations prior to issuing a citation. These include the promulgation of interpretive rules, see, e. g., Marshall v. W and W Steel Co., 604 F. 2d 1322, 1325-1326 (CA10 1979); cf. Whirlpool Corp. v. Marshall, 445 U. S. 1, 11 (1980), and the publication of agency enforcement guidelines, see United States Department of Labor, OSHA Field Operations Manual (3d ed. 1989). See generally S. Bokat & H. Thompson, Occupational Safety and Health Law 658-660 (1988). Although not entitled to the same deference as norms that derive from the exercise of the Secretary’s delegated lawmaking powers, these informal interpretations are still entitled to some weight on judicial review. See Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416, 425-426, and n. 9 (1977); Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944); Whirlpool, supra, at 11. A reviewing court may certainly consult them to determine whether the Secretary has consistently applied the interpretation embodied in the citation, a factor bearing on the reasonableness of the Secretary’s position. See Ehlert v. United States, 402 U. S., at 105.
III
We emphasize the narrowness of our holding. We deal in this case only with the division of powers between the Secretary and the Commission under the OSH Act. We conclude from the available indicia of legislative intent that Congress did not intend to sever the power authoritatively to interpret OSH Act regulations from the Secretary’s power to promulgate and enforce them. Subject only to constitutional limits, Congress is free, of course, to divide these powers as it chooses, and we take no position on the division of enforcement and interpretive powers within other regulatory schemes that conform to the split-enforcement structure. Nor should anything we say today be understood to bear on whether particular divisions of enforcement and adjudicative power within a unitary agency comport with § 554(d) of the APA.
In addition, although we hold that a reviewing court may not prefer the reasonable interpretations of the Commission to the reasonable interpretations of the Secretary, we emphasize that the reviewing court should defer to the Secretary only if the Secretary’s interpretation is reasonable. The Secretary’s interpretation of an ambiguous regulation is subject to the same standard of substantive review as any other exercise of delegated lawmaking power. See 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A); Batterton v. Francis, supra, at 426. As we have indicated, the Secretary’s interpretation is not undeserving of deference merely because the Secretary advances it for the first time in an administrative adjudication. But as the Secretary’s counsel conceded in oral argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 18-19, 20-21, the decision to use a citation as the initial means for announcing a particular interpretation may bear on the adequacy of notice to regulated parties, see Bell Aerospace, 416 U. S., at 295; Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S., at 220 (Scalia, J., concurring), on the quality of the Secretary’s elaboration of pertinent policy considerations, see Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 43 (1983), and on other factors relevant to the reasonableness of the Secretary’s exercise of delegated lawmaking powers.
CF&I urges us to hold that the Secretary unreasonably interpreted 29 CFR § 1910.1029(g)(3) (1990) in this case. However, because the Court of Appeals deferred to the Commission’s interpretation, it had no occasion to address the reasonableness of the Secretary’s interpretation. Rather than consider this issue for the first time ourselves, we leave the issue for resolution on remand.
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 Secretary has delegated certain statutory responsibilities to the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, who heads the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. See Secretary of Labor’s Order No. 12-71, 36 Fed. Reg. 8754 (1971); Order No. 8-76, 41 Fed. Reg. 25059 (1976); Order No. 9-83, 48 Fed. Reg. 35736 (1983).
“For safe use of any respirator, it is essential that the user be properly instructed in its selection, use, and maintenance. Both supervisors and workers shall be so instructed by competent persons. Training shall provide the men an opportunity to handle the respirator, have it fitted properly, test its face-piece-to-face seal, wear it in normal air for a long familiarity period, and, finally, to wear it in a test atmosphere.” 29 CFR § 1910.134(e)(5) (1990).
This regulation states in pertinent part: “Respirator usage, (i) The employer shall assure that the respirator issued to the employee exhibits minimum facepiece leakage and that the respirator is fitted properly.” § 1910.1029. According to the Commission, the compliance officer who issued the citation “acknowledged that [§ 1910.1029(g)(4)(i)] applied,” and “that he might have cited the wrong standard.” CF&I, 12 OSHC 2067, 2078 (1986).
Compare Brock v. Williams Enterprises of Georgia, Inc., 832 F. 2d 567, 569-570 (CA11 1987) (deference to Secretary); United Steelworkers of America v. Schuylkill Metals Corp., 828 F. 2d 314, 319 (CA5 1987) (same); and Donovan v. A. Amorello & Sons, Inc., 761 F. 2d 61, 65-66 (CA1 1985) (same), with Brock v. Cardinal Industries, Inc., 828 F. 2d 373, 376, n. 4 (CA6 1987) (deference to Commission); Brock v. Bechtel Power Corp., 803 F. 2d 999, 1000-1001 (CA9 1986) (same); and Marshall v. Western Electric, Inc., 565 F. 2d 240, 244 (CA2 1977) (same).
The parties do not challenge the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the regulations at issue in this case are ambiguous. We assume that this conclusion is correct for purposes of our analysis.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question for decision in these cases is whether a rule of the National Labor Relations Board that requires that nonunion employees be permitted to vote in a certified union’s decision whether to affiliate with another union is consistent with the National Labor Relations Act.
i — I
In 1970, the Board certified the Firstbank Independent Employees Association (Firstbank) as the collective-bargaining representative of a bargaining unit consisting of the employees of petitioner Seattle-First National Bank (SeaFirst). Firstbank and SeaFirst subsequently negotiated successive collective-bargaining agreements, the most recent of which expired in 1977. In 1978, Firstbank voted to affiliate with the Retail Clerks International Union, AFL-CIO. Under Firstbank’s constitution, only union members in good standing could vote in the election. The union members voted in favor of affiliation by a margin of 1,206-774. Upon affiliation, Firstbank changed its name to the Financial Institution Employees of America, Local 1182 (FIEA), chartered by the Retail Clerks International Union, AFL-CIO. FIEA then petitioned the Board to amend its certification to reflect this change. SeaFirst challenged the petition, arguing that affiliation with the Retail Clerks had substantially changed the union, that nonunion employees should have been allowed to vote on whether to affiliate, and that the union had not followed its own constitution in establishing voter eligibility standards. The Board rejected these arguments and amended Firstbank’s certification to name FIEA as the employees’ bargaining representative. Seattle-First National Bank, 241 N. L. R. B. 751 (1979).
SeaFirst refused to recognize the amended certification or to bargain with FIEA. The Board sustained FIEA’s charges and held that SeaFirst had committed an unfair labor practice in violation of §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(a)(1) and 158(a)(5), and ordered it to bargain. Seattle-First National Bank, 245 N. L. R. B. 700 (1979). SeaFirst petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for review of the Board’s order, and the Board cross-applied for enforcement. Before the Court of Appeals rendered its decision, the Board moved for remand of the case to it, and the court granted the motion. Seattle-First National Bank v. NLRB, Nos. 79-7515, 80-7004 (June 27, 1980); see n. 4, infra.
On remand, the Board notified the parties of its decision on its own motion to reconsider its earlier decision. On reconsideration, the Board held that, because nonunion employees were not allowed to vote in the affiliation election, the election did not meet minimal “due process” standards, and therefore that the affiliation was invalid. Accordingly, the Board dismissed FIEA’s unfair labor practice charge and vacated the amended certification. Seattle-First National Bank, 265 N. L. R. B. 426 (1982).
FIEA petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for review of the Board’s decision. The Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, granted the petition and remanded the case. 752 F. 2d 356 (1984). The court held that the Board’s requirement that nonunion employees be allowed to vote on affiliation questions was irrational and inconsistent with the Act for three reasons. First, the Board’s rule intruded upon the union’s internal affairs —here a totally unjustified intrusion because the Board had not determined that affiliation had substantially changed the union or eroded its majority support — and violated the “longstanding federal labor policy of avoiding unnecessary interference in internal union affairs.” Id., at 362. Second, the Board’s rule was “inconsistent with the strong national policy of maintaining stability in the bargaining representative.” Id., at 364. Pursuant to that policy, Congress and the Board had restricted the opportunities for employers and employees to challenge a certified union’s status as bargaining representative, and the Board’s new rule did not further but breached the policy, since it effectively decertified the union without a Board determination that affiliation had undermined the union’s majority support. Finally, the Board’s rule was irrational, because the interests of nonunion employees were adequately protected under existing procedures, and because the Board’s reasoning did not support the rule.
The holding of the Court of Appeals conflicts with contrary holdings of the Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Seventh Circuits upholding the Board’s rule. Local Union No. 4-14 v. NLRB, 721 F. 2d 150, 152-153 (CA5 1983); United Retail Workers Union, Local 881 v. NLRB, 774 F. 2d 752 (CA7 1985). We granted both petitions in this case to to resolve the conflict. 471 U. S. 1098 (1985). We affirm.
HH l-H
Section 7 of the Act guarantees employees the right “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing,” 29 U. S. C. §157, and the Board is empowered to determine representation on petition of employees or the employer. 29 U. S. C. §§ 159(c)(l)(A)(i), 159(c)(1)(B). In either case, the Board investigates the petition and holds a hearing if it has reasonable cause to believe that a “question of representation” exists, 29 U. S. C. § 159(c), and directs a representation election by secret ballot to settle the question. Ibid. The Board certifies the winning union as the bargaining representative of all of the employees in the bargaining unit. The employer commits an unfair labor practice by refusing to bargain with the employees’ certified bargaining representative. 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(5).
The Act recognizes that employee support for a certified bargaining representative may be eroded by changed circumstances. In such cases, employees may petition the Board for another election, alleging that the certified representative no longer enjoys majority support. 29 U. S. C. § 159(c)(1) (A)(ii); 29 CFR §§ 101.17,102.60(a) (1985). Similarly, an employer who questions whether a majority of employees continue to support a certified union may petition for another election. 29 U. S. C. § 159(c)(1)(B); 29 CFR §§101.17, 102.60(a) (1985); see 1 C. Morris, The Developing Labor Law 349 (2d ed. 1983). The employer, however, must “demonstrate by objective considerations that it has some reasonable grounds for believing that the union has lost its majority status.” United States Gypsum Co., 157 N. L. R. B. 652, 656 (1966); 29 CFR § 101.17 (1985); see 1 Morris, supra. Again, if the Board determines, after investigation and hearing, that a question of representation exists, it directs an election by secret ballot and certifies the result. 29 U. S. C. § 159(c).
One such change in circumstances is, as here, where an independent union decides to affiliate with a national or international organization. In many such cases, the union may also change its name to reflect its new affiliation, and will petition the Board to amend its certification to reflect this name change. 29 CFR §§101.17, 102.60(b) (1985). The Board’s practice has been to grant such petitions if the Board found that the affiliation satisfied two conditions. First, that union members have had an adequate opportunity to vote on affiliation. North Electric Co., 165 N. L. R. B. 942, 943 (1967). The Board ordinarily required that the affiliation election be conducted with adequate “due process” safeguards, including notice of the election to all members, an adequate opportunity for members to discuss the election, and reasonable precautions to maintain ballot secrecy. E. g., Newspapers Inc., 210 N. L. R. B. 8, 9 (1974), enf’d, 515 F. 2d 334 (CA5 1975). Second, that there was substantial “continuity” between the pre- and post-affiliation union. The focus of this inquiry was whether the affiliation had substantially changed the union; the Board considered such factors as whether the union retained local autonomy and local officers, and continued to follow established procedures. See Note, supra n. 5, at 445, and nn. 74-82. If the organizational changes accompanying affiliation were substantial enough to create a different entity, the affiliation raised a “question concerning representation” which could only be resolved through the Board’s election procedure. 1 Morris, supra, at 690; 29 CFR §§ 101.17, 102.60(b) (1985). However, as long as continuity of representation and due process were satisfied, affiliation was considered an internal matter that did not affect the union’s status as the employees’ bargaining representative, and the employer was obligated to continue bargaining with the reorganized union. 1 Morris, supra, at 690-691; Universal Tool & Stamping Co., 182 N. L. R. B. 254, 259 (1970).
The Board’s new rule dramatically changes this scheme. The Board now takes the position that all employees in the bargaining unit — not merely union members — must have the opportunity to participate in the affiliation decision. See Amoco Production Co., 262 N. L. R. B. 1240, 1241 (1982). Unless they are allowed to do so, the Board will not amend the union’s certification or require the employer to bargain with the reorganized union. The Board applies this rule even though the organizational changes resulting from the affiliation are not substantial enough to raise a question of representation. See Brief for NLRB 16-17. The Board does not contend that the Act requires that all employees of the bargaining unit, union and nonunion, must be allowed to participate in the affiliation election or that the Act expressly authorizes the Board to impose such requirements. Rather, the Board and the employer defend the Board’s new rule on two grounds. First, they assert that the Board’s rule is a reasonable means of protecting the bargaining unit employees’ right to select a bargaining representative under § 7 of the Act. Second, they argue that the rule minimizes industrial strife. We address each argument in turn.
I — I 1 — 1 HH
A
Petitioners argue that the Board should be afforded “a wide degree of discretion in establishing the procedure and safeguards necessary to insure the fair and free choice of bargaining representatives by employees,” NLRB v. A. J. Tower Co., 329 U. S. 324, 330 (1946); see also 29 U. S. C. § 156; NLRB v. Wyman-Gordon Co., 394 U. S. 759, 767 (1969); NLRB v. Waterman S.S. Corp. 309 U. S. 206, 226 (1940), and contend that a requirement that all employees be allowed to vote on affiliation is a reasonable means of insuring that a majority of employees consent to representation by the postaffiliation union, and ultimately of protecting the right of all employees to select a bargaining representative. Our cases have previously recognized the Board’s broad authority to construe provisions of the Act, and have deferred to Board decisions that are not irrational or inconsistent with the Act. Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U. S. 488, 495, 497 (1979); Beth Israel Hospital v. NLRB, 437 U. S. 483, 501 (1978); NLRB v. Iron Workers, 434 U. S. 335, 350 (1978). However, the question here is whether the Board’s new rule exceeds the Board’s statutory authority. Cf. NLRB v. Longshoremen, 473 U. S. 61 (1985); NLRB v. Bildisco & Bildisco, 465 U. S. 513 (1984). Deference to the Board “cannot be allowed to slip into a judicial inertia which results in the unauthorized assumption ... of major policy decisions properly made by Congress.” American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 318 (1965); see also NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 499 (1960). We hold that the Board’s new rule exceeds its authority under the Act.
Under the Act, the certified union must be recognized as the exclusive bargaining representative of all employees in the bargaining unit, and the Board cannot discontinue that recognition without determining that the affiliation raises a question of representation and, if so, conducting an election to decide whether the certified union still is the choice of a majority of the unit. 29 U. S. C. § 159(c). Of course, as is the case with any organizational and structural change, a new affiliation may substantially change a certified union’s relationship with the employees it represents. These changed circumstances may in turn raise a “question of representation,” if it is unclear whether a majority of employees continue to support the reorganized union. Thus, in these situations, the affiliation implicates the employees’ right to select a bargaining representative, and to protect the employees’ interests, the situation may require that the Board exercise its authority to conduct a representation election. 29 U. S. C. § 159(c)(1). However, the Board’s decision must take into account that “[t]he industrial stability sought by the Act would unnecessarily be disrupted if every union organizational adjustment were to result in displacement of the employer-bargaining representative relationship.” Canton Sign Co., 174 N. L. R. B. 906, 909 (1969), enf. denied on other grounds, 457 F. 2d 832 (CA6 1972). In many cases, a majority of employees will continue to support the union despite any changes precipitated by affiliation. In such situations, affiliation does not necessarily implicate the “selection” of a new bargaining representative. The reorganized union may legitimately claim to succeed as the employees’ duly selected bargaining representative, and in that case retains a legitimate interest in continuing to bargain collectively with the employer. The Act balances these competing concerns by authorizing the Board to conduct a representation election only where affiliation raises a question of representation. 29 U. S. C. § 159(c). Conversely, where affiliation does not raise a question of representation, the statute gives the Board no authority to act. The Board’s new rule upsets the accommodation drawn by the statute by effectively decertify-ing the reorganized union even where affiliation does not raise a question of representation.
Turning to the record in these cases, the Board revoked FIEA’s certification and relieved SeaFirst of its obligation to bargain despite the fact, as the Board acknowledges, that it was not sufficient to raise a question of representation that nonunion employees were not allowed to vote in the affiliation election. Brief for NLRB 16-17. Absent a question of representation, FIEA continued to function, as it was entitled to do, as the bargaining representative of the unit, and SeaFirst was obligated to continue bargaining with it. By-refusing either to amend FIEA’s certification or to order SeaFirst to bargain, the Board effectively circumvented the decertification procedures provided for by statute. Moreover, the Board exceeded its statutory authority by requiring that nonunion employees be allowed to vote in the union’s affiliation election. This violated the policy Congress incorporated into the Act against outside interference in union decisionmaking. See Steelworkers v. Sadlowski, 457 U. S. 102, 117 (1982); NLRB v. Boeing Co., 412 U. S. 67, 71 (1973); Scofield v. NLRB, 394 U. S. 423, 428 (1969); NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 175, 195 (1967). Petitioners maintain that this policy must give way to the right of the employees to select a bargaining representative. Cf. Pattern Makers v. NLRB, 473 U. S. 95 (1985) (union rule barring resignations during a strike contrary to statutory policy of voluntary unionism); NLRB v. Marine Workers, 391 U. S. 418 (1968) (union rule requiring exhaustion of internal grievance procedures does not preclude Board review). But the Act establishes a specific election procedure to decide whether the employees desire a change in a certified union’s representative status. While the Board is charged with responsibility to administer this procedure, the Act gives the Board no authority to require unions to follow other procedures in adopting organizational changes.
B
Petitioners contend that this statutory scheme does not adequately protect the interests of nonunion employees, and that this justifies the Board’s new rule. They argue that an affiliation may affect a union’s representation of the bargaining unit even if it does not raise a question of representation, but that argument overlooks the fact that a union makes many decisions that “affect” its representation of nonmember employees. It may decide to call a strike, ratify a collective-bargaining agreement, or select union officers and bargaining representatives. Under the Act, dissatisfied employees may petition the Board to hold a representation election, but the Board has no authority to conduct an election unless the effects complained of raise a question of representation. In any event, dissatisfaction with representation is not a reason for requiring the union to allow nonunion employees to vote on union matters like affiliation. Rather, the Act allows union members to control the shape and direction of their organization, and “[n]on-union employees have no voice in the affairs of the union.” Allis-Chalmers, 388 U. S., at 191. We repeat, dissatisfaction with the decisions union members make may be tested by a Board-conducted representation election only if it is unclear whether the reorganized union retains majority support.
Petitioners concede that a union’s organizational and structural changes would not ordinarily justify the Board’s meddling in a union’s internal affairs, but argue that affiliation is different from other changes because affiliation necessarily changes the union’s identity, and because initiation of the change is by the certified union seeking the Board’s approval for the affiliation by amendment of its certification or an order on the employer to bargain after affiliation. Neither distinction is persuasive.
First, petitioners argue that affiliation differs from other organizational changes because it results in employees being represented by a different organization. See Hamilton Tool Co., 190 N. L. R. B. 571, 576 (1971) (Miller, concurring). But many organizational or structural changes may operate to alter a union’s “identity.” This would be the case where the union amends its constitution or bylaws, restructures its financial obligations and resources, or alters its jurisdiction. The fact that an affiliation is often accompanied by a formal name change does not serve to distinguish it from other organizational developments. As the Board has recognized, “an affiliation does not create a new organization, nor does it result in the dissolution of an already existing organization.” Amoco Production Co., 239 N. L. R. B. 1195 (1979). Rather, the union will determine “whether any administrative or organizational changes are necessary in the affiliating organization.” Ibid. If these changes are sufficiently dramatic to alter the union’s identity, affiliation may raise a question of representation, and the Board may then conduct a representation election. Otherwise, the statute gives the Board no authority to interfere in the union’s affairs.
Petitioners next contend that affiliation involves the union’s asking the Board to amend its certification or to order the employer to bargain. Petitioners assert that the Board therefore has a strong interest in insuring that its own election procedures have not been circumvented before placing its imprimatur on the union’s affiliation election. This argument mischaracterizes the nature of the relevant procedures. In amending the union’s certification or ordering the employer to bargain, the Board does not “sanction” the union’s affiliation. Rather, it signifies only that the reorganized union continues as an ongoing entity that the employer should continue to recognize. By analogy, the fact that the Board may order the employer to bargain with a union that has amended its constitution does not mean that the Board has “sanctioned” the constitutional amendment. In any event, the Board’s interest in insuring the integrity of its procedures does not empower it to adopt measures exceeding its statutory authority. If the Board finds that affiliation raises a question of representation “undermining . . . the Board’s own election and certification procedures,” Amoco Production Co., 262 N. L. R. B., at 1241, it can refuse to consider the union’s unfair labor practice charge, and is authorized to conduct a representation election. However, it may not condone an employer’s refusal to bargain in the absence of a question of representation, and has no authority to prescribe internal procedures for the union to follow in order to invoke the Act’s protections.
> HH
The basic purpose of the National Labor Relations Act is to preserve industrial peace. 29 U. S. C. § 151. The Act includes several provisions designed to encourage stable bargaining relationships, e. g., § 8(b)(7)(A), 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b)(7)(A) (prohibiting recognitional picketing by employees represented by recognized union); § 8(b)(7)(B), 29 U. S. C. § 158(b)(7)(B) (prohibiting recognitional picketing for one year after election); § 9(c)(3), 29 U. S. C. § 159(c)(3) (prohibiting second representation election within one year), and the Board has devised rules to achieve the same ends. See n. 3, supra. Petitioners argue that the Board’s new rule furthers this policy by introducing a measure of certainty into the bargaining relationship that protects both the employer and the union. By having all employees vote for affiliation, so the argument goes, the employer avoids the possibility of having to bargain -with a union that may not represent a majority of the employees. Petitioners submit that the union also benefits from having all employees vote, since it avoids the disruption that would occur if the Board eventually determines that it must hold a new election because the affiliation raises a question of representation. If the employees vote for affiliation, the union can continue to bargain with confidence, since the employer is less likely to challenge the affiliation, and the Board is less likely to find a question of representation. If the employees vote against affiliation, the incumbent union can forgo affiliation and continue to represent the bargaining unit.
Absent any statutory framework, the Board’s rule might well be a rational means of preserving industrial stability. However, as the Ninth Circuit noted, Congress has already determined “as a matter of national labor policy that bargaining stability and the principle of majority rule may limit the timing of employee challenges to their certified bargaining representative’s majority status.” 752 F. 2d, at 366. The Act assumes that stable bargaining relationships are best maintained by allowing an affiliated union to continue representing a bargaining unit unless the Board finds that the affiliation raises a question of representation. The Board’s rule contravenes this assumption, since an employer may invoke a perceived procedural defect to cease bargaining even though the union succeeds the organization the employees chose, the employees have made no effort to decertify the union, and the employer presents no evidence to challenge the union’s majority status. Any uncertainty on the employer’s part does not reheve him of his obligation to bargain collectively. “If an employer has doubts about his duty to continue bargaining, it is his responsibility to petition the Board for relief .... To allow employers to rely on employees’ rights in refusing to bargain with the formally designated union is not conducive to [industrial peace].” Brooks v. NLRB, 348 U. S. 96, 103 (1954). The Board’s rule effectively gives the employer the power to veto an independent union’s decision to affiliate, thereby allowing the employer to directly interfere with union decisionmaking Congress intended to insulate from outside interference.
We hold that the Board exceeded its authority under the Act in requiring that nonunion employees be allowed to vote for affiliation before it would order the employer to bargain with the affiliated union. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. The cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
After the Board amended FIEA’s certification, the Retail Clerks International Union merged with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America to become the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, AFL-CIO. The Board granted FIEA’s motion to amend the name of the charging party in this ease to reflect this change. Seattle-First National Bank, 245 N. L. R. B. 700, 700, n. 1 (1979).
Under § 8(a) of the Act, as set forth in 29 U. S. C. § 158(a), “[i]t shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title;
“(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 159(a) of this title.”
The court cited three examples of Board rules designed to maintain stable bargaining relationships. 752 F. 2d, at 365. First, in cases in which the employer is charged with refusing to bargain with a certified union, the union enjoys a presumption of majority status. For the first year after certification, this presumption is irrebuttable. See Brooks v. NLRB, 348 U. S. 96, 103 (1954). Second, the Board will consider “decerti-fying” a union only if at least 30% of the employees present a petition, or in “extreme eases.” See 29 CFR § 101.18 (1985); R. Gorman, Basic Text on Labor Law 49-50 (1976). Third, under its contract-bar rule, the Board ordinarily refuses to conduct decertification elections for a certain period of time while the collective-bargaining agreement remains in effect. See 1 C. Morris, The Developing Labor Law 361-376 (2d ed. 1983).
The procedural history of the Fifth Circuit’s decision is closely intertwined with this case. In that case, the employer refused to bargain with an affiliated union because only union members had been allowed to vote on affiliation. The Board ordered the employer to bargain. Amoco Production Co., 220 N. L. R. B. 861 (1975), aff’d, 239 N. L. R. B. 1195 (1979). The Board relied on its Amoco decision when it originally amended FIEA’s certification in this case. Amoco was then appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which remanded the case for the Board to determine whether affiliation had substantially changed the union. Amoco Production Co. v. NLRB, 613 F. 2d 107, 112 (1980). In light of the strong similarity between the two cases, the Board asked the Ninth Circuit to remand this ease as well. On remand from the Fifth Circuit, the Board did not address whether affiliation had substantially changed the union. Rather, the Board reversed itself and concluded that the affiliation was invalid because only union members had been allowed to vote. Amoco Production Co., 262 N. L. R. B. 1240 (1982). The Board in turn relied on this decision in dismissing FIEA’s unfair labor practice charge and revoking its amended certification.
A local union may seek to affiliate with a larger organization for a variety of reasons. The larger organization may provide bargaining expertise or financial support, or may compensate for a lack of leadership within the local union. Amoco Production Co., 239 N. L. R. B., at 1195; Hale, Union Affiliations: Examination of Governing NLRA Standards, 1983 Det. C. L. Rev. 709. Affiliation “is but one of many ways in which labor organizations alter their structures and alignments in response to changing economic and political conditions.” Note, Union Affiliations and Collective Bargaining, 128 U. Pa. L. Rev. 430, 431 (1979). The Board has recognized that a union “must remain largely unfettered in its organizational quest for financial stability and aid in the negotiating process.” The Williamson Co., 244 N. L. R. B. 953, 955 (1979).
The union suggests that it may even be inappropriate for the Board to impose due process safeguards with respect to union members. Brief for FIEA 28-29. While we note that the NLRA does not require unions to follow specified procedures in deciding matters such as affiliations, we need not assess the propriety of the Board’s past procedures.
The parties disagree over whether affiliation substantially changed the union in this case. See Brief for NLRB 4, and n. 2; Brief for FIEA 4. However, the Board did not make a continuity determination but simply dismissed FIEA’s unfair labor practice charge and vacated its amended certification. The Court of Appeals therefore declined to address the continuity issue. 752 F. 2d, 356, 359, n. 4 (1984). We also decline to address it.
In some cases, the affiliated union will not petition the Board to amend its certification, but will instead wait to see whether the employer will continue to bargain. If the employer refuses to bargain, the union may then file an unfair labor practice charge with the Board. In the past, the Board required the employer to bargain if the affiliation satisfied its two-pronged due process and continuity test. In other words, the Board used the same standards to examine affiliations whether the issue arose as a defense to an unfair labor practice charge or in a petition to amend a certification. Independent Drug Store Owners of Santa Clara County, 211 N. L. R. B. 701, n. 2 (1974), enf’d, 528 F. 2d 1225 (CA9 1975); Hale, supra n. 5, at 710, and n. 8; Note, supra n. 5, at 432.
The Board’s assertion that it actually adopted its “new” rule in its decision in Jasper Seating Co., 231 N. L. R. B. 1025 (1977), may be questioned. Jasper was a 3-2 decision in which only two members took the position that nonunion employees should be allowed to vote in affiliation elections. While suggesting that he could adopt this position under other circumstances, member Penello concurred in the decision “based upon the application of [different] principles.” Id., at 1026. He found that the affiliation had raised a question of representation which could only be resolved through a Board-conducted representation election. Id., at 1027.
The Board has recognized that “affiliation does not directly involve the employment relation. The status of wages, working conditions, benefits, and grievance procedures is unaffected by the affiliation vote; the collective-bargaining agreement between the union and the employer remains effective until the stated expiration date.” Amoco Production Co., 239 N. L. R. B., at 1195. Affiliation “has no probative value concerning the employees’ choice of the [union] as their collective bargaining representative.” American Range Lines, Inc., 13 N. L. R. B. 139, 154 (1939); see also Brief for NLRB 16, n. 10 (“The Board has in general found that affiliations do not destroy continuity of representation”).
Congress has expressly declined to prescribe procedures for union decisionmaking in matters such as affiliation. When the NLRA was amended by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, the House passed a proposal that would have regulated union procedures for electing officers, assessing dues, disciplining members, and deciding to strike. H. R. 3020, §8(c), 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947), 1 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, pp. 179-183 (Legis. Hist.). These provisions were deleted from the final legislation. See 93 Cong. Rec. 6443 (1947), 2 Legis. Hist. 1540 (“The Senate conferees. . . felt that it was unwise to authorize [the NLRB] to undertake such elaborate policing of the internal affairs of unions”). In 1959, Congress adopted the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which regulated union procedures for assessing dues, disciplining employees, and electing officers. 29 U. S. C. §§ 411-415, 481. Senators Knowland and McClellan both advanced proposals to regulate other sorts of union decisions. See 104 Cong. Rec. 11184 (1958) (constitutional amendments and recall of officers); id., at 11461 (waiver of right to strike); S. 1137, § 102(5), 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (1959), 1 Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act 272-273 (1959) (creation of affiliated organizations or funds), § 103(4), id., at 277 (mergers and transfers between local unions). None of these proposals was incorporated into the statute. See Steelworkers v. Sadlowski, 457 U. S. 102, 117 (1982) (“Congress was guided by the general principle that unions should be left free to ‘operate their own affairs, as far as possible.’ It believed that only essential standards should be imposed by legislation” (citation omitted)).
In its amicus brief, the Chamber of Commerce notes that the statute does not explicitly provide for petitions to amend a union’s certification, and argues that the Board therefore has broad authority to refuse to grant such requests. However, because the union’s request to amend its certification is a mere formality, it cannot give the Board additional authority to police the affiliation. A union could simply decide not to change its name upon affiliation, and would not have to ask the Board to amend its certification. The employer might then challenge the affiliation as a defense to an unfair labor practice charge. Unless the Board finds that the affiliation raised a question of representation, the affiliated union would continue as the employees’ bargaining representative, and the employer would be required to bargain with the reorganized union. Thus, the amended certification procedure cannot broaden the Board’s authority to interfere in the union’s affairs.
We do not suggest, however, that other Board representation procedures, such as its continuity determination, exceed its statutory authority.
Respondents argue that the Board’s rule is irrational because it assumes that affiliation involves the selection of a new bargaining representative absent any indication that the affiliation has significantly changed the union. Because we conclude that the Board has exceeded its authority under the statute, we need not address this issue.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916, the last of the great Homestead Acts, provided for the settlement of homesteads on lands the surface of which was “chiefly valuable for grazing and raising forage crops” and “not susceptible of irrigation from any known source of water supply.” 43 U. S. C. § 292. Congress reserved to the United States title to “all the coal and other minerals” in lands patented under the Act. 43 U. S. C. §299. The question presented by this case is whether gravel found on lands patented under the Act is a mineral reserved to the United States.
The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916 (SRHA), 39 Stat. 862, 43 U. S. C. §291 et seq., permitted any person qualified to acquire land under the general homestead laws, Act of May 20, 1862, 12 Stat. 392, as amended, 43 U. S. C. §161 et seq., to make “a stock-raising homestead entry” on “unappropriated, unreserved public lands... designated by the Secretary of the Interior as ‘stock-raising lands.’” 43 U. S. C. §291. The Secretary of the Interior was authorized to designate as stockraising lands only
“lands the surface of which is, in his opinion, chiefly valuable for grazing and raising forage crops, do not contain merchantable timber, are not susceptible of irrigation from any known source of water supply, and are of such character that six hundred and forty acres are reasonably required for the support of a family.” 43 U. S. C. §292.
To obtain a patent, an entryman was required to reside on the land for three years, 43 U. S. C. § 293, incorporating by reference 37 Stat. 123, ch. 153, 43 U. S. C. §164, and'“to make permanent improvements upon the land... tending to increase the value of the [land] for stock-raising purposes of the value of not less than $1.25 per acre.” 43 U. S. C. § 293.
Section 9 of the Act, the provision at issue in this case, stated that “[a]ll entries made and patents issued... shall be subject to and contain a reservation to the United States of all the coal and other minerals in the lands so entered and patented, together with the right to prospect for, mine, and remove the same.” 39 Stat. 864, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 299. Section 9 further provided that “[t]he coal and other mineral deposits in such lands shall be subject to disposal by the United States in accordance with the provisions of the coal and mineral land laws in force at the time of such disposal.”
B
On February 4, 1926, the United States conveyed a tract of land near Jeffrey City, Wyo., to respondent’s predecessor-in-interest. The land was conveyed by Patent No. 974013 issued pursuant to the SRHA. As required by §9 of the Act, 43 U. S. C. §299, the patent reserved to the United States “all the coal and other minerals” in the land.
In March 1976 respondent Western Nuclear, Inc., acquired a fee interest in a portion of the land covered by the 1926 patent. Western Nuclear is a mining company that has been involved in the mining and milling of uranium ore in and around Jeffrey City since the early 1950’s. In its commercial operations Western Nuclear uses gravel for such purposes as paving and surfacing roads and shoring the shaft of its uranium mine. In view of the expense of having gravel hauled in from other towns, the company decided that it would be economical to obtain a local source of the material, and it acquired the land in question so that it could extract gravel from an open pit on the premises.
After acquiring the land, respondent obtained from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, a state agency, a permit authorizing it to extract gravel from the pit located on the land. Respondent proceeded to remove some 43,000 cubic yards of gravel. It used most of this gravel for paving streets and pouring sidewalks in nearby Jeffrey City, a company town where respondent’s mill and mine workers lived.
On November 3,1975, the Wyoming State Office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) served Western Nuclear with a notice that the extraction and removal of the gravel constituted a trespass against the United States in violation of 43 CFR §9239.0-7 (1975), current version at 43 CFR §9239.0-7 (1982), a regulation promulgated by the Department of the Interior under the Materials Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 681, as amended by the Surface Resources Act of 1955, 69 Stat. 367, 30 U. S. C. §§601-615. The regulation provides that “[t]he extraction, severance, injury, or removal of timber or mineral materials from public lands under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, except when authorized by law and the regulations of the Department, is an act of trespass.”
The BLM’s appraisal report described the gravel deposit as follows:
“The deposit located on the property is an alluvial gravel with 6.4 acres of the 14 acre parcel mined for gravel.... There are 6-12 inches of overburden on the site.... It is estimated that the deposit thickness will average 10 feet or more in thickness.” 85 I. D. 129, 131 (1978).
In a technical analysis accompanying the appraisal report, geologist William D. Holsheimer observed that “[t]he gravel is overlain by a soil cover of fairly well developed loamy sand, some 12-18 inches in thickness,” and that “[t]here is a relatively good vegetative cover, consisting mainly of sagebrush, and an understory of various native grasses.” Id., at 132. The appraisal report concluded that “the highest and best use of the property is for a mineral material (gravel) site.” Id., at 131.
After a hearing, the BLM determined that Western Nuclear had committed an unintentional trespass. Using a royalty rate of 300 per cubic yard, the BLM ruled that Western Nuclear was liable to the United States for $13,000 in damages for the gravel removed from the site. On appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA), the IBLA affirmed the ruling that Western Nuclear had committed a trespass, holding that “gravel in a valuable deposit is a mineral reserved to the United States in patents issued under the Stock-Raising Homestead Act.” Id., at 139.
Western Nuclear then filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming, seeking review of the Board’s decision pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §701 et seq. The District Court affirmed the ruling that the mineral reservation in the SRHA encompasses gravel. Western Nuclear, Inc. v. Andrus, 475 F. Supp. 654 (1979). Recognizing that “the term ‘mineral’ does not have a closed, precise meaning,” id., at 662, the District Court concluded that the Government’s position is supported by the principle that public land grants are to be narrowly construed, ibid., and by “the legislative history, contemporaneous definitions, and court decisions,” id., at 663.
Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. That court reversed, holding that the gravel extracted by Western Nuclear did not constitute a mineral reserved to the United States under the SRHA. Western Nuclear, Inc. v. Andrus, 664 F. 2d 234 (1981). In reaching this conclusion, the Tenth Circuit relied heavily on a ruling made by the Secretary of the Interior prior to the enactment of the SRHA that land containing valuable deposits of gravel did not constitute “mineral land” beyond the reach of the homestead laws. Id., at 240. The court also relied on an analogy to “ordinary rocks and stones,” id., at 242, which it said cannot be reserved minerals, lest patentees be left with “only the dirt, and little or nothing more.” Ibid. The court reasoned that “if ordinary rocks are not reserved minerals, it follows that gravel, a form of fragmented rock, also is not a reserved mineral.” Ibid.
In view of the importance of the case to the administration of the more than 33 million acres of land patented under the SRHA, we granted certiorari. 456 U. S. 988 (1982). We now reverse.
II
As this Court observed in a case decided before the SRHA was enacted, the word “minerals” is “used in so many senses, dependent upon the context, that the ordinary definitions of the dictionary throw but little light upon its signification in a given case.” Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Soderberg, 188 U. S. 526, 530 (1903). In the broad sense of the word, there is no doubt that gravel is a mineral, for it is plainly not animal or vegetable. But “the scientific division of all matter into the animal, vegetable or mineral kingdom would be absurd as applied to a grant of lands, since all lands belong to the mineral kingdom.” Ibid. While it may be necessary that a substance be inorganic to qualify as a mineral under the SRHA, it cannot be sufficient. If all lands were considered “minerals” under the SRHA, the owner of the surface estate would be left with nothing.
Although the word “minerals” in the SRHA therefore cannot be understood to include all inorganic substances, gravel would also be included under certain narrower definitions of the word. For example, if the term “minerals” were understood in “its ordinary and common meaning [as] a comprehensive term including every description of stone and rock deposit, whether containing metallic or non-metallic substances,” Waugh v. Thompson Land & Coal Co., 103 W. Va. 567, 571, 137 S. E. 895, 897 (1927); see, e. g., Board of County Comm’rs v. Good, 44 N. M. 495, 498, 105 P. 2d 470, 472 (1940); White v. Miller, 200 N. Y. 29, 38-39, 92 N. E. 1065, 1068 (1910), gravel would be included. If, however, the word “minerals” were understood to include only inorganic substances having a definite chemical composition, see, e. g., Ozark Chemical Co. v. Jones, 125 F. 2d 1, 2 (CA10 1941), cert. denied, 316 U. S. 695 (1942); Lillington Stone Co. v. Maxwell, 203 N. C. 151, 152, 165 S. E. 351, 352 (1932); United States v. Aitken, 25 Philippine 7, 14 (1913), gravel would not be included.
The various definitions of the term “minerals” serve only to exclude substances that are not minerals under any common definition of that word. Cf. United States v. Toole, 224 F. Supp. 440 (Mont. 1963) (deposits of peat and peat moss, substances which are high in organic content, do not constitute mineral deposits for purposes of the general mining laws). For a substance to be a mineral reserved under the SRHA, it must be not only a mineral within one or more familiar definitions of that term, as is gravel, but also the type of mineral that Congress intended to reserve to the United States in lands patented under the SRHA. Cf. Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products Co., 436 U. S. 604, 611 (1978).
The legal understanding of the term “minerals” prevailing in 1916 does not indicate whether Congress intended the mineral reservation in the SRHA to encompass gravel. On the one hand, in Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Soderberg, supra, this Court had quoted with approval a statement in an English case that “ ‘everything except the mere surface, which is used for agricultural purposes; anything beyond that which is useful for any purpose whatever, whether it is gravel, marble, fire clay, or the like, comes within the word “mineral” when there is a reservation of the mines and minerals from a grant of land.’” 188 U. S., at 536 (emphasis added), quoting Midland R. Co. v. Checkley, L. R. 4 Eq. 19, 25 (1867). Soderberg concerned the proper classification of property chiefly valuable for granite quarries under an 1864 statute which granted certain property to railroads but exempted “mineral lands.” The Court held that the property fell within the exemption, concluding that “mineral lands include not merely metalliferous lands, but all such as are chiefly valuable for their deposits of a mineral character, which are useful in the arts or valuable for purposes of manufacture.” 188 U. S., at 536-537.
On the other hand, in 1910 the Secretary of the Interior rejected an attempt to cancel a homestead entry made on land alleged to be chiefly valuable for the gravel and sand located thereon. Zimmerman v. Brunson, 39 L. D. 310, overruled, Layman v. Ellis, 52 L. D. 714 (1929). Zimmerman claimed that gravel and sand found on the property could be used for building purposes and that the property therefore constituted mineral land, not homestead land. In refusing to cancel Brunson’s homestead entry, the Secretary explained that “deposits of sand and gravel occur with considerable frequency in the public domain.” 39 L. D., at 312. He concluded that land containing deposits of gravel and sand useful for building purposes was not mineral land beyond the reach of the homestead laws, except in cases in which the deposits “possess a peculiar property or characteristic giving them a special value.” Ibid.
Respondent errs in relying on Zimmerman as evidence that Congress could not have intended the term “minerals” to encompass gravel. Although the legal understanding of a word prevailing at the time it is included in a statute is a relevant factor to consider in determining the meaning that the legislature ascribed to the word, we do not see how any inference can be drawn that the 64th Congress understood the term “minerals” to exclude gravel. It is most unlikely that many Members of Congress were aware of the ruling in Zimmerman, which was never tested in the courts and was not mentioned in the Reports or debates on the SRHA. Cf. Helvering v. New York Trust Co., 292 U. S. 455, 468 (1934). Even if Congress had been aware oí Zimmerman, there would be no reason to conclude that it approved of the Secretary’s ruling in that case rather than this Court’s opinion in Soder-berg, which adopted a broad definition of the term “mineral” and quoted with approval a statement that gravel is a mineral.
hH h-1
Although neither the dictionary nor the legal understanding of the term “minerals” that prevailed in 1916 sheds much light on the question before us, the purposes of the SRHA strongly support the Government’s contention that the mineral reservation in the Act includes gravel. As explained below, Congress’ underlying purpose in severing the surface estate from the mineral estate was to facilitate the concurrent development of both surface and subsurface resources. While Congress expected that homesteaders would use the surface of SRHA lands for stockraising and raising crops, it sought to ensure that valuable subsurface resources would remain subject to disposition by the United States, under the general mining laws or otherwise, to persons interested in exploiting them. It did not wish to entrust the development of subsurface resources to ranchers and farmers. Since Congress could not have expected that stockraising and raising crops would entail the extraction of gravel deposits from the land, the congressional purpose of facilitating the concurrent development of both surface and subsurface resources is best served by construing the mineral reservation to encompass gravel.
A
The SRHA was the most important of several federal land-grant statutes enacted in the early 1900’s that reserved minerals to the United States rather than classifying lands as mineral or nonmineral. Under the old system of land classification, the disposition of land owned by the United States depended upon whether it was classified as mineral land or nonmineral land, and title to the entire land was disposed of on the basis of the classification. This system of land classification encouraged particular uses of entire tracts of land depending upon their classification as mineral or nonmineral. With respect to land deemed mineral in character, the mining laws provided incentives for the discovery and exploitation of minerals, but the land could not be disposed of under the major land-grant statutes. With respect to land deemed nonmineral in character, the land-grant statutes provided incentives for parties who wished to use the land for the purposes specified in those statutes, but the land was beyond the reach of the mining laws and the incentives for exploration and development that they provided.
For a number of reasons, the system of land classification came to be viewed as a poor means of ensuring the optimal development of the Nation’s mineral resources, and after the turn of the century a movement arose to replace it with a system of mineral reservation. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt withdrew approximately 64 million acres of lands thought to contain coal from all forms of entry, citing the prevalence of land fraud and the need to dispose of coal “under conditions which would inure to the benefit of the public as a whole.” 41 Cong. Rec. 2615 (1907). Secretary of the Interior Garfield reported to the President that “the best possible method... is for the Government to retain the title to the coal,” explaining that “[s]uch a method permits the separation of the surface from the coal and the unhampered use of the surface for purposes to which it may be adapted.” Report of the Secretary of the Interior 15 (1907), H. R. Doc. No. 5, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., 15 (1907). President Roosevelt subsequently urged Congress that “[r]ights to the surface of the public land... be separated from rights to forests upon it and to minerals beneath it, and these should be subject to separate disposal.” Special Message to Congress, Jan. 22, 1909, 15 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 7266.
Over the next several years Congress responded by enacting statutes that reserved specifically identified minerals to the United States, and in 1916 the shift from land classification to mineral reservation culminated with the enactment of the SRHA. Unlike the preceding statutes containing mineral reservations, the SRHA was not limited to lands classified as mineral in character, and it did not reserve only specifically identified minerals. The SRHA applied to all lands the surface of which the Secretary of the Interior deemed to be “chiefly valuable for grazing and raising forage crops,” 43 U. S. C. § 292, and reserved all the minerals in those lands to the United States.
Congress’ purpose in severing the surface estate from the mineral estate was to encourage the concurrent development of both the surface and subsurface of SRHA lands. The Act was designed to supply “a method for the joint use of the surface of the land by the entryman of the surface thereof and the person who shall acquire from the United States the right to prospect, enter, extract and remove all minerals that may underlie such lands.” H. R. Rep. No. 35, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., 4, 18 (1916) (emphasis added) (hereafter H. R. Rep. No. 35). The Department of the Interior had advised Congress that the law would “induce the entry of lands in those mountainous regions where deposits of mineral are known to exist or are likely to be found,” and that the mineral reservation was necessary because the issuance of “unconditional patents for these comparatively large entries under the homestead laws might withdraw immense areas from prospecting and mineral development.” Letter from First Assistant Secretary of the Interior to Chairman of the House Committee on the Public Lands, Dec. 15, 1915, reprinted in H. R. Rep. No. 35, at 5.
To preserve incentives for the discovery and exploitation of minerals in SRHA lands, Congress reserved “all the coal and other minerals” to the United States and provided that “coal and other mineral deposits... shall be subject to disposal by the United States in accordance with the provisions of the coal and mineral land laws in force at the time of such disposal.” 43 U. S. C. §299. The general mining laws were the most important of the “mineral land laws” in existence when the SRHA was enacted. Act of July 4, 1866, 14 Stat. 85; Act of May 10, 1872, 17 Stat. 91, current version at 30 U. S. C. § 21 et seq. Those laws, which have remained basically unchanged through the present day, provide an incentive for individuals to locate claims to federal land containing “valuable mineral deposits.” 30 U. S. C. §22. After a claim has been located, the entryman obtains from the United States the right to exclusive possession of “all the surface included within the lines of [his] locatio[n]” and the right to extract minerals lying beneath the surface. 30 U. S. C. §26. Congress plainly contemplated that mineral deposits on SRHA lands would be subject to location under the mining laws, and the Department of the Interior has consistently permitted prospectors to make entries under the mining laws on SRHA lands.
B
Since Congress intended to facilitate development of both surface and subsurface resources, the determination of whether a particular substance is included in the surface estate or the mineral estate should be made in light of the use of the surface estate that Congress contemplated. As the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit noted in United States v. Union Oil Co. of California, 549 F. 2d 1271, 1274, cert. denied, 434 U. S. 930 (1977), “[t]he agricultural purpose indicates the nature of the grant Congress intended to provide homesteaders via the Act.” See Pacific Power & Light Co., 45 I. B. L. A. 127, 134 (1980) (“When there is a dispute as to whether a particular mineral resource is included in the [SRHA] reservation, it is helpful to consider the manner in which the material is extracted and used”); 1 American Law of Mining § 3.26 (1982) (“The reservation of minerals to the United States [in the SRHA] should... be construed by considering the purposes both of the grant and of the reservation in terms of the use intended”). Cf. United States v. Isbell Construction Co., 78 I. D. 385, 390 (1971) (holding that gravel is a mineral reserved to the United States under statute authorizing the grant to States of “grazing district land”) (“The reservation of minerals to the United States should be construed by considering the purpose of the grant... in terms of the use intended”).
Congress plainly expected that the surface of SRHA lands would be used for stockraising and raising crops. This understanding is evident from the title of the Act, from the express provision limiting the Act to lands the surface of which was found by the Secretary of the Interior to be “chiefly valuable for grazing and raising forage crops” and “of such a character that six hundred and forty acres are reasonably required for the support of a family,” 43 U. S. C. §292, and from numerous other provisions in the Act. See, e. g., 43 U. S. C. § 293 (patent can be acquired only if the entryman makes “permanent improvements upon the land entered... tending to increase the value of the [land] for stock-raising purposes of the value of not less than $1.25 per acre”); 43 U. S. C. §299 (prospector liable to entryman or patentee for damages to crops caused by prospecting).
Given Congress’ understanding that the surface of SRHA lands would be used for ranching and farming, we interpret the mineral reservation in the Act to include substances that are mineral in character (i. e., that are inorganic), that can be removed from the soil, that can be used for commercial purposes, and that there is no reason to suppose were intended to be included in the surface estate. See 1 American Law of Mining, swpra, § 3.26 (“A reservation of minerals should be considered to sever from the surface all mineral substances which can be taken from the soil and which have a separate value”). Cf. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Soderberg, 188 U. S., at 536-537 (“mineral lands include not merely metallif-erous lands, but all such as are chiefly valuable for their deposits of a mineral character, which are useful in the arts or valuable for purposes of manufacture”); United States v. Isbell Construction Co., supra, at 390 (“the reservation of minerals should be considered to sever from the surface all mineral substances which can be taken from the soil and have a separate value”) (emphasis in original). This interpretation of the mineral reservation best serves the congressional purpose of encouraging the concurrent development of both surface and subsurface resources, for ranching and farming do not ordinarily entail the extraction of mineral substances that can be taken from the soil and that have separate value.
Whatever the precise scope of the mineral reservation may be, we are convinced that it includes gravel. Like other minerals, gravel is inorganic. Moreover, as the Department of the Interior explained in 1929 when it overruled Zimmerman v. Brunson, 39 L. D. 310 (1910), and held that gravel deposits were subject to location under the mining laws,
“[w]hile the distinguishing special characteristics of gravel are purely physical, notably, small bulk, rounded surfaces, hardness, these characteristics render gravel readily distinguishable by any one from other rock and fragments of rock and are the very characteristics or properties that long have been recognized as imparting to it utility and value in its natural state.” Layman v. Ellis, 52 L. D., at 720.
Insofar as the purposes of the SRHA are concerned, it is irrelevant that gravel is not metalliferous and does not have a definite chemical composition. What is significant is that gravel can be taken from the soil and used for commercial purposes.
Congress certainly could not have expected that homesteaders whose “experience and efforts [were] in the line of stock raising and farming,” Letter from First Assistant Secretary of the Interior to Chairman of the House Committee on the Public Lands (Dec. 15, 1915), reprinted in H. R. Rep. No. 35, at 5, would have the interest in extracting deposits of gravel from SRHA lands that others might have. It had been informed that “[t]he farmer-stockman is not seeking and does not desire the minerals,” ibid., and it would have had no more reason to think that he would be interested in extracting gravel than that he would be interested in extracting coal. Stockraising and raising crops do not ordinarily involve the extraction of gravel from a gravel pit.
If we were to interpret the SRHA to convey gravel deposits to the farmers and stockmen who made entries under the Act, we would in effect be saying that Congress intended to make the exploitation of such deposits dependent solely upon the initiative of persons whose interests were known to lie elsewhere. In resolving the ambiguity in the language of the SRHA, we decline to construe that language so as to produce a result at odds with the purposes underlying the statute. Instead, we interpret the language of the statute in a way that will further Congress’ overriding objective of facilitating the concurrent development of surface and subsurface resources. See, e. g., Mastro Plastics Corp. v. NLRB, 350 U. S. 270, 285 (1956); SEC v. C. M. Joiner Leasing Corp., 320 U. S. 344, 350-351 (1943); Griffiths v. Commissioner, 308 U. S. 355, 358 (1939).
I — I <1
Our conclusion that gravel is a mineral for purposes of the SRHA is supported by the treatment of gravel under other federal statutes concerning minerals. Although the question has not often arisen, gravel has been treated as a mineral under two federal land-grant statutes that, like the SRHA, reserve all minerals to the United States. In construing a statute which allotted certain Indian lands but reserved the minerals therein to the Indians, the Department of the Interior has ruled that gravel is a mineral. Dept, of Interior, Division of Public Lands, Solicitor’s Opinion, M-36379 (Oct. 3, 1956). Similarly, the Interior Board of Land Appeals has held that gravel is reserved to the United States under a statute authorizing grants to States of “grazing district land.” United States v. Isbell Construction Co., 781. D., at 394-396.
It is also highly pertinent that federal administrative and judicial decisions over the past half-century have consistently recognized that gravel deposits could be located under the general mining laws until common varieties of gravel were prospectively removed from the purview of those laws by the Surface Resources Act of 1955, 69 Stat. 368, § 3, 30 U. S. C. §611. See Edwards v. Kleppe, 588 F. 2d 671, 673 (CA9 1978); Charlestone Stone Products Co. v. Andrus, 553 F. 2d 1209, 1214-1215 (CA9 1977), holding as to a separate mining claim rev’d, 436 U. S. 604 (1978); Melluzzo v. Morton, 534 F. 2d 860, 862-865 (CA9 1976); Clear Gravel Enterprises, Inc. v. Keil, 505 F. 2d 180, 181 (CA9 1974) (per curiam); Verrue v. United States, 457 F. 2d 1202, 1203-1204 (CA9 1972); Barrows v. Hickel, 447 F. 2d 80, 82-83 (CA9 1971); United States v. Schaub, 163 F. Supp. 875, 877-878 (Alaska 1958); Taking of Sand and Gravel from Public Lands for Federal Aid Highways, 541. D. 294, 295-296 (1933); Layman v. Ellis, 52 L. D., at 718-721, overruling Zimmerman v. Brunson, 39 L. D. 310 (1910). Cf. United States v. Barngrover, 57 I. D. 533 (1942) (clay and silt deposits); Stephen E. Day, Jr., 50 L. D. 489 (1924) (trap rock). While this Court has never had occasion to decide the appropriate treatment of gravel under the mining laws, the Court did note in United States v. Coleman, 390 U. S. 599, 604 (1968), that gravel deposits had “served as a basis for claims to land patents” under the mining laws prior to the enactment of the Surface Resources Act of 1955.
The treatment of gravel as a mineral under the general mining laws suggests that gravel should be similarly treated under the SRHA, for Congress clearly contemplated that mineral deposits in SRHA lands would be subject to location under the mining laws, and the applicable regulations have consistently permitted such location. Supra, at 51. Simply as a matter of consistent interpretation of statutes concerning the same subject matter, if gravel deposits constituted “mineral deposits” that could be located under the mining laws, then presumptively gravel should constitute a “mineral” reserved to the United States under the SRHA. If gravel were deemed to be part of the surface estate of lands patented under the SRHA, gravel deposits on SRHA lands obviously would not have been locatable, whereas grave/ deposits on other lands would have been locatable. There i§ no indication that Congress intended the mineral reservation in the SRHA to be narrower in scope than the mining laws.
V
Finally, the conclusion that gravel is a mineral reserved to the United States in lands patented under the SRHA is buttressed by “the established rule that land grants are construed favorably to the Government, that nothing passes except what is conveyed in clear language, and that if there are doubts they are resolved for the Government, not against it.” United States v. Union Pacific R. Co., 353 U. S. 112, 116 (1957). See Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products Co., 436 U. S., at 617; Caldwell v. United States, 250 U. S. 14, 20-21 (1919); Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Soderberg, 188 U. S., at 534. In the present case this principle applies with particular force, because the legislative history of the SRHA reveals Congress’ understanding that the mineral reservation would “limit the operation of this bill strictly to the surface of the lands.” H. R. Rep. No. 35, at 18 (emphasis added). See also 53 Cong. Rec. 1171 (1916) (the mineral reservation “would cover every kind of mineral”; “[a]ll kinds of minerals are reserved”) (Rep. Ferris). In view of the purposes of the SRHA and the treatment of gravel under other federal statutes concerning minerals, we would have to turn the principle of construction in favor of the sovereign on its head to conclude that gravel is not a mineral within the meaning of the Act.
VI
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that gravel is a mineral reserved to the United States in lands patented under the SRHA. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The SRHA was effectively suspended by executive action taken pursuant to the Taylor Grazing Act, 48 Stat. 1269, ch. 865, 43 U. S. C. § 315 et seq. Both the SRHA and the general homestead laws were repealed by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 2743, 43 U. S. C. § 1701 et seq. Existing patents were unaffected by the repeal.
The IBLA also affirmed the BLM’s calculation of damages on the basis of a royalty rate of 300 per cubic yard, rejecting Western Nuclear’s claim that the use of this rate was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable. 85 I. D., at 139. The Board adjusted the damages from the appraiser’s rounded-off figure of $13,000 to $12,802.50. Id., at 140.
Following the District Court’s ruling, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (WSGA), which had intervened in the proceedings, filed a motion requesting that the court alter or amend its order or hold a new trial. It expressed the concern that a ruling in favor of the Government in its action against respondent would mean ranchers could not use gravel on lands patented under the SRHA. At a hearing on the WSGA’s motions, the Government sought to lay this concern to rest:
“What the United States is concerned about are commercial gravel operations. The United States [does] not see how a commercial gravel operation in
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner was the manager of the Park Y Drive-In Theatre in Richland, Washington, where the motion picture Carmen Baby was shown. The motion picture is a loose adaptation of Bizet’s opera Carmen, containing sexually frank scenes but no instances of sexual consummation are explicitly portrayed. After viewing the film from outside the theater fence on two successive evenings, a police officer obtained a warrant and arrested petitioner for violating Washington’s obscenity statute. Wash. Rev. Code § 9.68.010. Petitioner was later convicted and, on appeal, the Supreme Court of Washington affirmed. 79 Wash. 2d 254, 484 P. 2d 917 (1971). We granted certiorari. 404 U. S. 909. We reverse petitioner’s conviction.
The statute under which petitioner was convicted, Wash. Rev. Code § 9.68.010, made criminal the knowing display of “obscene” motion pictures:
“Every person who—
“(1) Having knowledge of the contents thereof shall exhibit, sell, distribute, display for sale or distribution, or having knowledge of the contents thereof shall have in his possession with the intent to sell or distribute any book, magazine, pamphlet, comic book, newspaper, writing, photograph, motion picture film, phonograph record, tape or wire recording, picture, drawing, figure, image, or any object or thing which is obscene; or
“(2) Having knowledge of the contents thereof shall cause to be performed or exhibited, or shall engage in the performance or exhibition of any show, act, play, dance or motion picture which is obscene;
“Shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.”
In affirming petitioner’s conviction, however, the Supreme Court of Washington did not hold that Carmen Baby was obscene under the test laid down by this Court’s prior decisions. E. g., Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476; Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U. S. 413. Uncertain “whether the movie was offensive to the standards relating to sexual matters in that area and whether the movie advocated ideas or was of artistic or literary value/’ the court concluded that if it “were to apply the strict rules of Roth, the film 'Carmen Baby’ probably would pass the definitional obscenity test if the viewing audience consisted only of consenting adults.” 79 Wash. 2d, at 263, 484 P. 2d, at 922. Respondent read the opinion , of the Supreme Court of Washington more narrowly, but nonetheless implied that because the film had “redeeming social value” it was not, by itself, “obscene” under the Roth standard. Thé Supreme Court of Washington nonetheless upheld the conviction, reasoning that in “the context of its exhibition,” Carmen Baby was obscene. Ibid.
To avoid the constitutional vice of vagueness, it is necessary, at a minimum, that a statute give fair notice that certain conduct is proscribed. The statute under which petitioner was prosecuted, however, made no mention that the “context” or location of the exhibition was an element of the offense somehow modifying the word “obscene.” Petitioner’s conviction was thus affirmed under a statute with a meaning quite different from the one he was charged with violating.
“It is as much a violation of due process to send an accused to prison following conviction of a charge on which he was never tried as it would be to convict him upon a charge that was never made.” Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U. S. 196, 201. Petitioner’s conviction cannot, therefore, be allowed to stand. Gregory v. City of Chicago, 394 U. S. 111; Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157; Cole v. Arkansas, supra.
Under the interpretation given § 9.68.010 by the Supreme Court of Washington, petitioner is criminally punished for showing Carmen Baby in a drive-in but he may exhibit it to adults in an indoor theater with impunity. The statute, so construed, is impermissibly vague as applied to petitioner because of its failure to give him fair notice that criminal liability is dependent upon the place where the film is shown.
What we said last Term in Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 19, answers respondent’s contention that the peculiar interest in prohibiting outdoor displays of sexually frank motion pictures justifies the application of this statute to petitioner:
“Any attempt to support this conviction on the ground that the statute seeks to preserve an appropriately decorous atmosphere in the courthouse where Cohen was arrested must fail in the absence of any language in the statute that would have put appellant on notice that certain kinds of otherwise permissible speech or conduct would nevertheless, under California law, not be tolerated in certain places. ... No fair reading of the phrase ‘offensive conduct’ can be said sufficiently to inform the ordinary person that distinctions between certain locations are thereby created.”
We need not decide the broad constitutional questions tendered to us by the parties. We hold simply that a State may not criminally punish the exhibition at a drive-in theater of a motion picture where the statute, used to support the conviction, has not given fair notice that the location of the exhibition was a vital element of the offense.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Washington is
Reversed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the issue whether federal courts possess ancillary jurisdiction over new actions in which a federal judgment creditor seeks to impose liability for a money judgment on a person not otherwise liable for the judgment. We hold that they do not.
I
Respondent Jack L. Thomas is a former employee of TruTech, Inc. In 1987, Thomas filed an ERISA class action in federal court against Tru-Tech and petitioner D. Grant Peacock, an officer and shareholder of Tru-Tech, for benefits due under the corporation’s pension benefits plan. Thomas alleged primarily that Tru-Tech and Peacock breached their fiduciary duties to the class in administering the plan. The District Court found that Tru-Tech had breached its fiduciary duties, but ruled that Peacock was not a fiduciary. On November 28, 1988, the District Court entered judgment in the amount of $187,628.93 against Tru-Tech only. Thomas v. Tru-Tech, Inc., No. 87-2243-3 (D. S. C.). On April 3, 1990, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. Judgt. order reported at 900 F. 2d 256. Thomas did not execute the judgment while the ease was on appeal and, during that time, Peacock settled many of Tru-Tech’s accounts with favored creditors, including himself.
After the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment, Thomas unsuccessfully attempted to collect the judgment from Tru-Tech. Thomas then sued Peacock in federal court, claiming that Peacock had entered into a civil conspiracy to siphon assets from Tru-Tech to prevent satisfaction of the ERISA judgment. Thomas also claimed that Peacock fraudulently conveyed Tru-Tech’s assets in violation of South Carolina and Pennsylvania law. Thomas later amended his complaint to assert a claim for “Piercing the Corporate Veil Under ERISA and Applicable Federal Law.” App. 49. The District Court ultimately agreed to pierce the corporate veil and entered judgment against Peacock in the amount of $187,628.93 — the precise amount of the judgment against Tru-Tech — plus interest and fees, notwithstanding the fact that Peacock’s alleged fraudulent transfers totaled no more than $80,000. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the District Court properly exercised ancillary jurisdiction over Thomas’ suit. 39 F. 3d 493 (CA4 1994). We granted certiorari to determine whether the District Court had subject-matter jurisdiction and to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals. 514 U. S. 1126 (1995). We now reverse.
II
Thomas relies on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 832, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq., as the source of federal jurisdiction for this suit. The District Court did not expressly rule on subject-matter jurisdiction, but found that Thomas had properly stated a claim under ERISA for piercing the corporate veil. We disagree. We are not aware of, and Thomas does not point to, any provision of ERISA that provides for imposing liability for an extant ERISA judgment against a third party. See Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825, 833 (1988) (“ERISA does not provide an enforcement mechanism for collecting judgments . . .”).
We reject Thomas’ suggestion, not made in the District Court, that this subsequent suit arose under § 502(a)(3) of ERISA, which authorizes civil actions for “appropriate equitable relief” to redress violations of ERISA or the terms of an ERISA plan. 29 U. S. C. § 1132(a)(3). Thomas’ complaint in this lawsuit alleged no violation of ERISA or of the plan. The wrongdoing alleged in the complaint occurred in 1989 and 1990, some four to five years after Tru-Tech’s ERISA plan was terminated, and Tilomas did not — indeed, could not — allege that Peacock was a fiduciary to the terminated plan. Thomas further concedes that Peacock’s alleged wrongdoing “did not occur with respect to the administration or operation of the plan.” Brief for Respondent 11. Under the circumstances, we think Thomas failed to allege a claim under § 502(a)(3) for equitable relief. Section 502(a)(3) “does not, after all, authorize ‘appropriate equitable relief’ at large, but only ‘appropriate equitable relief’ for the purpose of ‘redressing any] violations or . . . enforcing] any provisions’ of ERISA or an ERISA plan.” Mertens v. Hewitt Associates, 508 U. S. 248, 253 (1993) (emphasis and modifications in original).
Moreover, Thomas’ veil-piercing claim does not state a cause of action under ERISA and cannot independently support federal jurisdiction. Even if ERISA permits a plaintiff to pierce the corporate veil to reach a defendant not otherwise subject to suit under ERISA, Thomas could invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts only by independently alleging a violation of an ERISA provision or term of the plan. Piercing the corporate veil is not itself an independent ERISA cause of action, “but rather is a means of imposing liability on an underlying cause of action.” 1 C. Keating & G. O’Gradney, Fletcher Cyclopedia of Law of Private Corporations §41, p. 603 (perm. ed. 1990). Because Thomas alleged no “underlying” violation of any provision of ERISA or an ERISA plan, neither ERISA’s jurisdictional provision, 29 U. S. C. § 1132(e)(1), nor 28 U. S. C. § 1331 supplied the District Court with subject-matter jurisdiction over this suit.
Ill
Thomas also contends that this lawsuit is ancillary to the original ERISA suit. We have recognized that a federal court may exercise ancillary jurisdiction “(1) to permit disposition by a single court of claims that are, in varying respects and degrees, factually interdependent; and (2) to enable a court to function successfully, that is, to manage its proceedings, vindicate its authority, and effectuate its decrees.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co., 511 U. S. 375, 379-380 (1994) (citations omitted). Thomas has not carried his burden of demonstrating that this suit falls within either category. See id., at 377 (burden rests on party asserting jurisdiction).
A
“[Ajncillary jurisdiction typically involves claims by a defending party haled into court against his will, or by another person whose rights might be irretrievably lost unless he could assert them in an ongoing action in a federal court.” Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 376 (1978). Ancillary jurisdiction may extend to claims having a factual and logical dependence on “the primary lawsuit,” ibid., but that primary lawsuit must contain an independent basis for federal jurisdiction. The court must have jurisdiction over a ease or controversy before it may assert jurisdiction over ancillary claims. See Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 725 (1966). In a subsequent lawsuit involving claims with no independent basis for jurisdiction, a federal court lacks the threshold jurisdictional power that exists when ancillary claims are asserted in the same proceeding as the claims conferring federal jurisdiction. See Kokkonen, supra, at 380-381; H. C. Cook Co. v. Beecher, 217 U. S. 497, 498-499 (1910). Consequently, claims alleged to be factually interdependent with and, hence, ancillary to claims brought in an earlier federal lawsuit will not support federal jurisdiction over a subsequent lawsuit. The basis of the doctrine of ancillary jurisdiction is the practical need “to protect legal rights or effectively to resolve an entire, logically entwined lawsuit.” Kroger, 437 U. S., at 377. But once judgment was entered in the original ERISA suit, the ability to resolve simultaneously factually intertwined issues vanished. As in Kroger, “neither the convenience of litigants nor considerations of judicial economy” can justify the extension of ancillary jurisdiction over Thomas’ claims in this subsequent proceeding. Ibid.
In any event, there is insufficient factual dependence between the claims raised in Thomas’ first and second suits to justify the extension of ancillary jurisdiction. Thomas’ factual allegations in this suit are independent from those asserted in the ERISA suit, which involved Peacock’s and Tru-Tech’s status as plan fiduciaries and their alleged wrongdoing in the administration of the plan. The facts relevant to this complaint are limited to allegations that Peacock shielded Tru-Tech’s assets from the ERISA judgment long after Tru-Tech’s plan had been terminated. The claims in these cases have little or no factual or logical interdependence, and, under these circumstances, no greater efficiencies would be created by the exercise of federal jurisdiction over them. See Kokkonen, supra, at 380.
B
The focus of Thomas’ argument is that his suit to extend liability for payment of the ERISA judgment from Tru-Tech to Peacock fell under the District Court’s ancillary enforcement jurisdiction. We have reserved the use of ancillary jurisdiction in subsequent proceedings for the exercise of a federal court’s inherent power to enforce its judgments. Without jurisdiction to enforce a judgment entered by a federal court, “the judicial power would be incomplete and entirely inadequate to the purposes for which it was conferred by the Constitution.” Riggs v. Johnson County, 6 Wall. 166, 187 (1868). In defining that power, we have approved the exercise of ancillary jurisdiction over a broad range of supplementary proceedings involving third parties to assist in the protection and enforcement of federal judgments— including attachment, mandamus, garnishment, and the prejudgment avoidance of fraudulent conveyances. See, e.g., Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S., at 834, n. 10 (garnishment); Swift & Co. Packers v. Compania Colombiana Del Caribe, S. A., 339 U. S. 684, 690-692 (1950) (prejudgment attachment of property); Dewey v. West Fairmont Gas Coal Co., 123 U. S. 329, 332-333 (1887) (prejudgment voidance of fraudulent transfers); Labette County Comm’rs v. United States ex rel. Moulton, 112 U. S. 217, 221-225 (1884) (mandamus to compel public officials in their official capacity to levy tax to enforce judgment against township); Krippendorf v. Hyde, 110 U. S. 276, 282-285 (1884) (prejudgment dispute over attached property); Riggs, supra, at 187-188 (mandamus to compel public officials in their official capacity to levy tax to enforce judgment against county).
Our recognition of these supplementary proceedings has not, however, extended beyond attempts to execute, or to guarantee eventual executability of, a federal judgment. We have never authorized the exercise of ancillary jurisdiction in a subsequent lawsuit to impose an obligation to pay an existing federal judgment on a person not already liable for that judgment. Indeed, we rejected an attempt to do so in H. C. Cook Co. v. Beecher, 217 U. S. 497 (1910). In Beecher, the plaintiff obtained a judgment in federal court against a corporation that had infringed its patent. When the plaintiff could not collect on the judgment, it sued the individual directors of the defendant corporation, alleging that, during the pendency of the original suit, they had authorized continuing sales of the infringing product and knowingly permitted the corporation to become insolvent. We agreed with the Circuit Court’s characterization of the suit as “an attempt to make the defendants answerable for the judgment already obtained” and affirmed the court’s decision that the suit was not “ancillary to the judgment in the former suit.” Id., at 498-499. Beecher governs this case and persuades us that Thomas’ attempt to make Peacock answerable for the ERISA judgment is not ancillary to that judgment.
Labette County Comm’rs and Riggs are not to the contrary. In those cases, we permitted a judgment creditor to mandamus county officials to force them to levy a tax for payment of an existing judgment. Labette County Comm’rs, supra, at 221-225; Riggs, supra, at 187-188. The order in each case merely required compliance with the existing judgment by the persons with authority to comply. We did not authorize the shifting of liability for payment of the judgment from the judgment debtor to the county officials, as Thomas attempts to do here.
In determining the reach of the federal courts’ ancillary jurisdiction, we have cautioned against the exercise of jurisdiction over proceedings that are “ ‘entirely new and original,”’ Krippendorf v. Hyde, supra, at 285 (quoting Minnesota Co. v. St. Paul Co., 2 Wall. 609, 633 (1865)), or where “the relief [sought is] of a different kind or on a different principle” than that of the prior decree. Dugas v. American Surety Co., 300 U. S. 414, 428 (1937). These principles suggest that ancillary jurisdiction could not properly be exercised in this case. This action is founded not only upon different facts than the ERISA suit, but also upon entirely new theories of liability. In this suit, Thomas alleged civil conspiracy and fraudulent transfer of Tru-Tech’s assets, but, as we have noted, no substantive ERISA violation. The alleged wrongdoing in this case occurred after the ERISA judgment was entered, and Thomas’ claims — civil conspiracy, fraudulent conveyance, and “veil piercing” — all involved new theories of liability not asserted in the ERISA suit. Other than the existence of the ERISA judgment itself, this suit has little connection to the ERISA case. This is a new action based on theories of relief that did not exist, and could not have existed, at the time the court entered judgment in the ERISA case.
Ancillary enforcement jurisdiction is, at its core, a creature of necessity. See Kokkonen, 511 U. S., at 380; Riggs, 6 Wall., at 187. When a party has obtained a valid federal judgment, only extraordinary circumstances, if any, can justify ancillary jurisdiction over a subsequent suit like this. To protect and aid the collection of a federal judgment, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide fast and effective mechanisms for execution. In the event a stay is entered pending appeal, the Rules require the district court to ensure that the judgment creditor’s position is secured, ordinarily by a supersedeas bond. The Rules cannot guarantee payment of every federal judgment. But as long as they protect a judgment creditor’s ability to execute on a judgment, the district court’s authority is adequately preserved, and ancillary jurisdiction is not justified over a new lawsuit to impose liability for a judgment on a third party. Contrary to Thomas’ suggestion otherwise, we think these procedural safeguards are sufficient to prevent wholesale fraud upon the district courts of the United States.
IV
For these reasons, we hold that the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Thomas’ subsequent suit. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Peacock’s attorney was also named as a defendant in the suit, but the District Court rejected the claim against him.
Compare 39 F. 3d 493 (CA4 1994) (case below), Argento v. Melrose Park, 838 F. 2d 1483 (CA71988), Skevofilax v. Quigley, 810 F. 2d 378 (CA3) (en banc), cert. denied, 481 U. S. 1029 (1987), and Blackburn Truck Lines, Inc. v. Francis, 723 F. 2d 730 (CA9 1984), with Sandlin v. Corporate Interiors Inc., 972 F. 2d 1212 (CA10 1992), and Berry v. McLemore, 795 F. 2d 452 (CA5 1986).
The District Court in the original ERISA suit ruled that Peacock was not a fiduciary to Tru-Tech’s plan.
This case is not at all like Anderson v. Abbott, 321 U. S. 349 (1944), cited by Thomas’ amici, in which the receiver of a federal bank, having obtained a judgment against the bank, then sued the bank’s shareholders to hold them liable for the judgment. In Anderson, federal jurisdiction was founded upon a federal law, 12 U. S. C. §§63, 64 (repealed), which specifically made shareholders of an undercapitalized federal bank liable up to the par value of their stock, regardless of the amount actually invested.
Congress codified much of the common-law doctrine of ancillary jurisdiction as part of “supplemental jurisdiction” in 28 U. S. C. § 1367.
The United States, as amicus curiae for Thomas, suggests that the proceeding below was jurisdietionally indistinguishable from Swift & Co. Packers v. Compania Colombiana Del Caribe, S. A., 339 U. S. 684 (1950), Dewey v. West Fairmont Gas Coal Co., 123 U. S. 329 (1887), Labette County Comm’rs v. United States ex rel. Moulton, 112 U. S. 217 (1884), and Riggs v. Johnson County, 6 Wall. 166 (1868), because it was intended merely as a supplemental bill to preserve and force payment of the ERISA judgment by voiding fraudulent transfers of Tru-Tech’s assets. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9-18. We decline to address this argument, because, even if Thomas could have sought to force payment by mandamus or to void postjudgment transfers, neither Thomas nor the courts below characterized this suit that way. Indeed, Thomas expressly rejects that characterization of his lawsuit. Brief for Respondent 4 (“This action ... is not one to collect a judgment, but one to establish liability on the part of the Petitioner”) (emphasis in original); see id., at 11. In any event, the United States agrees that the alleged fraudulent transfers totaled no more than $80,000, far less than the judgment actually imposed on Peacock. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 3.
Rule 69(a), for instance, permits judgment creditors to use any execution method consistent with the practice and procedure of the State in which the district court sits. Rule 62(a) further protects judgment creditors by permitting execution on a judgment at any time more than 10 days after the judgment is entered.
The district court may only stay execution of the judgment pending the disposition of certain post-trial motions or appeal if the court provides for the security of the judgment creditor. Rule 62(b) (stay pending post-trial motions “on such conditions for the security of the adverse party as are proper”); Rule 62(d) (stay pending appeal “by giving a supersedeas bond”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a firm incurs an “injury” within the meaning of the antitrust laws when it loses sales to a competitor charging nonpredatory prices pursuant to a vertical, maximum-price-fixing scheme. We hold that such a firm does not suffer an “antitrust injury” and that it therefore cannot bring suit under § 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 15.
I
Respondent USA Petroleum Company (USA) sued petitioner Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, alleging the existence of a vertical, maximum-price-fixing agreement prohibited by § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1, an attempt to monopolize the local retail gasoline sales market in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 2, and other misconduct not relevant here. Petitioner ARCO is an integrated oil company that, inter alia, markets gasoline in the Western United States. It sells gasoline to consumers both directly through its own stations and indirectly through ARCO-brand dealers. Respondent USA is an independent retail marketer of gasoline which, like other independents, buys gasoline from major petroleum companies for resale under its own brand name. Respondent competes directly with ARCO dealers at the retail level. Respondent’s outlets typically are low-overhead, high-volume “discount” stations that charge less than stations selling equivalent quality gasoline under major brand names.
In early 1982, petitioner ARCO adopted a new marketing strategy in order to compete more effectively with discount independents such as respondent. Petitioner encouraged its dealers to match the retail gasoline prices offered by independents in various ways; petitioner made available to its dealers and distributors such short-term discounts as “temporary competitive allowances” and “temporary volume allowances,” and it reduced its dealers’ costs by, for example, eliminating credit card sales. ARCO’s strategy increased its sales and market share.
In its amended complaint, respondent USA charged that ARCO engaged in “direct head-to-head competition with discounters” and “drastically lowered its prices and in other ways sought to appeal to price-conscious consumers.” First Amended Complaint ¶ 19, App. 15. Respondent asserted that petitioner conspired with retail service stations selling ARCO brand gasoline to fix prices at below-market levels: “Arco and its co-conspirators have organized a resale price maintenance scheme, as a direct result of which competition that would otherwise exist among Arco-branded dealers has been eliminated by agreement, and the retail price of Arcobranded gasoline has been fixed, stabilized and maintained at artificially low and uncompetitive levels.” ¶ 27, App. 17. Respondent alleged that petitioner “has solicited its dealers and distributors to participate or acquiesce in the conspiracy and has used threats, intimidation and coercion to secure compliance with its terms.” ¶ 37, App. 19. According to respondent, this conspiracy drove many independent gasoline dealers in California out of business. ¶ 39, App. 20. Count one of the amended complaint charged that petitioner’s vertical, maximum-price-fixing scheme constituted an agreement in restraint of trade and thus violated § 1 of the Sherman Act. Count two, later withdrawn with prejudice by respondent, asserted that petitioner had engaged in an attempt to monopolize the retail gasoline market through predatory pricing in violation of §2 of the Sherman Act.
The District Court granted summary judgment for ARCO on the § 1 claim. The court stated that “[e]ven assuming that [respondent USA] can establish a vertical conspiracy to maintain low prices, [respondent] cannot satisfy the ‘antitrust injury’ requirement of Clayton Act § 4, without showing such prices to be predatory.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 3b. The court then concluded that respondent could make no such showing of predatory pricing because, given petitioner’s market share and the ease of entry into the market, petitioner was in no position to exercise market power.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 859 F. 2d 687 (1988). Acknowledging that its decision was in conflict with the approach of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in several recent cases, see id., at 697, n. 15, the Ninth Circuit nonetheless held that injuries resulting from vertical, nonpredatory, maximum-price-fixing agreements could constitute “antitrust injury” for purposes of a private suit under § 4 of the Clayton Act. The court reasoned that any form of price fixing contravenes Congress’ intent that “market forces alone determine what goods and services are offered, at what price these goods and services are sold, and whether particular sellers succeed or fail.” Id., at 693. The court believed that the key inquiry in determining whether respondent suffered an “antitrust injury” was whether its losses “resulted from a disruption... in the... market caused by the... antitrust violation.” Ibid. The court concluded that “[i]n the present case, the inquiry seems straightforward: USA’s claimed injuries were the direct result, and indeed, under the allegations we accept as true, the intended objective, of ARCO’s price-fixing scheme. According to USA, the purpose of ARCO’s price-fixing is to disrupt the market of retail gasoline sales, and that disruption is the source of USA’s injuries.” Ibid.
We granted certiorari, 490 U. S. 1097 (1989).
II
A private plaintiff may not recover damages under § 4 of the Clayton Act merely by showing “injury causally linked to an illegal presence in the market.” Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477, 489 (1977). Instead, a plaintiff must prove the existence of “antitrust injury, which is to say injury of the typeAhe-antitrust_ laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants’ acts unlawful.” Ibid, (emphasis in original). In Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U. S. 104 (1986), we reaffirmed that injury, although causally related to an antitrust violation, nevertheless will not qualify as “antitrust injury” unless it is attributable to an anti-competitive aspect of the practice under scrutiny, “since ‘[i]t is inimical to [the antitrust] laws to award damages’ for losses stemming from continued competition.” Id., at 109-110 (quoting Brunswick, supra, at 488). See also Associated General Contractors of California, Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519, 539-540 (1983); Blue Shield of Virginia v. McCready, 457 U. S. 465, 483, and n. 19 (1982); J. Truett Payne Co. v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 451 U. S. 557, 562 (1981).
Respondent argues that, as a competitor, it can show antitrust injury from a vertical conspiracy to fix maximum prices that is unlawful under § 1 of the Sherman Act, even if the prices were set above predatory levels. In addition, respondent maintains that any loss flowing from a per se violation of § 1 automatically satisfies the antitrust injury requirement. We reject both contentions and hold that respondent has failed to meet the antitrust injury test in this case. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
A
In Albrecht v. Herald Co., 390 U. S. 145 (1968), we found that a vertical, maximum-price-fixing scheme was unlawful per se under § 1 of the Sherman Act because it threatened to inhibit vigorous competition by the dealers bound by it and because it threatened to become a minimum-price-fixing scheme. That case concerned a newspaper distributor who sought to charge his customers more than the suggested retail price advertised by the publisher. After the publisher attempted to discipline the distributor by hiring another carrier to take away some of the distributor’s customers, the distributor brought suit under § 1. The Court found that “the combination formed by the [publisher] in this case to force [the distributor] to maintain a specified price for the resale of newspapers which he had purchased from [the publisher] constituted, without more, an illegal restraint of trade under § 1 of the Sherman Act.” Id., at 153.
In holding such a maximum-price vertical agreement illegal, we analyzed the manner in which it might restrain competition by dealers. First, we noted that such a scheme, “by substituting the perhaps erroneous judgment of a seller for the forces of the competitive market, may severely intrude upon the ability of buyers to compete and survive in that market.” Id., at 152. We further explained that “[m]aximum prices may be fixed too low for the dealer to furnish services essential to the value which goods have for the consumer or to furnish services and conveniences which consumers desire and for which they are willing to pay.” Id., at 152-153. By limiting the ability of small dealers to engage in nonprice competition, a maximum-price-fixing agreement might “channel distribution through a few large or specifically advantaged dealers.” Id., at 153. Finally, we observed that “if the actual price charged under a maximum price scheme is nearly always the fixed maximum price, which is increasingly likely as the maximum price approaches the actual cost of the dealer, the scheme tends to acquire all the attributes of an arrangement fixing minimum prices.” Ibid.
Respondent alleges that it has suffered losses as a result of competition with firms following a vertical, maximum-price-fixing agreement. But in Albrecht we held such an agreement per se unlawful because of its potential effects on dealers and consumers, not because of its effect on competitors. Respondent’s asserted injury as a competitor does not resemble any of the potential dangers described in Albrecht. For example, if a vertical agreement fixes “[mjaximum prices... too low for the dealer to furnish services” desired by consumers, or in such a way as to channel business to large distributors, id., at 152-153, then a firm dealing in a competing brand would not be harmed. Respondent was benefited rather than harmed if petitioner’s pricing policies restricted ARCO sales to a few large dealers or prevented petitioner’s dealers from offering services desired by consumers such as credit card sales. Even if the maximum-price agreement ultimately had acquired all of the attributes of a minimum-price-fixing scheme, respondent still would not have suffered antitrust injury because higher ARCO prices would have worked to USA’s advantage. A competitor “may not complain of conspiracies that... set minimum prices at any level.” Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U. S. 574, 585, n. 8 (1986); see also id., at 582-583 (“[R]espondents [cannot] recover damages for any conspiracy by petitioners to charge higher than competitive prices in the... market. Such conduct would indeed violate the Sherman Act, but it could not injure respondents: as petitioners’ competitors, respondents stand to gain from any conspiracy to raise the market price...”). Indeed, the gravamen of respondent’s complaint — that the price-fixing scheme between petitioner and its dealers enabled those dealers to increase their sales — amounts to an assertion that the dangers with which we were concerned in Albrecht have not materialized in the instant case. In sum, respondent has not suffered “antitrust injury,” since its losses do not flow from the aspects of vertical, maximum price fixing that render it illegal.
Respondent argues that even if it was not harmed by any of the anticompetitive effects identified in Albrecht, it nonetheless suffered antitrust injury because of the low prices produced by the vertical restraint. We disagree. When a firm, or even a group of firms adhering to a vertical agreement, lowers prices but maintains them above predatory levels, the business lost by rivals cannot be viewed as an “anti-competitive” consequence of the claimed violation. A firm complaining about the harm it suffers from nonpredatory price competition “is really claiming that it [is] unable to raise prices.” Blair & Harrison, Rethinking Antitrust Injury, 42 Vand. L. Rev. 1539, 1554 (1989). This is not antitrust injury; indeed, “cutting prices in order to increase business often is the very essence of competition.” Matsushita, supra, at 594. The antitrust laws were enacted for “the protection of competition, not competitors.” Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294, 320 (1962) (emphasis in original). “To hold that the antitrust laws protect competitors from the loss of profits due to [nonpredatory] price competition would, in effect, render illegal any decision by a firm to cut prices in order to increase market share.” Cargill, 479 U. S., at 116.
Respondent further argues that it is inappropriate to require a showing of predatory pricing before antitrust injury can be established when the asserted antitrust violation is an agreement in restraint of trade illegal under § 1 of the Sherman Act, rather than an attempt to monopolize prohibited by § 2. Respondent notes that the two sections of the Act are quite different. Price fixing violates § 1, for example, even if a single firm’s decision to price at the same level would not create § 2 liability. See generally Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U. S. 752, 767-769 (1984). In a § 1 case, the price agreement itself is illegal, and respondent contends that all losses flowing from such an agreement must by definition constitute “antitrust injuries.” Respondent observes that § 1 in general and the per se rule in particular are grounded “‘on faith in price competition as a market force [and not] on a policy of low selling prices at the price of eliminating competition.’” Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U. S. 332, 348 (1982) (quoting Rahl, Price Competition and the Price Fixing Rule — Preface and Perspective, 57 Nw. U. L. Rev. 137, 142 (1962)). In sum, respondent maintains that it has suffered antitrust injury even if petitioner’s pricing was not predatory under § 2 of the Sherman Act.
We reject respondent’s argument. Although a vertical, maximum-price-fixing agreement is unlawful under § 1 of the Sherman Act, it does not cause a competitor antitrust injury unless it results in predatory pricing. Antitrust injury does not arise for purposes of § 4 of the Clayton Act, see n. 1, supra, until a private party is adversely affected by an anti-competitive aspect of the defendant’s conduct, see Brunswick, 429 U. S., at 487; in the context of pricing practices, only predatory pricing has the requisite anticompetitive effect. See Areeda & Turner, Predatory Pricing and Related Practices Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 697, 697-699 (1975); McGee, Predatory Pricing Revisited, 23 J. Law & Econ. 289, 292-294 (1980). Low prices benefit consumers regardless of how those prices are set, and so long as they are above predatory levels, they do not threaten competition. Hence, they cannot give rise to antitrust injury.
We have adhered to this principle regardless of the type of antitrust claim involved. In Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., for example, we found that a plaintiff competitor had not shown antitrust injury and thus could not challenge a merger that was assumed to be illegal under § 7 of the Clayton Act, even though the merged company threatened to engage in vigorous price competition that would reduce the plaintiff’s profits. We observed that nonpredatory price competition for increased market share, as reflected by prices that are below “market price” or even below the costs of a firm’s rivals, “is not activity forbidden by the antitrust laws.” 479 U. S., at 116. Because the prices charged were not predatory, we found no antitrust injury. Similarly, we determined that antitrust injury was absent in Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., supra, even though the plaintiffs alleged that an illegal acquisition threatened to bring a “‘deep pocket’ parent into a market of ‘pygmies,’” id., at 487, a scenario that would cause the plaintiffs economic harm. We opined nevertheless that “if [the plaintiffs] were injured, it was not ‘by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws’: while [the plaintiffs’] loss occurred ‘by reason of’ the unlawful acquisitions, it did not occur ‘by reason of’ that which made the acquisitions unlawful.” Id., at 488. To be sure, the source of the price competition in the instant case was an agreement allegedly unlawful under § 1 of the Sherman Act rather than a merger in violation of § 7 of the Clayton Act. But that difference is not salient. When prices are not predatory, any losses flowing from them cannot be said to stem from an anticompetitive aspect of the defendant’s conduct. “‘It is in the interest of competition to permit dominant firms to engage in vigorous competition, including price competition.’” Cargill, 479 U. S., at 116 (quoting Arthur S. Langenderfer, Inc. v. S. E. Johnson Co., 729 F. 2d 1050, 1057 (CA6), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1036 (1984)).
B
We also reject respondent’s suggestion that no antitrust injury need be shown where a per se violation is involved. The per se rule is a method of determining whether § 1 of the Sherman Act has been violated, but it does not indicate whether a private plaintiff has suffered antitrust injury and thus whether he may recover damages under § 4 of the Clayton Act. Per se and rule-of-reason analysis are but two methods of determining whether a restraint is “unreasonable,” i. e., whether its anticompetitive effects outweigh its procompetitive effects. The per se rule is a presumption of unreasonableness based on “business certainty and litigation efficiency.” Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U. S., at 344. It represents a “longstanding judgment that the prohibited practices by their nature have ‘a substantial potential for impact on competition.’” FTC v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Assn., 493 U. S. 411, 433 (1990) (quoting Jefferson Parish Hospital Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde, 466 U. S. 2, 16 (1984)). “Once experience with a particular kind of restraint enables the Court to predict with confidence that the rule of reason will condemn it, it has applied a conclusive presumption that the restraint is unreasonable.” Maricopa County Medical Society, supra, at 344.
The purpose of the antitrust injury requirement is different. It ensures that the harm claimed by the plaintiff corresponds to the rationale for finding a violation of the antitrust laws in the first place, and it prevents losses that stem from competition from supporting suits by private plaintiffs for either damages or equitable relief. Actions per se unlawful under the antitrust laws may nonetheless have some pro-competitive effects, and private parties might suffer losses therefrom. See Maricopa County Medical Society, supra, at 351; Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 50, n. 16 (1977). Conduct in violation of the antitrust laws may have three effects, often interwoven: In some respects the conduct may reduce competition, in other respects it may increase competition, and in still other respects effects may be neutral as to competition. The antitrust injury requirement ensures that a plaintiff can recover only if the loss stems from a competition -reducing aspect or effect of the defendant’s behavior. The need for this showing is at least as great under the per se rule as under the rule of reason. Indeed, insofar as the per se rule permits the prohibition of efficient practices in the name of simplicity, the need for the antitrust injury requirement is underscored. “[P]rocompetitive or. efficiency-enhancing aspects of practices that nominally violate the antitrust laws may cause serious harm to individuals, but this kind of harm is the essence of competition and should play no role in the definition of antitrust damages.” Page, The Scope of Liability for Antitrust Violations, 37 Stan. L. Rev. 1445, 1460 (1985). Thus, “proof of a per se violation and of antitrust injury are distinct matters that must be shown independently.” P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 334.2c, p. 330 (1989 Supp.).
For this reason, we have previously recognized that even in cases involving per se violations, the right of action under §4 of the Clayton Act is available only to those private plaintiffs who have suffered antitrust injury. For example, in a case involving horizontal price fixing, “perhaps the paradigm of an unreasonable restraint of trade,” National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 468 U. S. 85, 100 (1984), we observed that the plaintiffs were still required to “show that the conspiracy caused them an injury for which the antitrust laws provide relief.” Matsushita, 475 U. S., at 584, n. 7 (citing Brunswick) (emphasis added). Similarly, in Associated General Contractors of California, Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519 (1983), we noted that a restraint of trade was illegal per se in the sense that it could “be condemned even without proof of its actual market effect,” but we maintained that even if it “may have been unlawful, it does not, of course, necessarily follow that still another party... is a person injured by reason of a violation of the antitrust laws within the meaning of § 4 of the Clayton Act.” Id., at 528-529.
C
We decline to dilute the antitrust injury requirement here because we find that there is no need to encourage private enforcement by competitors of the rule against vertical, maximum price fixing. If such a scheme causes the anticompetitive consequences detailed in Albrecht, consumers and the manufacturers’ own dealers may bring suit. The “existence of an identifiable class of persons whose self-interest would normally motivate them to vindicate the public interest in antitrust enforcement diminishes the justification for allowing a more remote party... to perform the office of a private attorney general.” Associated General Contractors, supra, at 542.
Respondent’s injury, moreover, is not “inextricably intertwined” with the antitrust injury that a dealer would suffer, McCready, 457 U. S., at 484, and thus does not militate in favor of permitting respondent to sue on behalf of petitioner’s dealers. A competitor is not injured by the anticompetitive effects of vertical, maximum price-fixing, see supra, at 336-337, and does not have any incentive to vindicate the legitimate interests of a rival’s dealer. See Easterbrook, The Limits of Antitrust, 63 Texas L. Rev. 1, 33-39 (1984). A competitor will not bring suit to protect the dealer against a maximum price that is set too low, inasmuch as the competitor would benefit from such a situation. Instead, a competitor will be motivated to bring suit only when the vertical restraint promotes interbrand competition between the competitor and the dealer subject to the restraint. See n. 13, supra. In short, a competitor will be injured and hence motivated to sue only when a vertical, maximum-price-fixing arrangement has a procompetitive impact on the market. Therefore, providing the competitor a cause of action would not protect the rights of dealers and consumers under the antitrust laws.
Ill
Respondent has failed to demonstrate that it has suffered any antitrust injury. The allegation of a per se violation does not obviate the need to satisfy this test. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 4 of the Clayton Act is a remedial provision that makes available treble damages to “any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws.”
Because the case comes to us on review of summary judgment, “ ‘inferences to be drawn from the underlying facts... must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion. ’ ” Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U. S. 574, 587 (1986) (quoting United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U. S. 654, 655 (1962)).
The District Court granted petitioner’s motion to dismiss the §2 claim as originally pleaded. 577 F. Supp. 1296, 1304 (1983). Respondent subsequently amended its §2 claim, but shortly after petitioner filed for summary judgment, respondent voluntarily dismissed that claim with prejudice. See App. 76-78. The Court of Appeals framed the issue as “whether a competitor’s injuries resulting from vertical, non-predatory, maximum price fixing fall within the category of ‘antitrust injury.’ ” 859 F. 2d 687, 689 (CA9 1988) (emphasis added). For purposes of this case we likewise assume that petitioner’s pricing was not predatory in nature.
See Indiana Grocery, Inc. v. Super Valu Stores, Inc., 864 F. 2d 1409, 1418-1420 (1989); Local Beauty Supply, Inc. v. Lamaur, Inc., 787 F. 2d 1197, 1201-1203 (1986); Jack Walters & Sons Corp. v. Morton Bldg., Inc., 737 F. 2d 698, 708-709, cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1018 (1984).
We assume, arguendo, that Albrecht correctly held that vertical, maximum price fixing is subject to the per se rule.
Albrecht is the only case in which the Court has confronted an unadulterated vertical, maximum-price-fixing arrangement. In Kiefer-Stewart Co. v. Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., 340 U. S. 211, 213 (1951), we also suggested that such an arrangement was illegal because it restricted vigorous competition among dealers. The restraint in Kiefer-Stewart had an additional horizontal component, however, see Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U. S. 332, 348, n. 18 (1982), since the agreement was between two suppliers that had agreed to sell liquor only to wholesalers adhering to “maximum prices above which the wholesalers could not resell.” Kiefer-Stewart, supra, at 212.
The Court of Appeals implied that the antitrust injury requirement could be satisfied by a showing that the “long-term” effect of the maximum-price agreements could be to eliminate retailers and ultimately to reduce competition. 859 F. 2d, at 694, 696. We disagree. Rivals cannot be excluded in the long run by a nonpredatory maximum-price scheme unless they are relatively inefficient. Even if that were false, however, a firm cannot claim antitrust injury from nonpredatory price competition on the asserted ground that it is “ruinous.” Cf. United States v. Topco Associates, Inc., 405 U. S. 596, 610-612 (1972); United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 220-221 (1940). “[T]he statutory policy precludes inquiry into the question whether competition is good or bad.” National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679, 695 (1978).
The Court of Appeals erred by reasoning that respondent satisfied the antitrust injury requirement by alleging that “[t]he removal of some elements of price competition distorts the markets, and harms all the participants.” 859 F. 2d, at 694. Every antitrust violation can be assumed to “disrupt” or “distort” competition. “[Ojtherwise, there would be no violation.” P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 340.3b, p. 411 (1989 Supp.). Respondent’s theory would equate injury in fact with antitrust injury. We declined to adopt such an approach in Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477 (1977), and Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U. S. 104 (1986), and we reject it again today. The antitrust injury requirement cannot be met by broad allegations of harm to the “market” as an abstract entity. Although all antitrust violations, under both the per se rule and rule-of-reason analysis, “distort” the market, not every loss stemming from a violation counts as antitrust injury.
This is not to deny that a vertical price-fixing scheme may facilitate predatory pricing. A supplier, for example, can reduce its prices to its own downstream dealers and share the losses with them, while forcing competing dealers to bear by themselves the full loss imposed by the lower prices. Cf. FTC v. Sun Oil Co., 371 U. S. 505, 522 (1963). But because a firm always is able to challenge directly a rival’s pricing as predatory, there is no reason to dispense with the antitrust injury requirement in an action by a competitor against a vertical agreement.
We did not reach a contrary conclusion in Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U. S. 574 (1986), where we declined to define precisely the term “predatory pricing” but stated instead that “[f]or purposes of this case it is enough to note that respondents have not suffered an antitrust injury unless petitioners conspired to drive respondents out of the relevant markets by (i) pricing below the level necessary to sell their products, or (ii) pricing below some appropriate measure of cost.” Id., at 585, n. 8. This statement does not imply that losses from wowpredatory pricing might qualify as antitrust injury; we were quite careful to limit our discussion in that case to predatory pricing. See ibid, (nonpredatory prices would not cause antitrust injury because they would “leave respondents in the same position as would market forces”). We noted that “[ejxcept for the alleged conspiracy to monopolize the... market through predatory pricing, these alleged conspiracies could not have caused respondents to suffer an ‘antitrust injury.’” Id., at 586. We also observed that “respondents must show that the conspiracy caused them an injury for which the antitrust laws provide relief. That showing depends in turn on proof that petitioners conspired to price predatorily in the American market, since the other conduct involved in the alleged conspiracy cannot have caused such an injury.” Id., at 584, n. 7 (citations omitted); see also id., at 594; Cargill, supra, at 117, n. 12 (interpreting our decision in Matsushita). We have no occasion in the instant case to consider the proper definition of predatory pricing, nor to determine whether our dictum in Matsushita that predatory pricing might consist of “pricing below the level necessary to sell [the offender’s] products,” 475 U. S., at 585, n. 8, is an accurate statement of the law. See n. 3, supra.
The Court of Appeals purported to distinguish Cargill and Brunswick on the ground that those cases turned on an “attenuated or indirect” relationship between the alleged violation — the illegal merger — and the plaintiffs’ injury. 859 F. 2d, at 695. We disagree. The Court in both cases described the injury as flowing directly from the alleged antitrust violation. See Cargill, supra, at 108; Brunswick, supra, at 487.
“Both per se rules and the Rule of Reason are employed ‘to form a judgment about the competitive significance of the restraint.’ ” National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 468 U. S. 85, 103 (1984) (quoting National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S., at 692). “[Wjhether the ultimate finding is the product of a presumption or actual market analysis, the essential inquiry remains the same — whether or not the challenged restraint enhances competition.” 468 U. S., at 104.
When a manufacturer provides a dealer an exclusive area within which to distribute a product, the manufacturer’s decision to fix a maximum resale price may actually protect consumers against exploitation by the dealer acting as a local monopolist. The manufacturer acts not out of altruism, of course, but out of a desire to increase its own sales —whereas the dealer’s incentive, like that of any monopolist, is to reduce output and increase price. If an exclusive dealership is the most efficient means of distribution, the public is not served by forcing the manufacturer to abandon this method and resort to self-distribution or competing distributors. Vertical, maximum price fixing thus may have procompetitive interbrand effects even if it is per se illegal because of its potential effects on dealers and consumers. See Albrecht v. Herald Co., 390 U. S. 145, 159 (1968) (Harlan, J., dissenting) (maximum price ceilings “do not lessen horizontal competition” but instead “drive prices toward the level that would be set by intense competition,” by “preventing] retailers or wholesalers from reaping monopoly or supercompetitive profits”). Indeed, we acknowledged in Albrecht that “[m]aximum and minimum price fixing may have different consequences in many situations.” Id., at 152. The procompetitive potential of a vertical maximum price restraint is more evident now than it was when Albrecht was decided, because exclusive territorial arrangements and other nonprice restrictions were unlawful per se in 1968. See id., at 154; United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U. S. 365, 375-376 (1967). These agreements are currently subject only to rule-of-reason scrutiny, making monopolistic behavior by dealers more likely. See Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Service Corp., 465 U. S. 752, 761 (1984); Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 47-59 (1977).
Many commentators have identified procompetitive effects of vertical, maximum price fixing. See, e. g., P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶340.3b, p. 378, n. 24 (1988 Supp.); Blair & Harrison, Rethinking Antitrust Injury, 42 Vand. L. Rev. 1539, 1553 (1989); Blair & Schafer, Evolutionary Models of Legal Change and the Albrecht Rule, 32 Antitrust Bull. 989, 995-1000 (1987); Bork, The Rule of Reason and the Per Se Concept: Price Fixing and Market Division, part 2, 75 Yale L. J. 373, 464 (1966); Easterbrook, Maximum Price Fixing, 48 U. Chi. L. Rev. 886, 887-890 (1981);
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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.
Mb, Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is another in the line of cases in which the Court has had occasion to consider the limits imposed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment on legislation apportioning representation in state and local governing bodies and establishing qualifications for voters in the election of such representatives. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964), enunciated the constitutional standard for apportionment of state legislatures. Later cases such as Avery v. Midland County, 390 U. S. 474 (1968), and Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U. S. 50 (1970), extended the Reynolds rule to the governing bodies of a county and of a junior college district, respectively. We are here presented with the issue expressly reserved in Avery, supra:
“Were the [county’s governing body] a special-purpose unit of government assigned the performance of functions affecting definable groups of constituents more than other constituents, we would have to confront the question whether such a body may be apportioned in ways which give greater influence to the citizens most affected by the' organization’s functions.” 390 U. S., at 483-484.
The particular type of local government unit whose organization is challenged on constitutional grounds in this case is a water storage district, organized pursuant to the California Water Storage District Act, Calif. Water Code § 39000 et seq. The peculiar problems of adequate water supplies faced by most of the western third of the Nation have been described by Mr. Justice Sutherland, who was himself intimately familiar with them, in California Oregon Power Co. v. Beaver Portland Cement Co., 295 U. S. 142, 156-157 (1935):
“These states and territories comprised the western third of the United States — a vast empire in extent, but still sparsely settled. From a line east of the Rocky Mountains almost to the Pacific Ocean, and from the Canadian border to the boundary of Mexico — an area greater than that of the original thirteen states — the lands capable of redemption, in the main, constituted a desert, impossible of agricultural use without artificial irrigation.
“In the beginning, the task of reclaiming this area was left to the unaided efforts of the people who found their way by painful effort to its inhospitable solitudes. These western pioneers, emulating the spirit of so many others who had gone before them in similar ventures, faced the difficult problem of wresting a living and creating homes from the raw elements about them, and threw down the gage of battle to the forces of nature. With imperfect tools, they built dams, excavated canals, constructed ditches, plowed and cultivated the soil, and transformed dry and desolate lands into green fields and leafy orchards. . .
Californians, in common with other residents of the West, found the State's rivers and streams in their natural state to present the familiar paradox of feast or famine. With melting snow in the high mountains in the spring, small streams became roaring freshets, and the rivers they fed carried the potential for destructive floods. But with the end of the rainy season in the early spring, farmers depended entirely upon water from such streams and rivers until the rainy season again began in the fall. Long before that time, however, rivers which ran bank full in the spring had been reduced to a bare trickle of water.
It was not enough therefore, for individual farmers or groups of farmers to build irrigation canals and ditches which depended for their operation on the natural flow of these streams. Storage dams had to be constructed to impound in their reservoirs the flow of the rivers at flood stage for later release during the dry season regimen of these streams. For the construction of major dams to facilitate the storage of water for irrigation of large areas, the full resources of the State and frequently of the Federal Government were necessary.
But for less costly projects which would benefit a more restricted geographic area, the State was frequently either unable or unwilling to pledge its credit or its resources. The California Legislature, therefore, has authorized a number of instrumentalities, including water storage districts such as the appellee here, to provide a local response to water problems.
Some history of the experience of California and the other Western States with the problems of water distribution is contained in Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 151-154 (1896), in which the constitutionality of California’s Wright Act was sustained against claims of denial of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. While the irrigation district was apparently the first local governmental unit authorized to deal with water distribution, it is by no means the only one. General legislation in California authorizes the creation, not only of irrigation districts, but of water conservation districts, water storage and conservation districts, flood control districts, and water storage districts such as appellee.
Appellee district consists of 193,000 acres of intensively cultivated, highly fertile farm land located in the Tulare Lake Basin. Its population consists of 77 persons, including 18 children, most of whom are employees of one or another of the four corporations that farm 85% of the land in the district.
Such districts are authorized to plan projects and execute approved projects “for the acquisition, appropriation, diversion, storage, conservation, and distribution of water . . . .” Calif. Water Code § 42200 et seq. Incidental to this general power, districts may “acquire, improve, and operate” any necessary works for the storage and distribution of water as well as any drainage or reclamation works connected therewith, and the generation and distribution of hydroelectric power may be provided for. Id., §§ 43000, 43025. They may fix tolls and charges for the use of water and collect them from all persons receiving the benefit of the water or other services in proportion to the services rendered. Id., § 43006. The costs of the projects are assessed against district land in accordance with the benefits accruing to each tract held in separate ownership. Id., §§ 46175, 46176. And land that is not benefited may be withdrawn from the district on petition. Id., § 48029.
Governance of the districts is undertaken by a board of directors. Id., § 40658. Each director is elected from one of the divisions within the district, id., § 39929, and each must take an official oath and execute a bond. Id., § 40301. General elections for the directors are to be held in odd-numbered years. Id., §§ 39027, 41300 et seg.
It is the voter qualification for such elections that appellants claim invidiously discriminates against them and persons similarly situated. Appellants are landowners, a landowner-lessee, and residents within the area, included in the appellee’s water storage district. They brought this action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in an effort to prevent appellee from giving effect to certain provisions of the California Water Code. They allege that §§ 41000 and 41001 unconstitutionally deny to them the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, in that only landowners are permitted to vote in water storage district general elections, and votes in those elections are apportioned according to the assessed valuation of the land. A three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2284, and the case was submitted on factual statements of the parties and briefs, without testimony or oral argument. A majority of the District Court held that both statutes comported with the dictates of the Equal Protection Clause, and appellants have appealed that judgment directly to this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1253.
In Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968), a case in which the Ohio legislative scheme for regulating the electoral franchise was challenged, the Court said:
“[T]his Court has firmly established the principle that the Equal Protection Clause does not make every minor difference in the application of laws to different groups a violation of our Constitution. But we have also held many times that 'invidious’ distinctions cannot be enacted without a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In determining whether or not a state law violates the Equal Protection Clause, we must consider the facts and circumstances behind the law, the interests which the State claims to be protecting, and the interests of those who are disadvantaged by the classification.” Id., at 30.
We therefore turn now to the determination of whether the California statutory scheme establishing water storage districts violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
It is first argued that § 41000, limiting the vote to district landowners, is unconstitutional since nonlandown-ing residents have as much interest in the operations of a district as landowners who may or may not be residents. Particularly, it is pointed out that the homes of residents may be damaged by floods within the district's boundaries, and that floods may, as with appellant Ellison, cause them to lose their jobs. Support for this position is said to come from the recent decisions of this Court striking down various state laws that limited voting to landowners, Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U. S. 204 (1970), Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701 (1969), and Kramer v. Union School District, 395 U. S. 621 (1969).
In Kramer, the Court was confronted with a voter qualification statute for school district elections that limited the vote to otherwise qualified district residents who were either (1) the owners or lessees of taxable real property located within the district, (2) spouses of persons owning qualifying property, or (3) parents or guardians of children enrolled for a specified time during the preceding year in a local district school. Without reaching the issue of whether or not a State may in some circumstances limit the exercise of the franchise to those primarily interested or primarily affected by a given governmental unit, it was held that the above classifications did not meet that state-articulated goal since they excluded many persons who had distinct and direct interests in school meeting decisions and included many persons who had, at best, remote and indirect interests. Id., at 632-633.
Similarly, in Cipriano v. City of Houma, supra, decided the same day, provisions of Louisiana law which gave only property taxpayers the right to vote in elections called to approve the issuance of revenue bonds by a municipal utility were declared violative of the Equal Protection Clause since the operation of the utility systems affected virtually every resident of the city, not just the 40% of the registered voters who were also property taxpayers, and since the bonds were not in any way financed by property tax revenue. 395 U. S., at 705. And the rationale of Cipriano was expanded to include general obligation bonds of municipalities in Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, supra. It was there noted that not only did those persons excluded from voting have a great interest in approving or disapproving municipal improvements, but they also contributed both directly through local taxes and indirectly through increased rents and costs to the servicing of the bonds. 399 U. S., at 210-211.
Cipriano and Phoenix involved application of the “one person, one vote” principle to residents of units of local governments exercising general governmental power, as that term was defined in Avery v. Midland County, 390 U. S. 474 (1968). Kramer and Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U. S. 50 (1970), extended the “one person, one vote” principle to school districts exercising powers which,
“while not fully as broad as those of the Midland County Commissioners, certainly show that the trustees perform important governmental functions within the districts, and we think these powers are general enough and have sufficient impact throughout the district to justify the conclusion that the principle which we applied in Avery should also be applied here.” 397 U. S., at 53-54.
But the Court was also careful to state that:
“It is of course possible that there might be some case in which a State elects certain functionaries whose duties are so far removed from normal governmental activities and so disproportionately affect different groups that a popular election in compliance with Reynolds, supra, might not be required, but certainly we see nothing in the present case that indicates that the activities of these trustees fit in that category. Education has traditionally been a vital governmental function, and these trustees, whose election the State has opened to all qualified voters, are governmental officials in every relevant sense of that term.” Id., at 56.
We conclude that the appellee water storage district, by reason of its special limited purpose and of the disproportionate effect of its activities on landowners as a group, is the sort of exception to the rule laid down in Reynolds which the quoted language from Hadley, supra, and the decision in Avery, supra, contemplated.
The appellee district in this case, although vested with some typical governmental powers, has relatively limited authority. Its primary purpose, indeed the reason for its existence, is to provide for the acquisition, storage, and distribution of water for farming in the Tulare Lake Basin. It provides no other general public services such as schools, housing, transportation, utilities, roads, or anything else of the type ordinarily financed by a municipal body. App. 86. There are no towns, shops, hospitals, or other facilities designed to improve the quality of life within the district boundaries, and it does not have a fire department, police, buses, or trains. Ibid.
Not only does the district not exercise what might be thought of as "normal governmental” authority, but its actions disproportionately affect landowners. All of the costs of district projects are assessed against land by assessors in proportion to the benefits received. Likewise, charges for services rendered are collectible from persons receiving their benefit in proportion to the services. When such persons are delinquent in payment, just as in the case of delinquency in payments of assessments, such charges become a lien on the land. Calif. Water Code §§ 47183, 46280. In short, there is no way that the economic burdens of district operations can fall on residents qua residents, and the operations of the districts primarily affect the land within their boundaries.
Under these circumstances, it is quite understandable that the statutory framework for election of directors of the appellee focuses on the land benefited, rather than on people as such. California has not opened the franchise to all residents, as Missouri had in Hadley, supra, nor to all residents with some exceptions, as New York had in Kramer, supra. The franchise is extended to landowners, whether they reside in the district or out of it, and indeed whether or not they are natural persons who would be entitled to vote in a more traditional political election. Appellants do not challenge the enfranchisement of nonresident landowners or of corporate landowners for purposes of election of the directors of appellee. Thus, to sustain their contention that all residents of the district must be accorded a vote would not result merely in the striking down of an exclusion from what was otherwise a delineated class, but would instead engraft onto the statutory scheme a wholly new class of voters in addition to those enfranchised by the statute.
We hold, therefore, that the popular election requirements enunciated by Reynolds, supra, and succeeding cases are inapplicable to elections such as the general election of appellee Water Storage District.
II
Even though appellants derive no benefit from the Reynolds and Kramer lines of cases, they are, of course, entitled to have their equal protection claim assessed to determine whether the State’s decision to deny the franchise to residents of the district while granting it to landowners was “wholly irrelevant to achievement of the regulation’s objectives,” Kotch v. River Port Pilot Comm’rs, 330 U. S. 552, 556 (1947). No doubt residents within the district may be affected by its activities. But this argument proves too much. Since assessments imposed by the district become a cost of doing business for those who farm within it, and that cost must ultimately be passed along to the consumers of the produce, food shoppers in far away metropolitan areas are to some extent likewise “affected” by the activities of the district. Constitutional adjudication cannot rest on any such “house that Jack built” foundation, however. The California Legislature could quite reasonably have concluded that the number of landowners and owners of sufficient amounts of acreage whose consent was necessary to organize the district would not have subjected their land to the lien of its possibly very substantial assessments unless they had a dominant voice in its control. Since the subjection of the owners’ lands to such liens was the basis by which the district was to obtain financing, the proposed district had as a practical matter to attract landowner support. Nor, since assessments against landowners were to be the sole means by which the expenses of the district were to be paid, could it be said to be unfair or inequitable to repose the franchise in landowners but not residents. Landowners as a class were to bear the entire burden of the district’s costs, and the State could rationally conclude that they, to the exclusion of residents, should be charged with responsibility for its operation. We conclude, therefore, that nothing in the Equal Protection Clause precluded California from limiting the voting for directors of appellee district by totally excluding those who merely reside within the district.
Ill
Appellants assert that even if residents may be excluded from the vote, lessees who farm the land have interests that are indistinguishable from those of the landowners. Like landowners, they take an interest in increasing the available water for farming and, because the costs of district projects may be passed on to them either by express agreement or by increased rentals, they have an equal interest in the costs.
Lessees undoubtedly do have an interest in the activities of appellee district analogous to that of landowners in many respects. But in the type of special district we now have before us, the question for our determination is not whether or not we would have lumped them together had we been enacting the statute in question, but instead whether “if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify” California’s decision to deny the franchise to lessees while granting it to landowners. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 426 (1961).
The term “lessees” may embrace the holders of a wide spectrum of leasehold interests in land, from the month-to-month tenant holding under an oral lease, on the one hand, to the long-term lessee holding under a carefully negotiated written lease, on the other. The system which permitted a lessee for a very short term to vote might easily lend itself to manipulation on the part of large landowners because of the ease with which such landowners could create short-term interests on the part of loyal employees. And, even apart from the fear of such manipulation, California may well have felt that landowners would be unwilling to join in the forming of a water storage district if short-term lessees whose fortunes were not in the long run tied to the land were to have a major vote in the affairs of the district.
The administration of a voting system which allowed short-term lessees to vote could also pose significant difficulties. Apparently, assessment rolls as well as state and federal land lists are used by election boards in determining the qualifications of the voters. Calif. Water Code § 41016. Such lists, obviously, would not ordinarily disclose either long- or short-term leaseholds. While reference could be made to appropriate conveyancing records to determine the existence of leases which had been recorded, leases for terms less than one year need not be recorded under California law in order to preserve the right of the lessee. Calif. Civil Code § 1214.
Finally, we note that California has not left the lessee without remedy for his disenfranchised state. Sections 41002 and 41005 of the California Water Code provide for voting in the general election by proxy. To the extent that a lessee entering into a lease of substantial duration, thereby likening his status more to that of a landowner, feels that the right to vote in the election of directors of the district is of sufficient import to him, he may bargain for that right at the time he negotiates his lease. And the longer the term of the lease, and the more the interest of the lessee becomes akin to that of the landowner, presumably the more willing the lessor will be to assign his right. Just as the lessee may by contract be required to reimburse the lessor for the district assessments so he may by contract acquire the right to vote for district directors.
Under these circumstances, the exclusion of lessees from voting in general elections for the directors of the district does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.
IV
The last claim by appellants is that § 41001, which weights the vote according to assessed valuation of the land, is unconstitutional. They point to the fact that several of the smaller landowners have only one vote per person whereas the J. G. Boswell Company has 37,825 votes, and they place reliance on the various decisions of this Court holding that wealth has no relation to resident-voter qualifications and that equality of voting power may not be evaded. See, e. g., Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368 (1963); Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U. S. 663 (1966).
Appellants’ argument ignores the realities of water storage district operation. Since its formation in 1926, appellee district has put into operation four multi-million-dollar projects. The last project involved the construction of two laterals from the Basin to the California State Aqueduct at a capital cost of about $2,500,000. Three small landowners having land aggregating somewhat under four acres with an assessed valuation of under $100 were given one vote each in the special election held for the approval of the project. The J. G. Boswell Company, which owns 61,665.54 acres with an assessed valuation of $3,782,220 was entitled to cast 37,825 votes in the election. By the same token, however, the assessment commissioners determined that the benefits of the project would be uniform as to all of the acres affected, and assessed the project equally as to all acreage. Each acre has to bear $13.26 of cost and the three small landowners, therefore, must pay a total of $46, whereas the company must pay $817,685 for its part. Thus, as the District Court found, “the benefits and burdens to each landowner . . . are in proportion to the assessed value of the land.” 342 F. Supp. 144, 146. We cannot say that the California legislative decision to permit voting in the same proportion is not rationally based.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the three-judge District Court and hold that the voter qualification statutes for California water storage district elections are rationally based, and therefore do not violate the Equal Protection Clause.
Affirmed.
The history of the vast Central Valley Project in California is recounted in United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725 (1950).
4 Waters and Water Rights §345.3 (R. Clark ed. 1970).
The actual adoption of district projects is long and involved. After a district undertakes a project, it must be approved by the California Department of Water Resources. Calif. Water Code § 42200 et seq. A report and the estimated cost of the project must be submitted to the California State Treasurer, who undertakes an independent investigation before declaring the project abandoned or approving the report. Id., § 42275 et seq. If the report is approved, a “special election” is called. I'd., § 42325 et seq. In order for the project to be finally adopted, a majority of the votes and a majority of the voters must approve it. Id., §§ 42355-42550.
There is no evidence that the appellee district engages in the generation, sale, or distribution of hydroelectric power.
Calif. Water Code § 41000 provides:
“Only the holders of title to land are entitled to vote at a general election.”
Calif. Water Code §41001 provides:
“Each voter may vote in each precinct in which any of the land owned by him is situated and may cast one vote for each one hundred dollars ($100), or fraction thereof, worth of his land, exclusive of improvements, minerals, and mineral rights therein, in the precinct.”
The board has the power to employ and discharge persons on a regular staff and to contract for the construction of district projects. Calif. Water Code § 43152. It can condemn private property for use in such projects, id,., §§ 43530-43533, and may cooperate (including contract) with other agencies, state and federal. Id., § 43151. Both general obligation bonds and interest-bearing warrants may be authorized. Id., §§ 44900-45900.
Appellants strongly urge that districts have the power to, and do, engage in flood control activities. The interest of such activities to residents is said to be obvious since houses may be destroyed and, as in the case of appellant Ellison, jobs may disappear. But Calif. Water Code § 43151 provides that any agreement entered into with the State or the United States must be “for a purpose appertaining to or beneficial to the project of the district. ...” And the statute which assertedly gives support to the flood control activities, id., § 44000, simply states that a district “may cooperate and contract with the state ... or the United States” for the purpose of “flood control.” Id.., § 44001. Thus, any flood control activities are incident to the exercise of the district’s primary functions of water storage and distribution.
Appellants point out that since the flood of 1969, the district has received about $250,000 in flood relief funds from the Federal Government and that the residents, like other American citizens, have paid their share of that money and are therefore entitled to vote. Cf. Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U. S. 204 (1970). But their status as district residents bears no more relation to the flood relief money than that of any other-United States citizen and would seem to provide no more compelling reason for granting such residents the right to vote than the citizenry at large.
As was pointed out in n. 3, small landowners are protected from crippling assessments resulting from district projects by the dual vote which must be taken in order to approve a project. Not only must a majority of the votes be cast for approval, but also a majority of the voters must approve. In this case, about 189 landowners constitute a majority and 189 of the smallest landowners in the district have only 2.34% of the land.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners challenge the constitutionality of an injunction entered by a Florida state court which prohibits antiabortion protesters from demonstrating in certain places and in various ways outside of a health clinic that performs abortions. We hold that the establishment of a 36-foot buffer zone on a public street from which demonstrators are excluded passes muster under the First Amendment, but that several other provisions of the injunction do not.
I
Respondents operate abortion clinics throughout central Florida. Petitioners and other groups and individuals are engaged in activities near the site of one such clinic in Melbourne, Florida. They picketed and demonstrated where the public street gives access to the clinic. In September 1992, a Florida state court permanently enjoined petitioners from blocking or interfering with public access to the clinic, and from physically abusing persons entering or leaving the clinic. Six months later, respondents sought to broaden the injunction, complaining that access to the clinic was still impeded by petitioners’ activities and that such activities had also discouraged some potential patients from entering the clinic, and had deleterious physical effects on others. The trial court thereupon issued a broader injunction, which is challenged here.
The court found that, despite the initial injunction, protesters continued to impede access to the clinic by congregating on the paved portion of the street — Dixie Way — leading up to the clinic, and by marching in front of the clinic’s driveways. It found that as vehicles heading toward the clinic slowed to allow the protesters to move out of the way, “sidewalk counselors” would approach and attempt to give the vehicle’s occupants antiabortion literature. The number of people congregating varied from a handful to 400, and the noise varied from singing and chanting to the use of loudspeakers and bullhorns.
The protests, the court found, took their toll on the clinic’s patients. A clinic doctor testified that, as a result of having to run such a gauntlet to enter the clinic, the patients “manifested a higher level of anxiety and hypertension causing those patients to need a higher level of sedation to undergo the surgical procedures, thereby increasing the risk associated with such procedures.” App. 54. The noise produced by the protesters could be heard within the clinic, causing stress in the patients both during surgical procedures and while recuperating in the recovery rooms. And those patients who turned away because of the crowd to return at a later date, the doctor testified, increased their health risks by reason of the delay.
Doctors and clinic workers, in turn, were not immune even in their homes. Petitioners picketed in front of clinic employees’ residences; shouted at passersby; rang the doorbells of neighbors and provided literature identifying the particular clinic employee as a “baby killer.” Occasionally, the protesters would confront minor children of clinic employees who were home alone.
This and similar testimony led the state court to conclude that its original injunction had proved insufficient “to protect the health, safety and rights of women in Brevard and Seminole County, Florida and surrounding counties seeking access to [medical and counseling] services.” Id., at 5. The state court therefore amended its prior order, enjoining a broader array of activities. The amended injunction prohibits petitioners from engaging in the following acts:
“(1) At all times on all days, from entering the premises and property of the Aware Woman Center for Choice [the Melbourne clinic]....
“(2) At all times on all days, from blocking, impeding, inhibiting, or in any other manner obstructing or interfering with access to, ingress into and egress from any building or parking lot of the Clinic.
“(3) At all times on all days, from congregating, picketing, patrolling, demonstrating or entering that portion of public right-of-way or private property within [36] feet of the property line of the Clinic____ An exception to the 36 foot buffer zone is the area immediately adjacent to the Clinic on the east.... The [petitioners]... must remain at least [5] feet from the Clinic’s east line. Another exception to the 36 foot buffer zone relates to the record title owners of the property to the north and west of the Clinic. The prohibition against entry into the 36 foot buffer zones does not apply to such persons and their invitees. The other prohibitions contained herein do apply, if such owners and their invitees are acting in concert with the [petitioners]....
“(4) During the hours of 7:30 a.m. through noon, on Mondays through Saturdays, during surgical procedures and recovery periods, from singing, chanting, whistling, shouting, yelling, use of bullhorns, auto horns, sound amplification equipment or other sounds or images observable to or within earshot of the patients inside the Clinic.
“(5) At all times on all days, in an area within [300] feet of the Clinic, from physically approaching any person seeking the services of the Clinic unless such person indicates a desire to communicate by approaching or by inquiring of the [petitioners]....
“(6) At all times on all days, from approaching, congregating, picketing, patrolling, demonstrating or using bullhorns or other sound amplification equipment within [300] feet of the residence of any of the [respondents’] employees, staff, owners or agents, or blocking or attempting to block, barricade, or in any other manner, temporarily or otherwise, obstruct the entrances, exits or driveways of the residences of any of the [respondents’] employees, staff, owners or agents. The [petitioners] and those acting in concert with them are prohibited from inhibiting or impeding or attempting to impede, temporarily or otherwise, the free ingress or egress of persons to any street that provides the sole access to the street on which those residences are located.
“(7) At all times on all days, from physically abusing, grabbing, intimidating, harassing, touching, pushing, shoving, crowding or assaulting persons entering or leaving, working at or using services at the [respondents’] Clinic or trying to gain access to, or leave, any of the homes of owners, staff or patients of the Clinic....
“(8) At all times on all days, from harassing, intimidating or physically abusing, assaulting or threatening any present or former doctor, health care professional, or other staff member, employee or volunteer who assists in providing services at the [respondents’] Clinic.
“(9) At all times on all days, from encouraging, inciting, or securing other persons to commit any of the prohibited acts listed herein.” Operation Rescue v. Women’s Health Center, Inc., 626 So. 2d 664, 679-680 (Fla. 1993).
The Florida Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the trial court’s amended injunction. 626 So. 2d 664. That court recognized that the forum at issue, which consists of public streets, sidewalks, and rights-of-way, is a traditional public forum. Id., at 671, citing Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 480 (1988). It then determined that the restrictions are content neutral, and it accordingly refused to apply the heightened scrutiny dictated by Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 45 (1983) (To enforce a content-based exclusion the State must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end). Instead, the court analyzed the injunction to determine whether the restrictions are “narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.” Ibid. It concluded that they were.
Shortly before the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion was announced, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard a separate challenge to the same injunction. The Court of Appeals struck down the injunction, characterizing the dispute as a clash “between an actual prohibition of speech and a potential hinderance to the free exercise of abortion rights.” Cheffer v. McGregor, 6 F. 3d 705, 711 (1993). It stated that the asserted interests in public safety and order were already protected by other applicable laws and that these interests could be protected adequately without infringing upon the First Amendment rights of others. Ibid. The Court of Appeals found the injunction to be content based and neither necessary to serve a compelling state interest nor narrowly drawn to achieve that end. Ibid., citing Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 461-462 (1980). We granted certiorari, 510 U. S. 1084 (1994), to resolve the conflict between the Florida Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals over the constitutionality of the state court’s injunction.
II
We begin by addressing petitioners’ contention that the state court’s order, because it is an injunction that restricts only the speech of antiabortion protesters, is necessarily content or viewpoint based. Accordingly, they argue, we should examine the entire injunction under the strictest standard of scrutiny. See Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 45. We disagree. To accept petitioners’ claim would be to classify virtually every injunction as content or viewpoint based. An injunction, by its very nature, applies only to a particular group (or individuals) and regulates the activities, and perhaps the speech, of that group. It does so, however, because of the group’s past actions in the context of a specific dispute between real parties. The parties seeking the injunction assert a violation of their rights; the court hearing the action is charged with fashioning a remedy for a specific deprivation, not with the drafting of a statute addressed to the general public.
The fact that the injunction in the present case did not prohibit activities of those demonstrating in favor of abortion is justly attributable to the lack of any similar demonstrations by those in favor of abortion, and of any consequent request that their demonstrations be regulated by injunction. There is no suggestion in this record that Florida law would not equally restrain similar conduct directed at a target having nothing to do with abortion; none of the restrictions imposed by the court were directed at the contents of petitioner’s message.
Our principal inquiry in determining content neutrality is whether the government has adopted a regulation of speech “without reference to the content of the regulated speech.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted) (upholding noise regulations); R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 386 (1992) (“The government may not regulate [speech] based on hostility— or favoritism — towards the underlying message expressed”); see also Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221, 230 (1987); Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U. S. 641, 648-649 (1984); Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U. S. 490, 514-515 (1981) (plurality opinion); Carey v. Brown, supra, at 466-468. We thus look to the government’s purpose as the threshold consideration. Here, the state court imposed restrictions on petitioners incidental to their antiabortion message because they repeatedly violated the court’s original order. That petitioners all share the same viewpoint regarding abortion does not in itself demonstrate that some invidious content- or viewpoint-based purpose motivated the issuance of the order. It suggests only that those in the group whose conduct violated the court’s order happen to share the same opinion regarding abortions being performed at the clinic. In short, the fact that the injunction covered people with a particular viewpoint does not itself render the injunction content or viewpoint based. See Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312 (1988). Accordingly, the injunction issued in this case does not demand the level of heightened scrutiny set forth in Perry Ed. Assn., 460 U. S., at 45. And we proceed to discuss the standard which does govern.
Ill
If this were a content-neutral, generally applicable statute, instead of an injunctive order, its constitutionality would be assessed under the standard set forth in Ward v. Rock Against Racism, supra, at 791, and similar cases. Given that the forum around the clinic is a traditional public forum, see Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S., at 480, we would determine whether the time, place, and manner regulations were “narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest.” Ward, supra, at 791. See also Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 45.
There are obvious differences, however, between an injunction and a generally applicable ordinance. Ordinances represent a legislative choice regarding the promotion of particular societal interests. Injunctions, by contrast, are remedies imposed for violations (or threatened violations) of a legislative or judicial decree. See United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632-633 (1953). Injunctions also carry greater risks of censorship and discriminatory application than do general ordinances. “[TJhere is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.” Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U. S. 106, 112-113 (1949). Injunctions, of course, have some advantages over generally applicable statutes in that they can be tailored by a trial judge to afford more precise relief than a statute where a violation of the law has already occurred. United States v. Paradise, 480 U. S. 149 (1987).
We believe that these differences require a somewhat more stringent application of general First Amendment principles in this context. In past cases evaluating injunctions restricting speech, see, e.g., NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U. S. 886 (1982), Milk Wagon Drivers v. Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc., 312 U. S. 287 (1941), we have relied upon such general principles while also seeking to ensure that the injunction was no broader than necessary to achieve its desired goals. See Carroll v. President and Comm’rs of Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175 (1968); Claiborne Hardware, supra, at 912, n. 47. Our close attention to the fit between the objectives of an injunction and the restrictions it imposes on speech is consistent with the general rule, quite apart from First Amendment considerations, “that injunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979). See also Dayton Bd. of Ed. v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406, 418-420 (1977). Accordingly, when evaluating a content-neutral injunction, we think that our standard time, place, and manner analysis is not sufficiently rigorous. We must ask instead whether the challenged provisions of the injunction burden no more speech than necessary to serve a significant government interest. See, e. g., Claiborne Hardware, supra, at 916 (when sanctionable “conduct occurs in the context of constitutionally protected activity... ‘precision of regulation’ is demanded”) (quoting NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438 (1963)); 458 U. S., at 916, n. 52 (citing Carroll, supra, and Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y., 385 U. S. 589, 604 (1967)); Carroll, supra, at 183-184.
Both Justice Stevens and Justice Scalia disagree with the standard we announce, for policy reasons. See post, at 778 (Stevens, J.); post, at 792-794 (Scalia, J.). Justice Stevens believes that “injunctive relief should be judged by a more lenient standard than legislation,” because injunctions are imposed on individuals or groups who have engaged in illegal activity. Post, at 778. Justice Scalia, by contrast, believes that content-neutral injunctions are “at least as deserving of strict scrutiny as a statutory, content-based restriction.” Post, at 792. Justice Scalia bases his belief on the danger that injunctions, even though they might not “attack content as content,” may be used to suppress particular ideas; that individual judges should not be trusted to impose injunctions in this context; and that an injunction is procedurally more difficult to challenge than a statute. Post, at 793-794. We believe that consideration of all of the differences and similarities between statutes and injunctions supports, as a matter of policy, the standard we apply here.
Justice Scalia further contends that precedent compels the application of strict scrutiny in this case. Under that standard, we ask whether a restriction is “‘necessary to serve a compelling state interest and [is] narrowly drawn to achieve that end.’ ” Post, at 790 (quoting Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 45). Justice Scalia fails to cite a single case, and we are aware of none, in which we have applied this standard to a content-neutral injunction. He cites a number of cases in which we have struck down, with little or no elaboration, prior restraints on free expression. See post, at 798 (citing cases). As we have explained, however, we do not believe that this injunction constitutes a prior restraint, and we therefore believe that the “heavy presumption” against its constitutionality does not obtain here. See n. 2, supra.
Justice Scalia also relies on Claiborne Hardware and Carroll for support of his contention that our precedent requires the application of strict scrutiny in this context. In Claiborne Hardware, we stated simply that “precision of regulation” is demanded. 458 U. S., at 916 (internal quotation marks omitted). Justice Scalia reads this case to require “surgical precision” of regulation, post, at 798, but that was not the adjective chosen by the author of the Court’s opinion, Justice Stevens. We think a standard requiring that an injunction “burden no more speech than necessary” exemplifies “precision of regulation.”
As for Carroll, Justice Scalia believes that the “standard” adopted in that case “is strict scrutiny,” which “does not remotely resemble the Court’s new proposal.” Post, at 799. Comparison of the language used in Carroll and the wording of the standard we adopt, however, belies Justice Scalia’s exaggerated contention. Carroll, for example, requires that an injunction be “couched in the narrowest terms that will accomplish the pin-pointed objective” of the injunction. 393 TJ. S., at 183. We require that the injunction “burden no more speech than necessary” to accomplish its objective. We fail to see a difference between the two standards.
The Florida Supreme Court concluded that numerous significant government interests are protected by the injunction. It noted that the State has a strong interest in protecting a woman’s freedom to seek lawful medical or counseling services in connection with her pregnancy. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973); In re T. W, 551 So. 2d 1186, 1193 (Fla. 1989). The State also has a strong interest in ensuring the public safety and order, in promoting the free flow of traffic on public streets and sidewalks, and in protecting the property rights of all its citizens. 626 So. 2d, at 672. In addition, the court believed that the State’s strong interest in residential privacy, acknowledged in Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474 (1988), applied by analogy to medical privacy. 626 So. 2d, at 672. The court observed that while targeted picketing of the home threatens the psychological well-being of the “captive” resident, targeted picketing of a hospital or clinic threatens not only the psychological, but also the physical, well-being of the patient held “captive” by medical circumstance. Id., at 673. We agree with the Supreme Court of Florida that the combination of these governmental interests is quite sufficient to justify an appropriately tailored injunction to protect them. We now examine each contested provision of the injunction to see if it burdens more speech than necessary to accomplish its goal.
A
1
We begin with the 36-foot buffer zone. The state court prohibited petitioners from “congregating, picketing, patrolling, demonstrating or entering” any portion of the public right-of-way or private property within 36 feet of the property line of the clinic as a way of ensuring access to the clinic. This speech-free buffer zone requires that petitioners move to the other side of Dixie Way and away from the driveway of the clinic, where the state court found that they repeatedly had interfered with the free access of patients and staff. App. to Pet. for Cert. B-2, B-3. See Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U. S. 611 (1968) (upholding statute that prohibited picketing that obstructed or unreasonably interfered with ingress or egress to or from public buildings, including courthouses, and with traffic on the adjacent street sidewalks). The buffer zone also applies to private property to the north and west of the clinic property. We examine each portion of the buffer zone separately.
We have noted a distinction between the type of focused picketing banned from the buffer zone and the type of generally disseminated communication that cannot be completely banned in public places, such as handbilling and solicitation. See Frisby, supra, at 486 (“The type of focused picketing prohibited by [the state court injunction] is fundamentally different from more generally directed means of communication that may not be completely banned in [public places]”). Here the picketing is directed primarily at patients and staff of the clinic.
The 36-foot buffer zone protecting the entrances to the clinic and the parking lot is a means of protecting unfettered ingress to and egress from the clinic, and ensuring that petitioners do not block traffic on Dixie Way. The state court seems to have had few other options to protect access given the narrow confines around the clinic. As the Florida Supreme Court noted, Dixie Way is only 21 feet wide in the area of the clinic. App. 260, 305. The state court was convinced that allowing petitioners to remain on the clinic’s sidewalk and driveway was not a viable option in view of the failure of the first injunction to protect access. And allowing the petitioners to stand in the middle of Dixie Way would obviously block vehicular traffic.
The need for a complete buffer zone near the clinic entrances and driveway may be debatable, but some deference must be given to the state court’s familiarity with the facts and the background of the dispute between the parties even under our heightened review. Milk Wagon Drivers, 312 U. S., at 294. Moreover, one of petitioners’ witnesses during the evidentiary hearing before the state court conceded that the buffer zone was narrow enough to place petitioners at a distance of no greater than 10 to 12 feet from cars approaching and leaving the clinic. App. 486. Protesters standing across the narrow street from the clinic can still be seen and heard from the clinic parking lots. Id., at 260,305. We also bear in mind the fact that the state court originally issued a much narrower injunction, providing no buffer zone, and that this order did not succeed in protecting access to the clinic. The failure of the first order to accomplish its purpose may be taken into consideration in evaluating the constitutionality of the broader order. National Soc. of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679, 697-698 (1978). On balance, we hold that the 36-foot buffer zone around the clinic entrances and driveway burdens no more speech than necessary to accomplish the governmental interest at stake.
Justice Scalia’s dissent argues that a videotape made of demonstrations at the clinic represents “what one must presume to be the worst of the activity justifying the injunction.” Post, at 785-786. This seems to us a gratuitous assumption. The videotape was indeed introduced by respondents, presumably because they thought it supported their request for the second injunction. But witnesses also testified as to relevant facts in a 3-day evidentiary hearing, and the state court was therefore not limited to Justice Scalia’s rendition of what he saw on the videotape to make its findings in support of the second injunction. Indeed, petitioners themselves studiously refrained from challenging the factual basis for the injunction both in the state courts and here. Before the Florida Supreme Court, petitioners stated that “the Amended Permanent Injunction contains fundamental error on its face. The sole question presented by this appeal is a question of law, and for purposes of this appeal [petitioners] are assuming, arguendo, that a factual basis exists to grant injunctive relief.” Appellants’ Motion in Response to Appellees’ Motion to Require Full Transcript and Record of Proceedings in No. 93-00969 (Dist. Ct. App. Fla.), p. 2. Petitioners argued against including the factual record as an appendix in the Florida Supreme Court, and never certified a full record. We must therefore judge this case on the assumption that the evidence and testimony presented to the state court supported its findings that the presence of protesters standing, marching, and demonstrating near the clinic’s entrance interfered with ingress to and egress from the clinic despite the issuance of the earlier injunction.
2
The inclusion of private property on the back and side of the clinic in the 36-foot buffer zone raises different concerns. The accepted purpose of the buffer zone is to protect access to the clinic and to facilitate the orderly flow of traffic on Dixie Way. Patients and staff wishing to reach the clinic do not have to cross the private property abutting the clinic property on the north and west, and nothing in the record indicates that petitioners’ activities on the private property have obstructed access to the clinic. Nor was evidence presented that protestors located on the private property blocked vehicular traffic on Dixie Way. Absent evidence that petitioners standing on the private property have obstructed access to the clinic, blocked vehicular traffic, or otherwise unlawfully interfered with the clinic’s operation, this portion of the buffer zone fails to serve the significant government interests relied on by the Florida Supreme Court. We hold that on the record before us the 36-foot buffer zone as applied to the private property to the north and west of the clinic burdens more speech than necessary to protect access to the clinic.
B
In response to high noise levels outside the clinic, the state court restrained the petitioners from “singing, chanting, whistling, shouting, yelling, use of bullhorns, auto horns, sound amplification equipment or other sounds or images observable to or within earshot of the patients inside the [ejlinic” during the hours of 7:30 a.m. through noon on Mondays through Saturdays. We must, of course, take account of the place to which the regulations apply in determining whether these restrictions burden more speech than necessary. We have upheld similar noise restrictions in the past, and as we noted in upholding a local noise ordinance around public schools, “the nature of a place, ‘the pattern of its normal activities, dictate the kinds of regulations... that are reasonable.’” Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 116 (1972). Noise control is particularly important around hospitals and medical facilities during surgery and recovery periods, and in evaluating another injunction involving a medical facility, we stated:
“‘Hospitals, after all, are not factories or mines or assembly plants. They are hospitals, where human ailments are treated, where patients and relatives alike often are under emotional strain and worry, where pleasing and comforting patients are principal facets of the day’s activity, and where the patient and his family... need a restful, uncluttered, relaxing, and helpful atmosphere.’ ” NLRB v. Baptist Hospital, Inc., 442 U. S. 773, 783-784, n. 12 (1979), quoting Beth Israel Hospital v. NLRB, 437 U. S. 483, 509 (1978) (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment).
We hold that the limited noise restrictions imposed by the state court order burden no more speech than necessary to ensure the health and well-being of the patients at the clinic. The First Amendment does not demand that patients at a medical facility undertake Herculean efforts to escape the cacophony of political protests. “If overamplified loudspeakers assault the citizenry, government may turn them down.” Grayned, supra, at 116. That is what the state court did here, and we hold that its action was proper.
C
The same, however, cannot be said for the “images observable” provision of the state court’s order. Clearly, threats to patients or their families, however communicated, are proscribable under the First Amendment. But rather than prohibiting the display of signs that could be interpreted as threats or veiled threats, the state court issued a blanket ban on all “images observable.” This broad prohibition on all “images observable” burdens more speech than necessary to achieve the purpose of limiting threats to clinic patients or their families. Similarly, if the blanket ban on “images observable” was intended to reduce the level of anxiety and hypertension suffered by the patients inside the clinic, it would still fail. The only plausible reason a patient would be bothered by “images observable” inside the clinic would be if the patient found the expression contained in such images disagreeable. But it is much easier for the clinic to pull its curtains than for a patient to stop up her ears, and no more is required to avoid seeing placards through the windows of the clinic. This provision of the injunction violates the First Amendment.
D
The state court ordered that petitioners refrain from physically approaching any person seeking services of the clinic “unless such person indicates a desire to communicate” in an area within 300 feet of the clinic. The state court was attempting to prevent clinic patients and staff from being “stalked” or “shadowed” by the petitioners as they approached the clinic. See International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U. S. 672, 684 (1992) (“[F]ace-to-face solicitation presents risks of duress that are an appropriate target of regulation. The skillful, and unprincipled, solicitor can target the most vulnerable, including those accompanying children or those suffering physical impairment and who cannot easily avoid the solicitation”).
But it is difficult, indeed, to justify a prohibition on all uninvited approaches of persons seeking the services of the clinic, regardless of how peaceful the contact may be, without burdening more speech than necessary to prevent intimidation and to ensure access to the clinic. Absent evidence that the protesters’ speech is independently proscribable (i. e., “fighting words” or threats), or is so infused with violence as to be indistinguishable from a threat of physical harm, see Milk Wagon Drivers, 312 U. S., at 292-293, this provision cannot stand. “As a general matter, we have indicated that in public debate our own citizens must tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.” Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S., at 322 (internal quotation marks omitted). The “consent” requirement alone invalidates this provision; it burdens more speech than is necessary to prevent intimidation and to ensure access to the clinic.
E
The final substantive regulation challenged by petitioners relates to a prohibition against picketing, demonstrating, or using sound amplification equipment within 300 feet of the residences of clinic staff. The prohibition also covers impeding access to streets that provide the sole access to streets on which those residences are located. The same analysis applies to the use of sound amplification equipment here as that discussed above: the government may simply demand that petitioners turn down the volume if the protests overwhelm the neighborhood. Grayned, 408 U. S., at 116.
As for the picketing, our prior decision upholding a law banning targeted residential picketing remarked on the unique nature of the home, as “ ‘the last citadel of the tired, the weary, and the sick.’ ” Frisby, 487 U. S., at 484. We stated that “‘[t]he State’s interest in protecting the well-being, tranquility, and privacy of the home is certainly of the highest order in a free and civilized society.’ ” Ibid.
But the 300-foot zone around the residences in this case is much larger than the zone provided for in the ordinance which we approved in Frisby. The ordinance at issue there made it “ ‘unlawful for any person to engage in picketing before or about the residence or dwelling of any individual.’” Id., at 477. The prohibition was limited to “focused picketing taking place solely in front of a particular residence.” Id., at 483. By contrast, the 300-foot zone would ban “[g]eneral marching through residential neighborhoods, or even walking a route in front of an entire block of houses.” Ibid. The record before us does not contain sufficient justification for this broad a ban on picketing; it appears that a limitation on the time, duration of picketing, and number of pickets outside a smaller zone could have accomplished the desired result.
IV
Petitioners also challenge the state court’s order as being vague and overbroad. They object to the portion of the injunction making it applicable to those acting “in concert” with the named parties. But petitioners themselves are named parties in the order, and they therefore lack standing to challenge a portion of the order applying to persons who are not parties. Nor is that phrase subject, at the behest of petitioners, to a challenge for “overbreadth”; the phrase itself does not prohibit any conduct, but is simply directed at unnamed parties who might later be found to be acting “in concert” with the named parties. As such, the case is governed by our holding in Regal Knitwear Co. v. NLRB, 324 U. S. 9, 14 (1945). There a party subject to an injunction argued that the order was invalid because of a provision that it applied to “successors and assigns” of the enjoined party. Noting that the party pressing the claim was not a successor or assign, we characterized the matter as “an abstract controversy over the use of these words.” Id., at 15.
Petitioners also contend that the “in concert” provision of the injunction impermissibly limits their freedom of association guaranteed by the First Amendment. See, e. g., Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition For Fair Housing v. Berkeley, 454 U. S. 290 (1981). But petitioners are not enjoined from associating with others or from joining with them to express a particular viewpoint. The freedom of association protected by the First Amendment does not extend to joining with others for the purpose of depriving third parties of their lawful rights.
V
In sum, we uphold the noise restrictions and the 36-foot buffer zone around the clinic entrances and driveway because they burden no more speech than necessary to eliminate the unlawful conduct targeted by the state court’s injunction. We strike down as unconstitutional the 36-foot buffer zone as applied to the private property to the north and west of the clinic, the “images observable” provision, the 300-foot no-approach zone around the clinic, and the 300-foot buffer zone around the residences, because these provisions sweep more broadly than necessary to accomplish the permissible goals of the injunction. Accordingly, the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
In addition to petitioners, the state court’s order was directed at “Operation Rescue, Operation Rescue America, Operation Goliath, their officers, agents, members, employees and servants, and... Bruce Cadle, Pat Mahoney, Randall Terry,... and all persons acting in concert or participation
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action brought in the District Court by the United States to enjoin the Union Pacific Railroad Company from drilling for oil and gas on “the right of way” granted it by § 2 of the Act of July 1, 1862, 12 Stat. 489, 491, for the construction of a railroad and telegraph line. The claim of the United States is that “the right of way” granted by the Act is not a grant that includes mineral rights. The District Court’s decision was adverse to the United States. 126 F. Supp. 646. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 230 F. 2d 690. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted in view of the public importance of the question presented. 352 U. S. 818.
The “right of way” which was granted by § 2 of the Act was “for the construction of said railroad and telegraph line.” As an aid to the construction of the railroad, “every alternate section of public land” on each side of the road was also granted. § 3. Section 3 further provided “That all mineral lands shall be excepted from the operation of this act . . . .” (Italics added.)
On the face of the Act it would seem that the use of the words “the right of way” describes a lesser interest than the grant of “public land.” Moreover, this right of way was granted Union Pacific “for the construction of said railroad and telegraph line.” § 2. That purpose is not fulfilled when the right of way is used for other purposes. See Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Townsend, 190 U. S. 267, 271. It would seem that, whatever may be the nature of Union Pacific's interest in the right of way, drilling for oil on or under it is not a railroad purpose within the meaning of § 2 of the Act.
It would also seem from the words of the Act that, whatever rights may have been included in “the right of way,” mineral rights were excepted by reason of the proviso in § 3 excepting “mineral lands.” The exception of “mineral lands,” as applied to the right of way, may have been an inept way of reserving mineral rights. The right of way certainly could not be expected to take all the detours that might be necessary were it to avoid all lands containing minerals. But that the proviso applies to § 2 as well as to § 3 is plain. While the grant of “the right of way” is made by § 2 and the exception of “mineral lands” is contained in § 3, the exception extends not merely to § 3 but to the entire Act.
It is said that the exception in § 3 was in terms made applicable to the entire Act merely to leave no doubt that land grants to other railroads, contained in §§ 9, 13 and 14 of the Act, were not to include “mineral lands.” But the exception in § 3 is not limited merely to a few enumerated sections any more than it is limited to § 3. The proviso makes sense if it is read to reserve all mineral rights under the right of way, as well as to reserve mineral lands in the alternate sections of public land granted in aid of the construction of the road. Indeed, we can see no other way to construe it if it is to apply, as it does, not merely to § 3, but to the entire Act, including § 2 which grants the right of way.
The reservation of the mineral resources of these public lands for the United States was in keeping with the policy of the times. The gold strike in California in 1848 made the entire country conscious of the potential riches underlying the western part of the public domain. The method of asserting federal control over mineral lands was not finally settled until the Act of July 26, 1866, 14 Stat. 251, prescribed the procedure by which mineral lands could be acquired. But meanwhile — from 1849 to 1866 — the federal policy was clear. As the Court said in Mining Co. v. Consolidated Mining Co., 102 U. S. 167, the federal policy during this interim period was to reserve mineral lands, not to grant them. The policy was found to be so “uniform” in this interim period (id., at 175) that the Court, in construing an 1853 Act governing public lands in California, held that a grant to California did not include mineral lands, although they were not specifically excepted.
The case is much stronger here, for “mineral lands” are specifically reserved. It is, therefore, wholly in keeping with the federal policy that prevailed in 1862, when the present right of way was granted, to construe “mineral lands” to include mineral resources under the right of way. For it was the mineral riches in the public domain that Congress sedulously sought to preserve until it formulated the special procedure by which all mineral resources were to be administered. In United States v. Sweet, 245 U. S. 563, Mr. Justice Van Devanter, our foremost expert on public land law, discussed this policy at length and cited in support of this federal policy the very Act we have under consideration in the present case. Id., p. 569, n. 1. And see Barden v. Northern Pacific R. Co., 154 U. S. 288, 317-318. We would have to forget history and read legislation with a jaundiced eye to hold that when Congress granted only a right of way and reserved all “mineral lands” it nonetheless endowed the railroad with the untold riches underlying the right of way. Such a construction would run counter to the established rule that land grants are construed favorably to the Government, that nothing passes except what is conveyed in clear language, and that if there are doubts they are resolved for the Government, not against it. Caldwell v. United States, 250 U. S. 14, 20-21. These are the reasons we construe “mineral lands” as used in § 3 of the Act to include mineral rights in the right of way granted by § 2.
The system which Congress set up to effectuate its policy of reserving mineral resources in the alternate sections of public land granted by § 3 was by way of an administrative determination, prior to issuance of a patent, of the mineral or nonmineral character of the lands. Patents were not issued to land administratively determined to constitute mineral lands. And, the administrative determination was final. Burke v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 234 U. S. 669. Such an administrative system was obviously inappropriate to the right of way granted by § 2. The land needed for the right of way was not acquired through the issuance of a patent, but by the filing of a map showing the definite location of the road, followed by its actual construction. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Townsend, supra, at 270.
A provision for prior administrative determination of which land in the path of the right of way constituted mineral lands would have been inappropriate for another reason. As already noted, the route of the railroad had to be determined by engineering considerations which could not allow for the extensive detours that the avoidance of land containing minerals would make necessary.
Because the administrative system, by which the exception of “mineral lands” was administered in relation to the lands granted by § 3, is inappropriate to the right of way granted by § 2, we are urged to conclude that the exception of “mineral lands” in § 3 was not intended to apply to § 2. But, construing the grant in § 2 favorably to the Government, as we must, we cannot conclude that Congress meant the policy it expressed, by excepting “mineral lands” in § 3, to be inapplicable to § 2 in the face of its admonition that the exception is applicable to the entire Act. Nor can we conclude that, because the administrative system, by which mineral resources in the grant of land under § 3 were reserved, was inappropriate to § 2, Congress did not intend appropriate measures to reserve minerals under the right of way granted by § 2. We cannot assume that the Thirty-seventh Congress was profligate in the face of its express purpose to reserve mineral lands.
To be sure, Congress later on designed a more precise and articulated system for the separation of subsoil rights from the other rights in the western lands. See, for example, the Act of March 3, 1909, 35 Stat. 844. It would have been better draftsmanship, if, in referring to § 2, Congress had used the words “mineral rights” instead of “mineral lands.” Yet it will not do for us to tell the Congress “We see what you were driving at but you did not use choice words to describe your purpose.”
Some reliance is placed on a line of decisions of the Court which describe the rights of way under early railroad land grants as limited fees. These cases were, for the most part, controversies between the railroad and third persons and involved problems so remote from the present one as to be inapt as citations. For example, the leading case raised the question whether third parties could establish valid homesteads on the railroad right of way after the right of way had been located and the tracks laid. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Townsend, supra. An answer in favor of the railroad on the ground that it had a limited fee could hardly be an adjudication concerning the ownership of mineral resources underlying the right of way in a contest between the United States and the railroad. In only one of the cases cited was the United States a party; and in that case the question did not involve mineral rights but jurisdiction over a person transporting liquor. If the right of way was Indian Country when it crossed an Indian reservation, then a violation of the liquor laws had occurred. The Court held that the right of way was not Indian Country and said in passing that the right of way constituted the fee in the land. Clairmont v. United States, 225 U. S. 551, 556. We do not stop to examine the other cases using like language to describe the railroad’s right of way, because in none of them was there a contest between the United States and the railroad-grantee over any mineral rights underlying the right of way. The most that the “limited fee” cases decided was that the railroads received all surface rights to the right of way and all rights incident to a use for railroad purposes.
Great reliance is placed on Great Northern R. Co. v. United States, 315 U. S. 262, for the view that the grant of a right of way in the year 1862 was the grant of a fee interest. In that case we noted that a great shift in congressional policy occurred in 1871: that after that period only an easement for railroad purposes was granted, while prior thereto a right of way with alternate sections of public land along the right of way had been granted. In the latter connection we said, “When Congress made outright grants to a railroad of alternate sections of public lands along the right of way, there is little reason to suppose that it intended to give only an easement in the right of way granted in the same act.” Id., at 278. But we had no occasion to consider in the Great Northern case the grant of a right of way with the reservation of “mineral lands.” The suggestion that a right of way may at times be more than an easement was made in an effort to distinguish the earlier “limited fee” cases. To complete the distinction, Mr. Justice Murphy with his usual discernment added, “None of the cases involved the problem of rights to subsurface oil and minerals.” Id., at 278.
The latter statement goes to the heart of the matter. There are no precedents which give the mineral rights to the owner of the right of way as against the United States. We would make a violent break with history if we construed the Act of 1862 to give such a bounty. We would, indeed, violate the language of the Act itself. To repeat, we cannot read “mineral lands” in § 3 as inapplicable to the right of way granted by § 2 and still be faithful to the standard which governs the construction of a statute that grants a part of the public domain to private interests.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Whittaker took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
To that effect are administrative decisions, by officers of the Interior Department dealing with comparable statutes, that a congressional grant of land “for railroad purposes” does not carry the right to drill for oil or to remove solid minerals. Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. Co., 33 L. D. 470 (Act of July 26, 1866, 14 Stat. 289); Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. Co., 34 L. D. 504 (Act of February 28, 1902, 32 Stat. 43); Use of Railroad Right of Way for Extracting Oil, 56 I. D. 206 (Act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 482); Northern Pacific R. Co., 58 I. D. 160 (Act of July 2, 1864, 13 Stat. 365).
Railroad Co. v. Baldwin, 103 U. S. 426 (a contest between the owner of the right of way and a settler who took possession before the line was definitely located); Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Roberts, 152 U. S. 114 (a contest between the owner of the right of way and one who claimed the land under a grant from the State); New Mexico v. United States Trust Co., 172 U. S. 171 (an effort by the State to tax the right of way and structures on it in face of an exemption granted by Congress); Union Pac. R. Co. v. Laramie Stock Yards Co., 231 U. S. 190 (whether the grant of the right of way was qualified by a later Act of Congress); Rio Grande W. R. Co. v. Stringham, 239 U. S. 44 (a contest between the owner of the right of way and the owner of a placer patent); Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co. v. Mackey, 256 U. S. 531 (an effort of the owner of the right of way to get an exemption from local taxation for a street improvement that enhanced the value of the railroad use); Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Oklahoma, 271 U. S. 303 (the right of the owner of the right of way to compensation for damage suffered by the construction of crossings).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Since at least 1885, Florida has provided for some form of property tax exemption for widows. The current law granting all widows an annual $500 exemption, Fla. Stat.
§ 196.202 (Supp. 1974-1975), has been essentially unchanged since 1941. Appellant Kahn is a widower who livés in Florida and applied for the exemption to the Dade County Tax Assessor’s Office. It was denied be-: cause the statute offers no analogous benefit for widowers.-Kahn then sought a declaratory judgment in the Circuit Court for Dade County, Florida, and that court held the statute violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the classification “widow” was based upon gender. The Florida Supreme Court reversed, finding the classification valid because it has a “ ‘fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation,’ ” that object being the reduction of “the disparity between the economic capabilities of a man and a woman.” Kahn appealed here, 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), and we noted probable jurisdiction, 414 U. S. 973. We affirm.
There can be no dispute that the financial difficulties confronting the lone woman in Florida or in any other State exceed those facing the .man. Whether from overt discrimination or from the socialization process of a male-dominated culture, the job market is inhospitable to the woman seeking any but the lowest paid jobs. There are, of course, efforts under way to remedy this situation. On the federal level, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits covered employers and labor unions from' discrimination on the basis of sex, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000e-2 (a), (c), as does the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 77 Stat. 56, 29 U. S. C. § 206 (d). But firmly entrenched practices are resistant to such pressures, and, indeed, data compiled by the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor show that in 1972 a woman working full time had a median income which was only 57.9% of the median for males — a figure actually six points lower than had been achieved in 1955. Other .data point in the same direction. The disparity is likely to be exacerbated for the widow. While the widower can usually continue in the occupation which preceded, his spouse’s death, in many cases the widow will find herself suddenly forced into a job market with which she is unfamiliar, and in which, because of her former economic dependency, she will have fewer skills to offer.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that Florida’s differing treatment of widows and widowers “ ‘rest[s] upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.’ ” Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 76, quoting Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415.
This is not a case like Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, where the Government denied its female employees both substantive and procedural benefits granted males “solely . . .■ for administrative convenience.” Id., at 690 (emphasis in original). We deal here with a state tax law reasonably designed to further the state policy of cushioning the financial impact of spousal loss upon the sex for which that loss imposes a disproportionately ..heavy burden. We have' long held that “[w]here taxation is concerned and no specific federal right, apart from equal protection, is imperiled, the States have large leeway in making classifications and drawing lines which in their judgment, produce reasonable systems of taxation.” Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U. S. 356, 359. A state tax law is not arbitrary although it “discriminate [s] in favor of a certain class ... if the discrimination is founded upon a reasonable distinction, or. difference in state policy,” not in conflict with the Federal Constitution. Allied Stores v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 522, 528. This principle has' weathered nearly a century of Supreme Court adjudication, and it applies here as well. The statute before us is well within those limits.
Affirmed.
Article IX, § 9, of the 1885 Florida Constitution provided that: “There shall be exempt from taxation property to the value of two hundred dollars to every widow that has a family dependent on her for support, and to every person • that has lost, a limb or been disabled in war or by misfortune.”
In 1941. Fla. Stat. § 192.06 (7) exempted “[p]roperty to the value of five hundred dollars to every widow That provision has survived a variety of minor changes and renumbering in substantiafiy the same form, including Fla. Stat. § 196.191 (7) (1971) under which appellant-was denied the exemption. Currently Flá. Stat. § 196.202 provides: “Property to the value of five hundred dollars. ($500) of every widow, blind- person, or totally and permanently disabled' person who is a bona fide resident of this state shall be exempt from taxation.” '
Quoting Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71,76.
In 1970 while 40% of males in the work, force earned over $10,000, and 70% over $7,000, 45% of women working full time earned less than $5,000, and 73.9% earned less than $7,000. U. S. Bureau of the Census: Current Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 80.
The Women’s Bureau provides the following data:
Women’s median Median earnings earnings - as percent Year Women Men of men’s
1972..........................$5,903 $10,202 57.9 '
1971.................'......... 5,593 9,399 59.5
1970.......................... 5,323 8,966 59.4
1969.......................... 4,977 8,227 60.5
1968 .......................... 4,457 7,664 58.2
1967.......................... 4,150 7,182 57.8
1966.......................... 3,973 6,848 58.0
1965.......................... 3,823 6,375 60.0
Women's median Year Median earnings Women Men earnmgs . as percent of men's
1964. .$3,690 $6,195 59.6
1963. . 3,561 5,978 59.6
1962. . 3,446 5,794 59.5
1961. . 3,351 5,644 59.4
1960. ..3,293 5,417 60.8
1959. . 3,193 5,209 61.3
1958. . 3,102 4,927 63.0
1957. . 3,008 4,713 63.8
1956. . 2,827 4,466 63.3
1955. . 2,719 4,252 63.9
Note. — Data for 1962-72 are not strictly comparable with those for prior years, which are for wage and salary income only and do not include earnings of self-employed persons.
Source: Table prepared by Women’s Bureau, Employment Standards Administration, U. S. Department of Labor, from data published by Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce.
For example, in 1972 the median income of women with four years of college was $8,736 — exactly $100 more than the median income of men who had never, even completed one year of high school. Of. those employed as managers or administrators, the women’s median income was only 53.2% ef the men’s, and in the professional and technical occupations the figure was 67.5%. Thus the disparity extends even to women occupying jobs usually thought of as well paid. Tables prepared by the Women’s Bureau, Employ.ment Standards Administration, U. S. Department of Labor.
It is' still the case, that in the majority of. families where both spouses are present, the woman is'not émployed. A. Ferriss, Indicators of Trends in the Status of American Women 95 (1971).
And in Frontiero the plurality opinion also rioted that the statutes there were “not in any sense designed to rectify the' effects of past discrimination against women. On the contrary, these statutes seize upon a group — women—who have historically suffered discrimination in employment, and rely on the effects of this past discrimination' as a justification for heaping on additional economic disadvantages.” 411 U. S., at 689 n. 22 (citations omitted).
See Bell’s Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 237; Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U. S. 83, 87-88; Lawrence v. State Tax Comm’n, 286 U. S. 276; Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412.
The dissents argue that the Florida Legislature could have drafted the statute differently, so that- its purpose would have been accomplished more precisely. But the issue, of course, is not whether the statute(could have been drafted more wisely, but whether the lines chosen by the Florida Legislature are within constitutional limitations. The dissents would use the Equal Protection Clause as a vehicle for reinstating notions of substantive due process that have been repudiated. “We have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, [which] are elected to pass laws.” Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 730.
Gender has never been rejected as an impermissible classification in all instances. Congress has not so far drafted women into the Armed Services, 50 U. S. C. App. § 454. The famous Brandéis Brief in Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, on which the Court specifically relied, id., at 419-420, emphasized that thé special physical structure of women has a bearing on the “conditions under which she should be permitted to toil.” Id., at 420. These instances are pertinent to the problem in the tax field which is presented by this present case. Mr. Chief Justice Hughes in speaking for the Court said:
“The States, in ,the exercise of their taxing power, as with respect to tne exertion of other powers, are subject to the requirements of. the due oro cess and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, but that Amendment imposes no iron rule of equality, prohibiting the flexibility and variety that are appropriate to schemes of taxation. ... In levying such -taxes, the State is not required to resort to close distinctions or to maintain a precise, scientific uniformity with reference to composition, use or value. To hold otherwise would be to subject- the essential taxing power of the State to an intolerable supervision, hostile to the basic principles of our Government and wholly beyond the protection which the general clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to assure.” Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 281 U. S. 146, 159.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 THOMASdelivered the opinion of the Court.
This case arises out of a disagreement between a group of retired employees and their former employer about the meaning of certain expired collective-bargaining agreements. The retirees (and their former union) claim that these agreements created a right to lifetime contribution-free health care benefits for retirees, their surviving spouses, and their dependents. The employer, for its part, claims that those provisions terminated when the agreements expired. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with the retirees, relying on its conclusion in International Union, United Auto., Aerospace, & Agricultural Implement Workers of Am. v. Yard-Man, Inc.,716 F.2d 1476, 1479 (1983), that retiree health care benefits are unlikely to be left up to future negotiations. We granted certiorari and now conclude that such reasoning is incompatible with ordinary principles of contract law. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand for it to apply ordinary principles of contract law in the first instance.
I
A
Respondents Hobert Freel Tackett, Woodrow K. Pyles, and Harlan B. Conley worked at (and retired from) the Point Pleasant Polyester Plant in Apple Grove, West Virginia (hereinafter referred to as the Plant). During their employment, respondent United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO-CLC, or its predecessor unions (hereinafter referred to as the Union), represented them in collective bargaining. Tackett and Pyles retired in 1996, and Conley retired in 1998. They represent a class of retired employees from the Plant, along with their surviving spouses and other dependents. Petitioner M & G Polymers USA, LLC, is the current owner of the Plant.
When M & G purchased the Plant in 2000, it entered a master collective-bargaining agreement and a Pension, Insurance, and Service Award Agreement (P & I agreement) with the Union, generally similar to agreements the Union had negotiated with M & G's predecessor. The P & I agreement provided for retiree health care benefits as follows:
"Employees who retire on or after January 1, 1996 and who are eligible for and receiving a monthly pension under the 1993 Pension Plan ... whose full years of attained age and full years of attained continuous service ... at the time of retirement equals 95 or more points will receive a full Company contribution towards the cost of [health care] benefits described in this Exhibit B-1.... Employees who have less than 95 points at the time of retirement will receive a reduced Company contribution. The Company contribution will be reduced by 2% for every point less than 95. Employees will be required to pay the balance of the health care contribution, as estimated by the Company annually in advance, for the [health care] benefits described in this Exhibit B-1. Failure to pay the required medical contribution will result in cancellation of coverage." App. 415-416.
Exhibit B-1, which described the health care benefits at issue, opened with the following durational clause: "Effective January 1, 1998, and for the duration of this Agreement thereafter, the Employer will provide the following program of hospital benefits, hospital-medical benefits, surgical benefits and prescription drug benefits for eligible employees and their dependents...." Id.,at 377-378 (emphasis deleted). The P & I agreement provided for renegotiation of its terms in three years.
B
In December 2006, M & G announced that it would begin requiring retirees to contribute to the cost of their health care benefits. Respondent retirees, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, sued M & G and related entities, alleging that the decision to require these contributions breached both the collective-bargaining agreement and the P & I agreement, in violation of § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA) and § 502(a)(1)(B) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 891.Specifically, the retirees alleged that M & G had promised to provide lifetime contribution-free health care benefits for them, their surviving spouses, and their dependents. They pointed to the language in the 2000 P & I agreement providing that employees with a certain level of seniority "will receive a full Company contribution towards the cost of [health care] benefits described in ... Exhibit B-1." The retirees alleged that, with this promise, M & G had created a vested right to such benefits that continued beyond the expiration of the 2000 P & I agreement.
The District Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. 523 F.Supp.2d 684, 696 (S.D.Ohio 2007). It concluded that the cited language unambiguously did not create a vested right to retiree benefits.
The Court of Appeals reversed based on the reasoning of its earlier decision in Yard-Man. 561 F.3d 478 (C.A.6 2009)(Tackett I). Yard-Maninvolved a similar claim that an employer had breached a collective-bargaining agreement when it terminated retiree benefits. 716 F.2d, at 1478. Although the court found the text of the provision in that case ambiguous, it relied on the "context" of labor negotiations to resolve that ambiguity in favor of the retirees' interpretation. Id.,at 1482. Specifically, the court inferred that parties to collective bargaining would intend retiree benefits to vest for life because such benefits are "not mandatory" or required to be included in collective-bargaining agreements, are "typically understood as a form of delayed compensation or reward for past services," and are keyed to the acquisition of retirement status. Ibid.The court concluded that these inferences "outweigh[ed] any contrary implications [about the termination of retiree benefits] derived from" general termination clauses. Id.,at 1483.
Applying the Yard-Maninferences on review of the District Court's dismissal of the action, the Court of Appeals concluded that the retirees had stated a plausible claim. Tackett I,561 F.3d, at 490. "Keeping in mind the context of the labor-management negotiations identified in Yard-Man," the court found "it unlikely that [the Union] would agree to language that ensures its members a 'full Company contribution,' if the company could unilaterally change the level of contribution." Ibid.The court construed the language about "employees" contributing to their health care premiums as limited to employees who had not attained the requisite seniority points to be entitled to a full company contribution. Ibid.And it discerned an intent to vest lifetime contribution-free health care benefits from provisions tying eligibility for health care benefits to eligibility for pension benefits. Id.,at 490-491.
On remand, the District Court conducted a bench trial and ruled in favor of the retirees. It declined to revisit the question whether the P & I agreement created a vested right to retiree benefits, concluding that the Court of Appeals had definitively resolved that issue. It then issued a permanent injunction ordering M & G to reinstate contribution-free health care benefits for the individual respondents and similarly situated retirees. 853 F.Supp.2d 697 (S.D.Ohio 2012).
The Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that, although the District Court had erred in treating Tackett Ias a conclusive resolution of the meaning of the P & I agreement, it had not erred in "presum[ing]" that, "in the absence of extrinsic evidence to the contrary, the agreements indicated an intent to vest lifetime contribution-free benefits." 733 F.3d 589, 600 (C.A.6 2013)(Tackett II). And because the District Court had concluded that the proffered extrinsic evidence was inapplicable, it had not clearly erred in finding that the agreement created those vested rights.
We granted certiorari, 572 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 2136, 188 L.Ed.2d 1123 (2014), and now vacate and remand.
II
This case is about the interpretation of collective-bargaining agreements that define rights to welfare benefits plans. The LMRA grants federal courts jurisdiction to resolve disputes between employers and labor unions about collective-bargaining agreements. 29 U.S.C. § 185. When collective-bargaining agreements create pension or welfare benefits plans, those plans are subject to rules established in ERISA. ERISA defines pension plans as plans, funds, or programs that "provid[e] retirement income to employees" or that "resul[t] in a deferral of income." § 1002(2)(A). It defines welfare benefits plans as plans, funds, or programs established or maintained to provide participants with additional benefits, such as life insurance and disability coverage. § 1002(1).
ERISA treats these two types of plans differently. Although ERISA imposes elaborate minimum funding and vesting standards for pension plans, §§ 1053, 1082, 1083, 1084, it explicitly exempts welfare benefits plans from those rules, §§ 1051(1), 1081(a)(1). Welfare benefits plans must be "established and maintained pursuant to a written instrument," § 1102(a)(1), but "[e]mployers or other plan sponsors are generally free under ERISA, for any reason at any time, to adopt, modify, or terminate welfare plans,"Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. Schoonejongen,514 U.S. 73, 78, 115 S.Ct. 1223, 131 L.Ed.2d 94 (1995). As we have previously recognized, "[E]mployers have large leeway to design disability and other welfare plans as they see fit." Black & Decker Disability Plan v. Nord,538 U.S. 822, 833, 123 S.Ct. 1965, 155 L.Ed.2d 1034 (2003). And, we have observed, the rule that contractual "provisions ordinarily should be enforced as written is especially appropriate when enforcing an ERISA [welfare benefits] plan." Heimeshoff v. Hartford Life & Accident Ins. Co.,571 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 604, 611-612, 187 L.Ed.2d 529 (2013). That is because the "focus on the written terms of the plan is the linchpin of a system that is not so complex that administrative costs, or litigation expenses, unduly discourage employers from offering [welfare benefits] plans in the first place." Id.,at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 612(internal quotation marks, brackets, and citation omitted).
We interpret collective-bargaining agreements, including those establishing ERISA plans, according to ordinary principles of contract law, at least when those principles are not inconsistent with federal labor policy. See Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala.,353 U.S. 448, 456-457, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957). "In this endeavor, as with any other contract, the parties' intentions control." Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int'l Corp.,559 U.S. 662, 682, 130 S.Ct. 1758, 176 L.Ed.2d 605 (2010)(internal quotation marks omitted). "Where the words of a contract in writing are clear and unambiguous, its meaning is to be ascertained in accordance with its plainly expressed intent." 11 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts § 30:6, p. 108 (4th ed. 2012)(Williston) (internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, the Court of Appeals applied the Yard-Maninferences to conclude that, in the absence of extrinsic evidence to the contrary, the provisions of the contract indicated an intent to vest retirees with lifetime benefits. Tackett II,733 F.3d, at 599-600. As we now explain, those inferences conflict with ordinary principles of contract law.
III
A
1
The Court of Appeals has long insisted that its Yard-Maninferences are drawn from ordinary contract law. In Yard-Manitself, the court purported to apply "traditional rules for contractual interpretation." 716 F.2d, at 1479. The court first concluded that the provision governing retiree insurance benefits-which stated only that the employer "will provide" such benefits-was ambiguous as to the duration of those benefits. Id.,at 1480. To resolve that ambiguity, it looked to other provisions of the agreement. The agreement included provisions for terminating active employees' insurance benefits in the case of layoffs and for terminating benefits for a retiree's spouse and dependents in case of the retiree's death before the expiration of the collective-bargaining agreement, but no provision specifically addressed the duration of retiree health care benefits. Id.,at 1481-1482. From the existence of these termination provisions and the absence of a termination provision specifically addressing retiree benefits, the court inferred an intent to vest those retiree benefits for life.
The court then purported to apply the rule that contracts should be interpreted to avoid illusory promises. It noted that the retiree insurance provisions "contain[ed] a promise that the company will pay an early retiree's insurance upon such retiree reaching age 65 but that the retiree must bear the cost of company insurance until that time."Id.,at 1481. Employees could retire at age 55, but the agreement containing this promise applied only for a 3-year term. Ibid.Thus, retirees between the ages of 55 and 62 would not turn 65 and become eligible for the company contribution before the 3-year agreement expired. In light of this fact, the court reasoned that the promise would be "completely illusory for many early retirees under age 62" if the retiree benefits terminated when the contract expired. Ibid.
Finally, the court turned to "the context" of labor negotiations. Id.,at 1482. It observed that "[b]enefits for retirees are ... not mandatory subjects of collective bargaining" and that "employees are presumably aware that the union owes no obligation to bargain for continued benefits for retirees." Ibid.Based on these observations, the court concluded that "it is unlikely that such benefits ... would be left to the contingencies of future negotiations." Ibid. It also asserted that "retiree benefits are in a sense 'status' benefits which, as such, carry with them an inference that they continue so long as the prerequisite status is maintained." Ibid.
Although the contract included a general durational clause-meaning that the contract itself would expire at a set time-the court concluded that these contextual clues "outweigh[ed] any contrary implications derived from a routine duration clause." Id.,at 1483.
2
Two years after Yard-Man,the court took this analysis even further. In a dispute between retirees and a steel company over retiree health insurance benefits, it construed the language "will continue to provide at its expense, supplemental medicare and major medical benefits for Pensioners aged 65 and over" to "unambiguouslyconfe[r]" lifetime benefits. Policy v. Powell Pressed Steel Co.,770 F.2d 609, 615 (C.A.6 1985)(emphasis added). Yet it had interpreted similar language-"will provide insurance benefits equal to the active group"-to be ambiguousin Yard-Man. The court refused to give any weight to provisions that supported a contrary construction-namely, one establishing a fund to pay pension, but not welfare, benefits, and another providing for the continuation of pension, but not welfare, benefits after the agreement expired. Policy,770 F.2d, at 615-616. According to the court, a contrary interpretation "would render the Company's promise [of benefits for retirees aged 65 and over] in substantial part nugatory and illusory" to retirees who were 62 or younger when the 3-year agreement was signed. Ibid.And it faulted the District Court for failing "to give effect" to Yard-Man's admonition "that retiree benefits normally ... are interminable." 770 F.2d, at 616.
The Court of Appeals has continued to extend the reasoning of Yard-Man. Relying on Yard-Man's statement that context considerations outweigh the effect of a general termination clause, it has concluded that, " '[a]bsent specific durational language referring to retiree benefits themselves,' a general durational clause says nothingabout the vesting of retiree benefits." Noe v. PolyOne Corp.,520 F.3d 548, 555 (C.A.6 2008)(emphasis added). It has also held that a provision that "ties eligibility for retirement-health benefits to eligibility for a pension ... [leaves] little room for debate that retirees' health benefits ves[t] upon retirement." Id.,at 558(internal quotation marks omitted). Commenting on these extensions of Yard-Man,the court has acknowledged that "there is a reasonable argument to be made that, while th[e] court has repeatedly cautioned that Yard-Mandoes not create a presumption of vesting, [it] ha[s] gone on to apply just such a presumption." Cole v. ArvinMeritor, Inc.,549 F.3d 1064, 1074 (C.A.6 2008).
B
We disagree with the Court of Appeals' assessment that the inferences applied in Yard-Manand its progeny represent ordinary principles of contract law.
As an initial matter, Yard-Manviolates ordinary contract principles by placing a thumb on the scale in favor of vested retiree benefits in all collective-bargaining agreements. That rule has no basis in ordinary principles of contract law. And it distorts the attempt "to ascertain the intention of the parties." 11 Williston § 30:2, at 18(emphasis added); see also Stolt-Nielsen, 559 U.S., at 682, 130 S.Ct. 1758. Yard-Man's assessment of likely behavior in collective bargaining is too speculative and too far removed from the context of any particular contract to be useful in discerning the parties' intention.
And the Court of Appeals derived its assessment of likely behavior not from record evidence, but instead from its own suppositions about the intentions of employees, unions, and employers negotiating retiree benefits. See Yard-Man,716 F.2d, at 1482. For example, it asserted, without any foundation, that, "when ... parties contract for benefits which accrue upon achievement of retiree status, there is an inference that the parties likely intended those benefits to continue as long as the beneficiary remains a retiree." Ibid.; see also ibid.("[I]t is unlikely that [retiree] benefits ... would be left to the contingencies of future negotiations"). Although a court may look to known customs or usages in a particular industry to determine the meaning of a contract, the parties must prove those customs or usages using affirmative evidentiary support in a given case. 12 Williston § 34:3; accord, Robinson v. United States,13 Wall. 363, 366, 20 L.Ed. 653 (1872); Oelricks v. Ford,23 How. 49, 61-62, 16 L.Ed. 534 (1860). Yard-Manrelied on no record evidence indicating that employers and unions in that industry customarily vest retiree benefits. Worse, the Court of Appeals has taken the inferences in Yard-Manand applied them indiscriminately across industries. See, e.g., Cole, supra,at 1074 (automobile);Armistead v. Vernitron Corp.,944 F.2d 1287, 1297 (C.A.6 1991)(electronics); Policy, supra,at 618 (steel).
Because the Court of Appeals did not ground its Yard-Maninferences in any record evidence, it is unsurprising that the inferences rest on a shaky factual foundation. For example, Yard-Manrelied in part on the premise that retiree health care benefits are not subjects of mandatory collective bargaining. Parties, however, can and do voluntarily agree to make retiree benefits a subject of mandatory collective bargaining. Indeed, the employer and union in this case entered such an agreement in 2001. App. 435-436. Yard-Manalso relied on the premise that retiree benefits are a form of deferred compensation, but that characterization is contrary to Congress' determination otherwise. In ERISA, Congress specifically defined plans that "resul[t] in a deferral of income by employees" as pension plans, § 1002(2)(A)(ii), and plans that offer medical benefits as welfare plans, § 1002(1)(A). Thus, retiree health care benefits are not a form of deferred compensation.
Further compounding this error, the Court of Appeals has refused to apply general durational clauses to provisions governing retiree benefits. Having inferred that parties would not leave retiree benefits to the contingencies of future negotiations, and that retiree benefits generally last as long as the recipient remains a retiree, the court in Yard-Manexplicitly concluded that these inferences "outweigh[ed] any contrary implications derived from a routine duration clause terminating the agreement generally." 716 F.2d, at 1482-1483. The court's subsequent decisions went even further, requiring a contract to include a specific durational clause for retiree health care benefits to prevent vesting. E.g., Noe, supra,at 555. These decisions distort the text of the agreement and conflict with the principle of contract law that the written agreement is presumed to encompass the whole agreement of the parties. See 1 W. Story, Law of Contracts § 780 (M. Bigelow ed., 5th ed. 1874); see also 11 Williston § 31:5.
Perhaps tugged by these inferences, the Court of Appeals misapplied other traditional principles of contract law, including the illusory promises doctrine. That doctrine instructs courts to avoid constructions of contracts that would render promises illusory because such promises cannot serve as consideration for a contract. See 3 Williston § 7:7 (4th ed. 2008). But the Court of Appeals construed provisions that admittedly benefited some class of retirees as "illusory" merely because they did not equally benefit allretirees. See Yard-Man, supra,at 1480-1481. That interpretation is a contradiction in terms-a promise that is "partly" illusory is by definition not illusory. If it benefits some class of retirees, then it may serve as consideration for the union's promises. And the court's interpretation is particularly inappropriate in the context of collective-bargaining agreements, which are negotiated on behalf of a broad category of individuals and consequently will often include provisions inapplicable to some category of employees.
The Court of Appeals also failed even to consider the traditional principle that courts should not construe ambiguous writings to create lifetime promises. See 3 A. Corbin, Corbin on Contracts § 553, p. 216 (1960) (explaining that contracts that are silent as to their duration will ordinarily be treated not as "operative in perpetuity" but as "operative for a reasonable time" (internal quotation marks omitted)). The court recognized that "traditional rules of contractual interpretation require a clear manifestation of intent before conferring a benefit or obligation," but asserted that "the duration of the benefit once clearly conferred is [not] subject to this stricture." Yard-Man, supra,at 1481, n. 2. In stark contrast to this assertion, however, the court later applied that very stricture to noncollectively bargained contracts offering retiree benefits. See Sprague v. General Motors Corp.,133 F.3d 388, 400 (C.A.6 1998)("To vest benefits is to render them forever unalterable. Because vesting of welfare plan benefits is not required by law, an employer's commitment to vest such benefits is not to be inferred lightly; the intent to vest must be found in the plan documents and must be stated in clear and express language" (internal quotation marks omitted)). The different treatment of these two types of employment contracts only underscores Yard-Man's deviation from ordinary principles of contract law.
Similarly, the Court of Appeals failed to consider the traditional principle that "contractual obligations will cease, in the ordinary course, upon termination of the bargaining agreement." Litton Financial Printing Div., Litton Business Systems, Inc. v. NLRB,501 U.S. 190, 207, 111 S.Ct. 2215, 115 L.Ed.2d 177 (1991). That principle does not preclude the conclusion that the parties intended to vest lifetime benefits for retirees. Indeed, we have already recognized that "a collective-bargaining agreement [may] provid[e] in explicit terms that certain benefits continue after the agreement's expiration." Ibid.But when a contract is silent as to the duration of retiree benefits, a court may not infer that the parties intended those benefits to vest for life.
C
There is no doubt that Yard-Manand its progeny affected the outcome here. As in its previous decisions, the Court of Appeals here cited the "context of ... labor-management negotiations" and reasoned that the Union likely would not have agreed to language ensuring its members a "full Company contribution" if the company could change the level of that contribution. Tackett I,561 F.3d, at 490(internal quotation marks omitted). It similarly concluded that the tying of eligibility for health care benefits to receipt of pension benefits suggested an intent to vest health care benefits. Ibid.And it framed its analysis from beginning to end in light of the principles it announced in Yard-Manand its progeny. See 561 F.3d, at 489; see also Tackett II,733 F.3d, at 599-600.
We reject the Yard-Maninferences as inconsistent with ordinary principles of contract law. But because "[t]his Court is one of final review, not of first view," Ford Motor Co. v. United States,571 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 510, 510, 187 L.Ed.2d 470 (2013)(per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted), the Court of Appeals should be the first to review the agreements at issue under the correct legal principles. We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for that court to apply ordinary principles of contract law in the first instance.
It is so ordered.
Justice GINSBURG, with whom Justice BREYER, Justice SOTOMAYOR, and Justice KAGANjoin, concurring.
Today's decision rightly holds that courts must apply ordinary contract principles, shorn of presumptions, to determine whether retiree health-care benefits survive the expiration of a collective-bargaining agreement. Under the "cardinal principle" of contract interpretation, "the intention of the parties, to be gathered from the whole instrument, must prevail." 11 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts § 30:2, p. 27 (4th ed. 2012)(Williston). To determine what the contracting parties intended, a court must examine the entire agreement in light of relevant industry-specific "customs, practices, usages, and terminology." Id., § 30:4, at 55-58. When the intent of the parties is unambiguously expressed in the contract, that expression controls, and the court's inquiry should proceed no further. Id., § 30:6, at 98-104. But when the contract is ambiguous, a court may consider extrinsic evidence to determine the intentions of the parties. Id., § 30:7, at 116-124.
Contrary to M & G's assertion, Brief for Petitioner 25, no rule requires "clear and express" language in order to show that parties intended health-care benefits to vest. "[C]onstraints upon the employer after the expiration date of a collective-bargaining agreement," we have observed, may be derived from the agreement's "explicit terms," but they "may arise as well from ... implied terms of the expired agreement." Litton Financial Printing Div., Litton Business Systems, Inc. v. NLRB,501 U.S. 190, 203, 207, 111 S.Ct. 2215, 115 L.Ed.2d 177 (1991).
On remand, the Court of Appeals should examine the entire agreement to determine whether the parties intended retiree health-care benefits to vest. 11 Williston § 30:4, at 55-57. Because the retirees have a vested, lifetime right to a monthly pension, App. 366, a provision stating that retirees "will receive" health-care benefits if they are "receiving a monthly pension" is relevant to this examination.Id., at 415. So is a "survivor benefits" clause instructing that if a retiree dies, her surviving spouse will "continue to receive [the retiree's health-care] benefits ... until death or remarriage." Id., at 417. If, after considering all relevant contractual language in light of industry practices, the Court of Appeals concludes that the contract is ambiguous, it may turn to extrinsic evidence-for example, the parties' bargaining history. The Court of Appeals, however, must conduct the foregoing inspection without Yard-Man's "thumb on the scale in favor of vested retiree benefits." Ante, at 935; see International Union, United Auto., Aerospace, & Agricultural Implement Workers of Am. v. Yard-Man, Inc.,716 F.2d 1476 (C.A.6 1983).
Because I understand the Court's opinion to be consistent with these basic rules of contract interpretation, I join it.
In accordance with this provision, M & G and the Union began bargaining anew in 2003, ultimately reaching a new agreement in 2005. The provisions of the existing agreements remained in effect during the course of those negotiations. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 25, n. 1.
The Union was a plaintiff in the suit and is a respondent here. For ease of reference, we refer to the respondents collectively as "the retirees."
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This was a proceeding in the courts of Georgia to declare invalid an assessment by the State Revenue Commissioner against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company on the ground that the tax as applied to the appellant impairs the obligation of contracts. United States Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 10.
To encourage railroad development, the State of Georgia in 1833 chartered the Georgia Railroad Company (which later became the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company), and gave the railroad certain immunity from taxation. Georgia’s increasing need of tapping new sources of revenue has not unnaturally brought to the courts the scope of this immunity. Its construction in relation to the claim of Georgia, that despite the charter of 1833 the appellant is subject to its corporate income tax, is the sole issue before us.
The case is this. Georgia, in 1937, imposed a tax of 5% per cent, on the net income of all domestic and foreign corporations. Acts 1931, Extra. Sess. pp. 24, 26, amended, Acts 1937, pp. 109, 117; Ga. Ann. Code §92-3102. No claim under this corporate income tax was made against the Atlantic Coast Line, one of the lessees of the Georgia Railroad, until 1941. For the calendar years 1941, 1942, 1943, the State Revenue Commissioner assessed against the appellant deficiency taxes on the basis of its net income from the road, computed at the 5% per cent, rate paid by all corporations. It is this assessment that is contested. The appellant resisted on the ground that the attempt of Georgia to impose this tax is in disregard of the obligation assumed by Georgia through § 15 of the Charter of 1833. The Supreme Court of Georgia sustained the assessment, holding that the tax exemption of the charter related merely to the limits to which a tax on the railroad property could be levied, such a property tax to be measured so as not to exceed one-half per cent, of the net earning power of the properties. 200 Ga. 856, 38 S. E. 2d 774. The exemption, so the State Supreme Court found, was not concerned with what we now know as a corporate net income tax and therefore did not bargain away the power of the legislature to impose such a tax.
A claim that a State statute impairs the obligation of contract is an appeal to the United States Constitution, and cannot be foreclosed by a State court’s determination whether there was a contract or what were its obligations. But while it is true that we are not bound by the construction of local statutes by the local courts in deciding the Constitutional question, “yet when we are dealing with a matter of local policy, like a system of taxation, we should be slow to depart from their judgment, if there was no real oppression or manifest wrong in the result.” Clyde v. Gilchrist, 262 U. S. 94, 97.
The Georgia Supreme Court had to construe the following Georgia language:
“The stock of the said company and its branches shall be exempt from taxation for and during the term of seven years from and after the completion of the said rail roads or any one of them: and after that, shall be subject to a tax not exceeding one half per cent, per annum on the net proceeds of their investments.” § 15, Act of December 21, 1833, Acts 1833, pp. 256, 263-64.
It is not for us to read such a local law with independent but innocent eyes, heedless of a construction placed upon it by the local court. Such a tax provision is not a collocation of abstract words. In seeking the meaning conveyed by a local enactment it must be viewed as part of the whole texture of local laws and of the economy to which they apply. The language draws to itself presuppositions not always articulated, and even what is expressed in words may carry meaning to insiders which is not within the sure discernment of those viewing the law from a distance. And so we are not prepared to say that the Supreme Court of Georgia was “manifestly wrong,” Hale v. State Board, 302 U. S. 95, 101, in construing the exemption as limiting merely the right to impose property taxes. Our search is for something other than the meaning which the tax specialists may today find in the words. “It is for the meaning that at a particular time and place and in the setting of a particular statute might reasonably have acceptance by men of common understanding.” Hale v. State Board, supra. We should reject the construction which the Georgia Supreme Court has placed upon what the Georgia Legislature of 1833 wrote only if we can be confident that the Georgia Legislature of 1833, by the words it used, could not have expressed the meaning thus attributed to it. A fair regard for the place of income taxes, as now commonly conceived, in the thought and practice concerning fiscal matters prevalent in 1833 precludes the rejection of the interpretation by the Georgia Court of the exemption of 1833.
There were, to be sure, so-called “faculty taxes” in Colonial times which had some of the characteristics of our present income taxes in that ability to pay was an ingredient. But even these taxes, hardly income taxes as we now know them, had by 1833 generally ceased to be, and perhaps even to be remembered. See, e. g., Seligman, The Income Tax (2d ed.) Part II, c. I, pp. 367 et seg.; compare Hylton v. United States, 3 Dall. 171. In Georgia, the only imposition even remotely classifiable as an income tax because presumably based on ability to pay is that illustrated by a levy of “The sum of four dollars on all professors of law and physic, and the sum of fifty dollars on all billiard tables . . . .” Law No. 590, 1797, Watkins Digest of the Laws of Georgia, 1755-1799, pp. 646, 648. Not until the Civil War did Georgia, like the Federal Government, resort to what was indisputably an income tax. On the other hand, to read as the Georgia Supreme Court read the exemption provision of the Charter of 1833, as dealing with a tax on property, fairly reflects a practice, not unknown in the earlier days, of assessing property for tax purposes not by its exchange value but by its earning power. See, e. g., Seligman, The Income Tax (2d ed.) pp. 382-83; Report of Special Commission on Taxation, Connecticut 1887, p. 9, with comments thereon in Kennan, Income Taxation, p. 207.
In this setting, it would savor of dogmatism to infuse into the 1833 exemption the income tax atmosphere of our own day. It does not seem inadmissible for the Supreme Court of Georgia to have found that what the Georgia Legislature of 1833 sought was to measure the commonplace property tax of the time not by a flat sum, or on the basis of a value abstractly ascertained, but in accordance with the fruits of the property, modestly limited.
To sanction such a restricted reading of the exemption is to respect a rule deeply rooted in history and policy, according to which contracts of tax exemption are to be read “narrowly and strictly.” Hale v. State Board, supra, at 109. To recognize that more than a hundred years ago the Georgia Legislature did not forever bargain away the wholly untapped domain of income taxation is to recognize the governing consideration that “The power of taxation is never to be regarded as surrendered or bargained away if there is room for rational doubt as to the purpose.” This was said when an earlier controversy affecting this charter was here. Wright v. Georgia Railroad and Banking Co., 216 U. S. 420, 438. As to the astuteness of taxpayers in ordering their affairs so as to minimize taxes, we have said that “the very meaning of a line in the law is that you intentionally may go as close to it as you can if you do not pass it.” Superior Oil Co. v. Mississippi, 280 U. S. 390, 395-96. This is so because “nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions.” Learned Hand, C. J., dissenting in Commissioner v. Newman, 159 F. 2d 848, 851. Conversely, the State, insofar as it may limit its basic power to tax to enable government to go on, can sail as closely as astuteness permits to the line of an immunity from such exaction. This is an old canon of judicial construction. The policy on which it rests antedates the charter before us, and it forms the setting in which the exemption is to be read. See, e. g., Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 7 Pick. (Mass. 1829) 344, affirmed, 11 Pet. 420 (1837). This requirement in the construction of legislative grants, especially tax exemptions, is merely an aspect of respecting legislative purpose. A legislature is not to be presumed to have relinquished its power of taxation beyond the narrowest rational reading of an exemption. The potential need of all governmental powers, and fairness in the distribution of burdens or in the enjoyment of privileges, preclude such an assumption.
We have carefully considered the earlier cases in which the scope of this exemption came before this Court. Central Railroad and Banking Co. v. Georgia, 92 U. S. 665; Wright v. Georgia Railroad and Banking Co., supra; Wright v. Central of Georgia R. Co., 236 U. S. 674; Wright v. Louisville and Nashville R. Co., 236 U. S. 687; Central of Georgia R. Co. v. Wright, 248 U. S. 525; Central of Georgia R. Co. v. Wright, 250 U. S. 519. It is needless to rehearse the issues they involved. Suffice it to say that the prior taxes found to have been barred by the exemption were all taxes on the railroad property. Now for the first time we are called upon to examine a candid, conventional income tax. Passing reference to “income” when the Court’s mind was not focused upon the validity of an income tax as such must not be torn from the context of discussion of property taxes. In any event, these phrases leave untouched our duty to respect the judgment of a State court as to the fair intendment of an exemption.
Judgment affirmed.
Mr. Justice Rutledge, agreeing with the Court’s conclusions concerning the meaning of the Georgia statute, concurs in the result.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
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Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Convertible Top Replacement Co., Inc., (CTR) acquired by assignment from the Automobile Body Research Corporation (AB) all rights for the territory of Massachusetts in United States Patent No. 2,569,724, known as the Maekie-Duluk patent. This is a combination patent covering a top-structure for automobile “convertibles.” Structures embodying the patented combination were included as original equipment in 1952-1954 models of convertibles manufactured by the General Motors Corporation and the Ford Motor Company. They were included in the General Motors cars by authority of a license granted to General Motors by AB; Ford, however, had no license during the 1952-1954 period, and no authority whatever under the patent until July 21, 1955, when it entered into an agreement, discussed later, with AB; Ford’s manufacture and sale of the automobiles in question therefore infringed the patent. Petitioner Aro Manufacturing Co., Inc. (Aro), which is not licensed under the patent, produces fabric components designed as replacements for worn-out fabric portions of convertible tops; unlike the other elements of the top-structure, which ordinarily are usable for the life of the car, the fabric portion normally wears out and requires replacement after about three years of use. Aro’s fabrics are specially tailored for installation in particular models of convertibles, and these have included the 1952-1954 General Motors and Ford models equipped with the Mackie-Duluk top-structures.
CTR brought this action against Aro in 1956 to enjoin the alleged infringement and contributory infringement, and to obtain an accounting, with respect to replacement fabrics made and sold by Aro for use in both the General Motors and the Ford cars embodying the patented structures. The interlocutory judgment entered for CTR by the District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 119 U. S. P. Q. 122, and affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, 270 F. 2d 200, was reversed here. Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 365 U. S. 336 (“Aro I”), petition for rehearing or alternative motion for amendment or clarification denied, 365 U. S. 890. Our decision dealt, however, only with the General Motors and not with the Ford cars. Like the Court of Appeals, we treated CTR’s right to relief as depending wholly upon the question whether replacement of the fabric portions of the convertible tops constituted infringing “reconstruction” or permissible “repair” of the patented combination. The lower courts had held it to constitute “reconstruction,” making the car owner for whom it was performed a direct infringer and Aro, which made and sold the replacement fabric, a contributory infringer; we disagreed and held that it was merely “repair.” The reconstruction-repair distinction is decisive, however, only when the replacement is made in a structure whose original manufacture and sale have been licensed by the patentee, as was true only of the General Motors cars; when the structure is unlicensed, as was true of the Ford cars, the traditional rule is that even repair constitutes infringement. Thus, the District Court had based its ruling for CTR with respect to the Ford cars on the alternative ground that, even if replacement of the fabric portions constituted merely repair, the car owners were still guilty of direct infringement, and Aro of contributory infringement, as to these unlicensed and hence infringing structures. 119 U. S. P. Q. 122, 124. This aspect of the case was not considered or decided by our opinion in Aro I.
On remand, however, another judge in the District Court read our opinion as requiring the dismissal of CTR’s complaint as to the Ford as well as the General Motors cars, and entered judgment accordingly. CTR appealed the dismissal insofar as it applied to the Ford cars, and the Court of Appeals reinstated the judgment in favor of CTR to that extent. 312 F. 2d 52. In our view the Court of Appeals was correct in holding that its “previous decision in this case was not reversed insofar as unlicensed Ford cars are concerned.” 312 F. 2d, at 57. However, we granted certiorari, 372 U. S. 958, to consider that question, and to consider also the issue that had not been decided in Aro I: whether Aro is liable for contributory infringement, under 35 U. S. C. § 271 (c), with respect to its manufacture and sale of replacement fabrics for the Ford cars.
I.
CTR contends, and the Court of Appeals held, that since Ford infringed the patent by making and selling the top-structures without authority from the patentee, persons who purchased the automobiles from Ford likewise infringed by using and repairing the structures; and hence Aro, by supplying replacement fabrics specially designed to be utilized in such infringing repair, was guilty of contributory infringement under 35 U. S. C. § 271 (c). In Aro I, 365 U. S., at 341-342, the Court said:
“It is admitted that petitioners [Aro] know that the purchasers intend to use the fabric for replacement purposes on automobile convertible tops which are covered by the claims of respondent’s combination patent, and such manufacture and sale with that knowledge might well constitute contributory infringement under § 271 (c), if, but only if, such a replacement by the purchaser himself would in itself constitute a direct infringement under § 271 (a), for it is settled that if there is no direct infringement of a patent there can be no contributory infringement.... It is plain that § 271 (c) — a part of the Patent Code enacted in 1952 — made no change in the fundamental precept that there can be no contributory infringement in the absence of a direct infringement. That section defines contributory infringement in terms of direct infringement — namely the sale of a component of a patented combination or machine for use 'in an infringement of such patent.’ And § 271 (a) of the new Patent Code, which defines 'infringement/ left intact the entire body of case law on direct infringement. The determinative question, therefore, comes down to whether the car owner would infringe the combination patent by replacing the worn-out fabric element of the patented convertible top on his car....”
Similarly here, to determine whether Aro committed contributory infringement, we must first determine whether the car owners, by replacing the worn-out fabric element of the patented top-structures, committed direct infringement. We think it clear, under § 271 (a) of the Patent Code and the ''entire body of case law on direct infringement” which that section ''left intact,” that they did.
Section 271 (a) provides that “whoever without authority makes, uses or sells any patented invention... infringes the patent.” It is not controverted— nor could it be — that Ford infringed by making and selling cars embodying the patented top-structures without any authority from the patentee. If Ford had had such authority, its purchasers would not have infringed by using the automobiles, for it is fundamental that sale of a patented article by the patentee or under his authority carries with it an “implied license to use.” Adams v. Burke, 17 Wall. 453, 456; United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241, 249, 250-251. But with Ford lacking authority to make and sell, it could by its sale of the cars confer on the purchasers no implied license to use, and their use. of the patented structures was thus “without authority” and infringing under §271 (a). Not only does that provision explicitly regard an unauthorized user of a patented invention as an infringer, but it has often and clearly been held that unauthorized use, without more, constitutes infringement. Birdsell v. Shaliol, 112 U. S. 485; Union Tool Co. v. Wilson, 259 U. S. 107, 114; see Sanitary Refrigerator Co. v. Winters, 280 U. S. 30, 32-33; General Talking Pictures Corp. v. Western Electric Co., 305 U. S. 124, 127.
If the owner’s use infringed, so also did his repair of the top-structure, as by replacing the worn-out fabric component. Where use infringes, repair does also, for it perpetuates the infringing use.
“No doubt... a patented article may be repaired without making the repairer an infringer,... but not where it is done for one who is. It is only where the device in patented form has come lawfully into the hands of the person for or by whom it is repaired that this is the case. In other words, if one without right constructs or disposes of an infringing machine, it affords no protection to another to have merely repaired it; the repairer, by supplying an essential part of the patented combination, contributing by so much to the perpetuation of the infringement.” Union Special Mach. Co. v. Maimin, 161 F. 748, 750 (C. C. E. D. Pa. 1908), aff’d, 165 F. 440 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1908).
Accord, Remington Rand Business Serv., Inc., v. Acme Card System Co., 71 F. 2d 628, 630 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1934), cert. denied, 293 U. S. 622; 2 Walker, Patents (Deller ed. 1937), at 1487. Consequently replacement of worn-out fabric components with fabrics sold by Aro, held in Aro I to constitute “repair” rather than “reconstruction” and thus to be permissible in the case of licensed General Motors cars, was not permissible here in the case of unlicensed Ford cars. Here, as was not the case in Aro I, the direct infringement by the car owners that is prerequisite to contributory infringement by Aro was unquestionably established.
We turn next to the question whether Aro, as supplier of replacement fabrics for use in the infringing repair by the Ford car owners, was a contributory infringer under § 271 (c) of the Patent Code. That section provides:
“Whoever sells a component of a patented machine, manufacture, combination or composition, or a material or apparatus for use in practicing a patented process, constituting a material part of the invention, knowing the same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent, and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, shall be liable as a contributory infringer.”
We think Aro was indeed liable under this provision.
Such a result would plainly have obtained under the contributory-infringement case law that § 271 (e) was intended to codify. Indeed, most of the law was established in cases where, as here, suit was brought to hold liable for contributory infringement a supplier of replacement parts specially designed for use in the repair of infringing articles. In Union Tool Co. v. Wilson, supra, 259 U. S., at 113-114, the Court held that where use of the patented machines themselves was not authorized,
“There was, consequently, no implied license to use the spare parts in these machines. As such use, unless licensed, clearly constituted an infringement, the sale of the spare parts to be so used violated the injunction [enjoining infringement].”
As early as 1897, Circuit Judge Taft, as he then was, thought it “well settled” that
“where one makes and sells one element of a combination covered by a patent with the intention and for the purpose of bringing about its use in such a combination he is guilty of contributory infringement and is equally liable to the patentee with him who in fact organizes the complete combination.” Thomson-Houston Elec. Co. v. Ohio Brass Co., 80 F. 712, 721 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1897).
While conceding that in the case of a machine purchased from the patentee, one “may knowingly assist in assembling, repairing, and renewing a patented combination by furnishing some of the needed parts,” Judge Taft added: “but, when he does so, he must ascertain, if he would escape liability for infringement, that the one buying and using them for this purpose has a license, express or implied, to do so.” Id., at 723. See also National Brake & Elec. Co. v. Christensen, 38 F. 2d 721, 723 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1930), cert. denied, 282 U. S. 864; Reed Boiler Bit Co. v. Hughes Tool Co., 12 F. 2d 207, 211 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1926); Shickle, Harrison & Howard Iron Co. v. St. Louis Car-Coupler Co., 77 F. 739, 743 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1896), cert. denied, 166 U. S. 720. These cases are all authority for the proposition that “The right of one, other than the patentee, furnishing repair parts of a patented combination, can be no greater than that of the user, and he is bound to see that no other use of such parts is made than that authorized by the user’s license.” National Malleable Casting Co. v. American Steel Foundries, 182 F. 626, 641 (C. C. D. N. J. 1910).
In enacting § 271 (c), Congress clearly succeeded in its objective of codifying this case law. The language of the section fits perfectly Aro’s activity of selling “a component of a patented... combination..., constituting a material part of the invention,... especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent, and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use.” Indeed, this is the almost unique case in which the component was hardly suitable for any noninfringing use. On this basis both the District Court originally, 119 U. S. P. Q., at 124, and the Court of Appeals in the instant case, 312 F. 2d, at 57, held that Aro was a contributory infringer within the precise letter of § 271 (c). See also Aro I, 365 U. S., at 341.
However, the language of § 271 (c) presents a question, apparently not noticed by the parties or the courts below, concerning the element of knowledge that must be brought home to Aro before liability can be imposed. It is only sale of a component of a patented combination “knowing the same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent” that is contributory infringement under the statute. Was Aro “knowing” within the statutory meaning because — as it admits, and as the lower courts found — it knew that its replacement fabrics were especially designed for use in the 1952-1954 Ford convertible tops and were not suitable for other use? Or does the statute require a further showing that Aro knew that the tops were patented, and knew also that Ford was not licensed under the patent so that any fabric replacement by a Ford car owner constituted infringement?
On this question a majority of the Court is of the view that § 271 (c) does require a showing that the alleged contributory infringer knew that the combination for which his component was especially designed was both patented and infringing. With respect to many of the replacement-fabric sales involved in this case, Aro clearly-had such knowledge. For by letter dated January 2, 1954, AB informed Aro that it held the Mackie-Duluk patent; that it had granted a license under the patent to General Motors but'to no one else; and that “It is obvious, from the foregoing and from an inspection of the convertible automobile sold by the Ford Motor Company, that anyone selling ready-made replacement fabrips for these automobiles would be guilty of contributory infringement of said patents.” Thus the Court’s interpretation of the knowledge requirement affords Aro no defense with respect to replacement-fabric sales made after January 2, 1954. It would appear that the overwhelming majority of the sales were in fact made after that date, since the oldest of the cars were 1952 models and since the average life of a fabric top is said to be three years. With respect to any sales that were made before that date, however, Aro cannot be held liable in the absence of a showing that at that time it had already acquired the requisite knowledge that the Ford car tops were patented and infringing. When the case is remanded, a finding of fact must be made on this question by the District Court, and, unless Aro is found to have had such prior knowledge, the judgment imposing liability must be vacated as to any sales made before January 2, 1954. As to subsequent sales, however, we hold, in agreement with the lower courts, that Aro is liable for contributory infringement within the terms of § 271 (c).
In seeking to avoid such liability, Aro relies on the Mercoid cases. Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., 320 U. S. 661; Mercoid Corp. v. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., 320 U. S. 680. Since those cases involved essentially an application of the doctrine of patent misuse, which is not an issue in this case, they are not squarely applicable to the contributory infringement question here. On the other hand, they are hardly irrelevant. The Court in Mercoid said, among other things, that the principle that “he who sells an u'npatented part of a combination patent for use in the assembled machine may be guilty of contributory infringement” could no longer prevail “against the defense that a combination patent is being used to protect an unpatented part from competition.” 320 U. S., at 668. As the Court recognized, its definition of misuse was such as “to limit substantially the doctrine of contributory infringement” and to raise a question as to “what residuum may be left.” 320 IT. S., at 669. See Report of the Attorney General’s National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws (1955), at 252. The answer to Aro’s argument is that Congress enacted § 271 for the express purpose of reinstating the doctrine of contributory infringement as it had been developed by decisions prior to Mercoid, and of overruling any blanket invalidation of the doctrine that could be found in the Mercoid opinions. See, e. g., 35 U. S. C. §§271 (c), (d); Hearings, supra, n. 6, at 159, 161-162; and the Aro I opinions of Mr. Justice Black, 365 U. S., at 348-349 and nn. 3-4; Mr. Justice Harlan, id., at 378, n. 6; and Mr. Justice Brennan, id., at 365-367. Hence, where Aro’s sale of replacement fabrics for unlicensed Ford cars falls squarely within § 271 (c), and where Aro has not properly invoked the misuse doctrine as to any other conduct by CTR or AB, Mercoid cannot successfully be employed to shield Aro from liability for contributory infringement.
Thus we hold that, subject to the reservation expressed at pp. 488-491, supra, with respect to sales made before January 2, 1954, and subject to the further reservations set forth in succeeding Parts of this opinion, Aro’s -sales of replacement fabrics for use in the Ford cars constituted contributory infringement under § 271 (c).
II.
Although we thus agree with the Court of Appeals that Aro was liable for contributory infringement with respect to the Ford cars, we find merit in a defense asserted by Aro. In our view this defense negatives Aro’s liability as to some of the replacement fabrics in question and, as to the others, reduces substantially — quite possibly to a mere nominal sum — the amount of recovery that CTR may be awarded. The defense is based on the agreement of July 21, 1955, between Ford and AB. See note 4, supra. This agreement affected Aro’s liability differently, we think, depending upon whether the replacement-fabric sales were made before or after the agreement date. We shall first discuss its effect on liability for the subsequent sales.
The agreement was made at a time when, as CTR states in its brief, “Ford had already completed its manufacture of all the cars here involved.” Under it, Ford agreed to pay AB $73,000 for certain rights under the patent, which were defined by paragraph 1 of the agreement as follows:
“1. AB hereby releases Ford, its associated companies... [and] its and their dealers, customers and users of its and their products, of all claims that AB has or may have against it or them for infringement of said patents arising out of the manufacture, use or sale of devices disclosed therein and manufactured before December 31, 1955, other than the ‘replacement top fabrics’ licensed under paragraph 3.”
In paragraph 3, AB licensed Ford to make and sell “replacement top fabrics” for the Mackie-Duluk top-structures, receiving in return a royalty — separate from the $73,000 lump-sum payment — of 5% of the net sales. And in paragraph 5, AB expressly reserved the right
“to license under... said Mackie-Duluk patent... the manufacture, use and sale of replacement top fabrics other than those supplied to, made by or sold by Ford... to the extent that AB is entitled to reserve such right under 35 United States Code, §271 (1952).”
In a pretrial memorandum filed early in the lawsuit, the District Court construed the agreement in the following manner, which we think to be a correct interpretation of the parties’ intention:
(1) With respect to all patented top-structures manufactured before July 21, 1955, and all replacement fabrics installed before that date, it was a “release” to the parties named — that is, Ford and its customers — of the claims for infringement by manufacture, sale, or use of the patented combination;
(2) With respect to any new structures manufactured between July 21 and December 31, 1955 (it-appears that there were no such structures), the agreement was a “future license” to Ford and its customers to make, sell, and use the patented combination, but “excepting replacements” unless these were provided by Ford under the special license granted by paragraph 3;
(3) With respect to the post-July 21 status of structures manufactured before July 21, the agreement was also a “future license” to Ford and its customers of the rights to make, sell, and use, but again, “excepting replacements” not provided by Ford; and
(4) The agreement “demonstrated an intention not to release” or license any persons other than Ford or its customers; in particular, the parties did not intend to release or license contributory infringers like Aro in respect of replacement fabrics sold either before or after July 21.
Considering the legal effect of the agreement as so construed, the District Court went on to rule that if the fabric replacement should be held to constitute repair rather than reconstruction (as this Court did subsequently hold in Aro I), then:
(a) Aro would be liable for contributory infringement as to replacements made before July 21, 1955, since “I do not construe the agreement to release contributory infringers for rights of action already accrued”;
(b) however, despite the intention of the parties, Aro would not be liable as to replacements made after July 21, 1955, since “If replacement is legitimate repair, no average owner can do-it-yourself, and he must be free to go to persons in the position of defendants without apprehension on their part.”
The distinction between pre-agreement and post-agreement sales subsequently became irrelevant to the District Court’s view of the case, when it held after trial that replacement of the fabrics constituted reconstruction rather than repair; the Court’s interlocutory judgment for CTR thus held Aro liable with respect to all the Ford cars in question. When this Court in Aro I reversed the ruling on the reconstruction-repair issue, the only reference in the opinions to the Ford cars took the view that Aro should be held liable only in respect of replacements made on those cars “before July 21, 1955,” 365 U. S., at 368 (concurring opinion), and thus agreed with the distinction originally drawn by the District Court. The present opinion of the Court of Appeals, however, in reinstating the Ford car portion of the interlocutory judgment for CTR without consideration of this distinction, appears to have held Aro liable in respect of replacement fabrics sold for the 1952-1954 Ford cars not only before July 21,1955, but also after that date and — so long as the cars remain'on the road — up to the present and into the future.
CTR’s argument in support of this result emphasizes that the agreement in terms ran in favor only of Ford and Ford’s customers and not of third parties like Aro, and that it expressly excepted “replacement top fabrics” from the scope of the rights it granted. Reliance is also placed on testimony that the amount to be paid by Ford under the agreement was set as low as $73,000 only because of a clear understanding between the parties that such payment would not affect AB’s rights to recover from persons in the position of Aro. CTR thus argues:
“If the Ford agreement had never been made at all, it is clear that it would have been proper to require that Aro pay royalties, insofar as infringing Ford cars are concerned, even up to the present time. This being the case, it is clear that it was proper for the agreement to expressly recognize and to expressly exclude Aro’s liability from its terms. Since Ford refused to purchase any rights for Aro, either before or after July 21, 1955, Aro is liable for its Ford repair activities both before and after that date.”
Insofar as replacement fabrics sold “after that date” are concerned, we do not agree. We think the agreement’s attempt to reserve rights in connection with future sales of replacement fabrics was invalid. By the agree-xnent AB authorized the Ford car owners, in return for a payment from Ford, to use the patented top-structures from and after July 21,1955. Since they were authorized to use the structures, they were authorized to repair them so as “to preserve [their] fitness for use....’’ Aro I, 365 U. S., at 345, quoting Leeds & Catlin Co. v. Victor Talking Machine Co., 213 U. S. 325, 336. The contrary provisions in the agreement, purporting to restrict the right of use and repair by prohibiting fabric replacement unless done with fabrics purchased from Ford or some other licensee, stand condemned by a long line of this Court's decisions delimiting the scope of the patent grant. When the patentee has sold the patented article or authorized its sale and has thus granted to the purchaser an “implied license to use,” it is clear that he cannot thereafter restrict that use; “so far as the use of it was concerned, the patentee had received his consideration, and it was no longer within the monopoly of the patent.” Adams v. Burke, 17 Wall. 453, 456. In particular, he cannot impose conditions concerning the unpatented supplies, ancillary materials, or components with which the use is to be effected. E. g., Carbice Corp. v. American Patents Development Corp., 283 U. S. 27; Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., 320 U. S. 661; United States v. Loews, Inc., 371 U. S. 38, 46. It follows that here, where the patentee has by the Ford agreement explicitly authorized the purchasers to use the articles, the patentee cannot thereafter restrict that use by imposing a condition that replacement parts may be purchased only from a licensed supplier.
With the restriction thus eliminated from consideration, it is clear that Aro cannot be liable for contributory infringement in connection with sales of replacement fabrics made after July 21, 1955. After that date the Ford car owners had authority from the patentee — indeed, had a “license” — fully to use and repair the patented structures. Hence they did not commit direct infringement under § 271 (a) when they had the fabrics replaced; hence Aro, in selling replacement fabrics for this purpose, did not commit contributory infringement under § 271 (c). The case as to the post-agreement sales is thus squarely ruled by Aro I. It was held there, despite AB’s attempt to reserve the right to license sales of replacement fabrics, that General Motors car owners, who were authorized to use the patented structures by virtue of the license granted General Motors by AB, performed nothing more than “permissible repair” when they replaced the worn-out fabrics, and hence that there was no direct infringement by the owners to which Aro, by selling the replacement fabrics, could contribute. In other words, since fabric replacement was “repair” rather than “reconstruction,” it was merely an aspect of the use of the patented article, and was thus beyond the patentee’s power to control after the use itself had been authorized. So here, the Ford car owners were authorized to use the patented structures after July 21,1955, by virtue of the agreement between AB and Ford. Hence they were likewise entitled, despite AB’s attempt to reserve this right, to perform the “permissible repair” of replacing the worn-out fabrics; hence, just as in Aro I, the car owners by replacing the fabrics committed no direct infringement to which Aro’s sales could contribute. “[I]f the purchaser and user could not be amerced as an infringer.certainly one who sold to him... cannot be amerced for contributing to a non-existent infringement.” Aro I, 365 U. S., at 341.
CTR would have it that this result is inconsistent with Birdsell v. Shaliol, 112 U. S. 485, and Union Tool Co. v. Wilson, 259 U. S. 107. In our view it is.not. Birdsell allowed the patentee to hold one infringer liable for use of the patented machines after obtaining a judgment against another infringer for the manufacture and sale of the same machines; Union Tool held infringement to exist where the defendant, after being held liable for the manufacture and sale of certain infringing machines, sold spare parts for use in the same machines. Both cases turned upon the fact that the patentee had not collected on the prior judgment and thus had not received any compensation for the infringing use — or, indeed, any compensation at all. Here, in contrast, the amount paid by Ford under the agreement was expressly stated to include compensation for the use of the patented structures by Ford’s purchasers; moreover, the agreement covered future use and in this respect operated precisely like a license, with the result that after the agreement date there was simply no infringing use for which the patentee was entitled to compensation. See Birdsell v. Shaliol, supra, 112 U. S., at 487. In sum, AB obtained its reward for the use of the patented structures under the terms of the agreement with Ford; CTR cannot obtain from Aro here another reward for the same use.
We therefore hold, in agreement with the District Court’s original view, that Aro is not liable for replacement-fabric sales made after July 21, 1955. Insofar as the judgment of the Court of Appeals imposes liability for such sales, it is reversed.
III.
Turning to the question of replacement-fabric sales made before July 21, 1955, we agree with the District Court that the agreement between AB and Ford did not negative Aro’s liability for these sales. With respect to the post-agreement sales the agreement necessarily absolved Aro of liability, its intention to the contrary notwithstanding, because it had the effect of precluding any direct infringement to which Aro could contribute. With respect to the pre-agreement sales, however, Aro’s contributory infringement had already taken place at the time of the agreement. Whatever the agreement’s effect on the amount recoverable from Aro — a matter to be discussed in Part IV of this opinion — it cannot be held, in the teeth of its contrary language and intention, to have erased the extant infringement.
It is true that a contributory infringer is a species of joint-tortfeasor, who is held liable because he has contributed with another to the causing of a single harm to the plaintiff. See Wallace v. Holmes, 29 Fed. Cas. 74, 80 (No. 17,100) (C. C. D. Conn.1871); Thomson-Houston Elec. Co. v. Ohio Brass Co., supra, 80 F., at 721; Rich, 21 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 521, 525 (1953). It is also true that under the old common-law rule, a release given to one joint-tortfeasor necessarily released another, even though it expressly stated that it would have no such effect. See Prosser, Torts (2d ed. 1955), at 243-244. Under this rule Aro’s argument on this point would prevail, since the agreement did release Ford’s purchasers for their infringing use of the top-structures before the agreement date, and that was the use to which Aro contributed. See Schiff v. Hammond Clock Co., 69 F. 2d 742, 746 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1934), reversed for dismissal as moot, 293 U. S. 529. But the rule is not applicable. Even in the area of nonpatent torts, it has been repudiated by statute or decision in many if not most States, see Prosser, supra, at 245, and by the overwhelming weight of scholarly authority. E. g., American Law Institute, Restatement of Torts (1939), § 885 (1) and Comments b-d. And application of the rule to contributory infringement has been rejected by this Court. In Birdsell v. Shaliol, supra, 112 U. S., at 489, the Court applied to a patent case the proposition that “By our law, judgment against one joint trespasser, without full satisfaction, is no bar to a suit against another for the same trespass.” What is true of a judgment is true of a release. See Prosser, supra, at 241-244. A release given a direct infringer in respect of past infringement, which clearly intends to save the releasor’s rights against a past contributory infringer, does not automatically surrender those rights. Thus the District Court was correct in denying that “defendants are entitled to the fortuitous benefit of the old joint tort-feasor rule.” The mere fact that the agreement released Ford and Ford’s customers for their past infringement does not negate Aro’s liability for its past infringement. Hence the judgment of the Court of Appeals, insofar as it relates to Ford car replacement-fabric sales made by Aro before July 21, 1955 — and subject to the reservation set forth at pp. 488-491, supra, with respect to sales made before January 2, 1954 — is affirmed; accordingly, the case is remanded to the District Court for a determination of damages and for such other proceedings as that court deems appropriate.
IV.
The case must now
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case was argued with No. 515, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, decided this date, ante, p. 241, in which we upheld the constitutional validity of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against an attack by hotels, motels, and like establishments. This complaint for injunctive relief against appellants attacks the constitutionality of the Act as applied to a restaurant. The case was heard by a three-judge.United States District Court and an injunction was issued restraining appellants from enforcing the Act against the restaurant. 233 F. Supp. 815. On direct appeal, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1252, 1253 (1958 ed.), we noted probable jurisdiction. 379 U. S. 802. We now reverse the judgment.
1. The Motion to Dismiss.
The appellants moved in the District Court to dismiss the complaint for want of equity jurisdiction and that claim is pressed here. The grounds are that the Act authorizes only preventive relief; that there has been no threat of enforcement against the appellees and that they have alleged no irreparable injury. It is true that ordinarily equity will not interfere in such cases. However, we may and do consider this complaint as an application for a declaratory judgment under 28 U. S. C. §§ 2201 and 2202 (1958 ed.). In this case, of course, direct appeal to this Court would still lie under 28 U. S. C. § 1252 (1958 ed.). But even though Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits declaratory relief although another adequate remedy exists, it should not be granted where, a special statutory proceeding has been provided. See Notes on Rule 57 of Advisory Committee on Rules, 28 U. S. C. App. 5178 (1958 ed.). Title II provides for such a statutory proceeding for the determination of rights and duties arising thereunder, §§ 204r-207, .and courts should, therefore, ordinarily refrain from exercising their jurisdiction in such cases.
The present - case, however, is in a unique position. The interference with , governmental action has occurred and the constitutional question is before us. in the companion case of Heart of Atlanta Motel as well as in this case. It is important that a decision on the constitutionality of the Act ás applied in these cases be announced as quickly as possible. For these reasons, we have concluded, with the above caveat, that' the denial of discretionary declaratory relief is not required here.
2. The Facts.
Ollie’s Barbecue is a family-owned restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, specializing in barbecued meats and homemade pies, with a seating capacity of 220 customers. It is located on a state highway 11 blocks from an interstate one and a somewhat greater distance from railroad and bus stations. The restaurant caters to a family and white-collar trade with a take-out service for Negroes. It employs 36 persons, two-thirds of whom are Negroes.
In the 12 months preceding the passage of the Act, the restaurant purchased locally approximately $150,000 worth of food, $69,683 or 46% of which was meat that it bought from a local supplier who had procured it from outside the State. The District Court expressly found that a substantial portion of the food served in the restaurant had moved in interstate commerce. The restaurant has refused to serve Negroes in its dining accommodations since its original opening in 1927, and since July 2, 1964, it has been operating in violation of the Act. The court below concluded that if it were required to serve Negroes it would lose a substantial amount of business.
On the merits, the District Court held that , the Act could not be applied under the Fourteenth Amendment because it was conceded that the State of Alabama was not involved in the refusal of the restaurant to serve Negroes. It was also admitted that the Thirteenth Amendment was authority neither for validating nor for invalidating the Act. As to the Commerce Clause, the court found that it was “an express grant of power to Congress to regulate interstate commerce, which consists of the movement of persons, goods or information' from one state to another” ;• and it found that the clause was also a grant of power “to regulate intrastaté activities, but only to the extent that action on its part is necessary or appropriate to the effective execution of its expressly granted power to regulate interstate commerce.” There must be, it said, a close and substantial relation betweén local activities and interstate commerce which requires control of the former in the protection of the latter. The court concluded, however, that the Congress, rather than finding facts sufficient to meet this rule, had legislated! a conclusive presumption that a restaurant affects interstate commerce if it serves or offers to serve interstate travelers or if a substantial portion of the food which it serves has moved in commerce. This, the court held, it could not do because there was no demonstrable connection between food purchased in interstate commerce and sold in a restaurant and the conclusion of Congress that discrimination in the restaurant would affect that commerce.
The basic holding in Heart of Atlanta Motel, answers many of the contentions made by the appellees. There we outlined the overall purpose and operational plan of Title II and found it a valid exercise of the power to regulate interstate commerce insofar as it requires hotels and motels to serve transients without regard to their race or color. In this case we consider its application to restaurants which serve food a substantial portion of which has moved in commerce.
3. The Act As Applied.
Section 201 (a) of Title II commands that all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods and services of any place of public accommodation without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin; and § 201 (b) defines establishments as places of public accommodation if their operations affect commerce or segregation by them is supported by state action. Sections 201 (b) (2) and (e) place any "restaurant . . . principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises” under the Act “if ... it serves or offers to serve interstate travelers or a substantial portion of the food which it serves . . . has moved in commerce.”
Ollie’s Barbecue admits that it is covered by these provisions of the Act. The Government makes no contention that the discrimination at the restaurant was supported by the State of Alabama. There is no claim that interstate travelers frequented the restaurant. The sole question, therefore, narrows down to whether Title II, as applied to a restaurant annually receiving about $70,000 worth of food which has moved in commerce, is a valid exercise of thé power of Congress. The Government has contended that Congress had ample basis upon which to find that racial discrimination at restaurants which receive from out of state a substantial portion of the food served does, in fact, impose commercial burdens of national magnitude upon interstate commerce. The appellees’ major argument is directed to this premise. They urge that no such basis existed. It is to that question that we now turn.
4. The Congressional Hearings.
As we noted in Heart of Atlanta Motel both Houses of Congress conducted prolonged hearings on the Act. And, as we said there, while no formal findings were made, which of course are not necessary, it is well that we niáke mention of the testimony at these hearings the better to understand the problem before Congress and determine whether the Act is a reasonable and appropriate means toward its solution. The record is replete with testimony of the burdens placed on interstate commerce by racial discrimination in restaurants. A comparison of per cap-ita spending by Negroes in restaurants, theaters, and like establishments indicated less spending, after discounting income differences, in areas where discrimination is widely practiced. This condition, which was especially aggravated in the South; was attributed in the testimony of the Under Secretary of Commerce to racial segregation. See Hearings before the Senate Committee on Commerce on 5. 1732, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 695. This diminutive spending springing from a refusal to serve Negroes and their total loss as customers has, regardless of the absence of direct evidence, a close connection to interstate commerce. The fewer customers a restaurant enjoys the less food it sells and consequently the less it buys. S. Rep. No. 872, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., at 19; Senate Commerce Committee Hearings, at 207. . In addition, the Attorney General testified that this type of discrimination imposed “an artificial restriction on the market” and interfered with the flow of merchandise. Id., at 18-19; also, on this point, see testimony of Senator Magnuson, 110 Cong. Rec. 7402-7403. In addition, there were many references to 'discriminatory situations causing wide unrest and having a depressant effect on general business conditions in the respective communities. See, e. g., Senate Commerce Committee Hearings, at 623-630, 695-700, 1384-1385.
Moreover there was an impressive array of testimony that discrimination in restaurants had a direct and highly restrictive effect upon interstate travel by Negroes. This resulted, it was said, because discriminatory practices prevent Negroes from buying prepared food served on the premises while on a trip, except in isolated and unkempt restaurants and under most unsatisfactory and often unpleasant conditions. This obviously discourages travel and obstructs interstate commerce for one can hardly travel without eating. Likewise, it was said, that discrimination deterred professional, as well as skilled, people from moving into areas where such practices occurred and thereby caused industry to be reluctant to establish there. S. Rep. No. 872, supra, at 18-19.
We believe that this testimony afforded ample basis for. the conclusion that established restaurants in such areas sold less interstate goods because of the discrimination, that interstate travel was obstructed directly by it, that business in general suffered and that many new businesses refrained from establishing there as a result of it. Hence the District Court was in error in concluding that there was no connection between discrimination and the movement of interstate commerce. The court’s conclusion that such a connection is outside- “common experience” flies in the face of stubborn fact.
It goes without saying that, viewed in isolation, the volume of food purchased by Ollie’s Barbecue from sources supplied from out of state was insignificant when compared with the total foodstuffs moving in commerce: But, as our late Brother Jackson said for the Court in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942):
“That appellee’s own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial.” At 127-128.
We noted in Heart of Atlanta Motel that a number of witnesses attested to the fact that racial discrimination was not merely a state or regional problem but was one of nationwide scope. Against this background, we must conclude that while the focus of the legislation was on the individual restaurant’s relation to interstate commerce, Congress appropriately considered the importance of that connection with the knowledge that the discrimination was but “representative of many others throughout the country, the total incidence of which if left unchecked may well become far-reaching in its harm to commerce.” Polish Alliance v. Labor Board, 322 U. S. 643, 648 (1944).
With this situation spreading as the record shows, Congress was not required to await the total dislocation of commerce. As was said in Consolidated Edison Co. v. Labor Board, 305 U. S. 197 (1938):
“But it cannot be maintained that the exertion of federal power must await the disruption of that commerce. Congress was entitled to provide reasonable preventive measures and that was the object of the National Labor Relations Act.” At 222.
5. The Power of Congress to Regulate Local Activities.
Article I, § 8, cl. 3, confers upon Congress the power “[t]o regulate Commerce . . . among the several States” and . Clause 18 of the same Article grants it the power “[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers . . . .” This grant, as we have pointed out in Heart of Atlanta Motel “extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce, or the exertion of the power of Congress over it, as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the effective execution of the granted power to regulate interstate commerce.” United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U. S. 110, 119 (1942). Much is said about a restaurant business being local but “even if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce . . . .” Wickard v. Filburn, supra, at 125. The activities that are beyond the reach of Congress are “those which are completely within a particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 195 (1824). This rule is as good today as it was when Chief -Justice Marshall laid it down almost a century and a half ago.
This Court has held time and again that this power extends to activities of retail establishments, including restaurants, which directly or indirectly burden or obstruct interstate commerce. We have detailed-the cases in Heart of Atlanta Motel, and will not repeat them here.
Nor are the cases holding that interstate commerce ends when goods come to rest in the State of destination apposite here. That line of cases has been applied with reference to state taxation or regulation but not in the field of federal regulation.
The appellees contend that Congress has arbitrarily created a conclusive presumption that all restaurants meeting the criteria, set out in the Act “affect commerce.” Stated another way, they object to the omission of a provision for a case-by-case detérmination — judicial or administrative — rthat racial discrimination in a particular restaurant affects commerce.
But Congress’ action in framing this Act was not unprecedented. In United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100 (1941), this Court held constitutional the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. There Congress determined that the payment of substandard wages to employees engaged in the production of goods for commerce, while not itself commerce, so inhibited it as to be subject to federal regulation. The appellees in that case argued, as do the appellees here, that the Act was invalid because it included no provision for an independent inquiry regarding the effect on commerce of substandard wagés in a particular business. (Brief for appellees, pp. 76-77, United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100.) But the Court rejected the argument, observing that:
“[S]ometimes Congress itself has said that a particular activity affects the commerce, as it did in the present.Act, the Safety Appliance Act and the Railway Labor Act. In passing on the validity of legislation of the class last mentioned the only function of courts is to determine whether the particular activity regulated or prohibited is within the reach of the federal power.” At 120-121.
Here, as there, Congress has determined for itself that refusals of service to Negroes have imposed burdens both upon the interstate flow of food and upon the movement of products generally. Of course, the mere fact that Congress has said when particular activity shall be deemed to affect commerce does not preclude further examination by this Court. But where we find that the legislators, in light of the facts and testimony before them, have a rational basis for finding a chosen regulatory scheme necessary to the protection of commerce, our investigation is at an end. The only remaining question — one answered in the affirmative by the court below — is whether the particular restaurant either serves or offers to serve interstate travelers or serves food a substantial portion of which has moved in interstate commerce.
The appellees urge that Congress, in passing the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act, made specific findings which were embodied in those statutes. Here, of course, Congress has included no formal findings. But their absence is not fatal to the validity of the statute, see United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152 (1938), for the evidence presented at the hearings fully indicated the nature and effect of the burdens on commerce which Congress meant to alleviate.
Confronted as we are with the facts laid before Congress, we must conclude that it had a rational basis for finding that racial discrimination in restaurants had a direct and adverse effect on the free flow of interstate commerce. Insofar as the sections of the Act here relevant are concerned, §§201 (b)(2) and (c), Congress prohibited discrimination only in those establishments having a close tie to interstate commerce, i. e., those, like the McClungs’, serving food that has come from out of the State. We think in so doing that Congress acted well within its power to protect and foster commerce in extending the coverage of Title II only to those restaurants offering to serve interstate travelers or serving food, a substantial portion of which has moved in interstate commerce.
The absence of direct evidence connecting discriminatory restaurant service with the flow of interstate food, a factor on which the appellees place much reliance, is not, given the evidence as to the effect of such practices on other aspects of commerce, a crucial matter.
The power of Congress in this field is-broad and sweeping; where it keeps within its sphere and violates no express constitutional limitation it has been the rule of this Court, going back almost to the founding days of the Republic, not to interfere. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as here applied, we find to be plainly appropriate in the resolution of what the Congress found to be a national commercial problem of .the first magnitude. We find it in no violation of any express limitations of the Constitution and we therefore declare it valid.
The judgment js therefore
Reversed.
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Black, see ante, p. 268.]
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, see ante, p. 279.]
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Goldberg, see ante, p. 291.]
That decision disposes of the challenges that the appellees base on the Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and Thirteenth Amendments, and on the Civil Bights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883).
52 Stat. 1060, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq. (1958 ed.).
49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (1958 ed.b
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
The question in this case is whether the presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations was a “plain error” that the Court of Appeals was authorized to correct under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b).
I
Each of the respondents, Guy W. Olano, Jr., and Raymond M. Gray, served on the board of directors of a savings and loan association. In 1986, the two were indicted in the Western District of Washington on multiple federal charges for their participation in an elaborate loan “kickback” scheme. Their joint jury trial with five other codefendants commenced in March 1987. All of the parties agreed that 14 jurors would be selected to hear the case, and that the 2 alternates would be identified before deliberations began.
On May 26, shortly before the end of the 3-month trial, the District Court suggested to the defendants that the two alternate jurors, soon to be identified, might be allowed to attend deliberations along with the regular jurors:
“. . . I’d just like you to think about it, you have a day, let me know, it’s just a suggestion and you can — if there is even one person who doesn’t like it we won’t do it, but it is a suggestion that other courts have followed in long cases where jurors have sat through a lot of testimony, and that is to let the alternates go in but not participate, but just to sit in on deliberations.
“It’s strictly a matter of courtesy and I know many judges have done it with no objections from counsel. One of the other things it does is if they don’t participate but they’re there, if an emergency comes up and people decide they’d rather go with a new alternate rather than 11, which the rules provide, it keeps that option open. It also keeps people from feeling they’ve sat here for three months and then get just kind of kicked out. But it’s certainly not worth — unless it’s something you all agree to, it’s not worth your spending time hassling about, you know what I mean? You’ve got too much else on your mind. I don’t want it to be a big issue; it’s just a suggestion. Think about it and let me know.” App. 79.
The matter arose again the next day, in an ambiguous exchange between Gray’s counsel and the District Court:
“THE COURT: [H]ave you given any more thought as to whether you want the alternates to go in and not participate, or do you want them out?
“MR. ROBISON [counsel for Gray]: We would ask they not.
“THE COURT: Not.” App. 82.
One day later, on May 28, the last day of trial, the District Court for a third time asked the defendants whether they wanted the alternate jurors to retire into the jury room. Counsel for defendant Davy Hilling gave an unequivocal, affirmative answer.
“THE COURT: Well, Counsel, I received your alternates. Do I understand that the defendants now — it’s hard to keep up with you, Counsel. It’s sort of a day by day — but that’s all right. You do all agree that all fourteen deliberate?
“Okay. Do you want me to instruct the two alternates not to participate in deliberation?
“MR. KELLOGG [counsel for Hilling]: That’s what I was on my feet to say. It’s my understanding that the conversation was the two alternates go back there instructed that they are not to take part in any fashion in the deliberations.” App. 86.
This discussion, like the preceding two, took place outside the hearing of the jurors. As before, both Gray’s counsel and Olano’s counsel were present. Gray, too, attended all three discussions. Olano may not have attended the third— he claims that the Marshal failed to return him to the courtroom in time — but he was present at the first two.
The District Court concluded that Hilling’s counsel was speaking for the other defendants as well as his own client. None of the other counsel intervened during the colloquy between the District Court and Hilling’s counsel on May 28, nor did anyone object later the same day when the court instructed the jurors that the two alternates would be permitted to attend deliberations. The court instructed:
“We have indicated to you that the parties would be selecting alternates at this time. I am going to inform you who those alternates are, but before I do, let me tell you, I think it was a difficult selection for all concerned, and since the law requires that there be a jury of twelve, it is only going to be a jury of twelve. But what we would like to do in this case is have all of you go back so that even the alternates can be there for the deliberations, but according to the law, the alternates must not participate in the deliberations. It’s going to be hard, but if you are an alternate, we think you should be there because things do happen in the course of lengthy jury deliberations, and if you need to step in, we want you to be able to step in having heard the deliberations. But we are going to ask that you not participate.
“The alternates are Norman Sargent and Shirley Kinsella. I am going to ask at this time now, ladies and gentlemen, that you retire to the jury room and begin your deliberations.” App. 89-90.
During deliberations, one of the alternate jurors was excused at his request. The other alternate remained until the jury returned with its verdict.
Both respondents were convicted on a number of charges. They appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 934 F. 2d 1425 (1991). The Court of Appeals reversed certain counts for insufficient evidence and then considered whether the presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 24(c):
“The court may direct that not more than 6 jurors in addition to the regular jury be called and impanelled to sit as alternate jurors. Alternate jurors in the order in which they are called shall replace jurors who, prior to the time the jury retires to consider its verdict, become or are found to be unable or disqualified to perform their duties.... An alternate juror who does not replace a regular juror shall be discharged after the jury retires to consider its verdict.”
Because respondents had not objected to the alternates’ presence, the court applied a “plain error” standard under Rule 52(b). Noting that “[w]e have not previously directly resolved the question of the validity of a verdict when alternate jurors are permitted to be present during the jury’s deliberations,” the court relied on the “language of Rule 24(c), Rule 23(b), the Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 23, and related Ninth Circuit precedent” to hold that Rule 24(c) barred alternate jurors from attending jury deliberations unless the defendant, on the record, explicitly consented to their attendance. 934 F. 2d, at 1436-1437. The court found that Rule 24(c) was violated in the instant case, because “the district court did not obtain individual waivers from each defendant personally, either orally or in writing.” Id., at 1438. It then held that the presence of alternates in violation of Rule 24(c) was “inherently prejudicial” and reversible per se. Ibid.
“We cannot fairly ascertain whether in a given case the alternate jurors followed the district court’s prohibition on participation. However, even if they heeded the letter of the court’s instructions and remained orally mute throughout, it is entirely possible that their attitudes, conveyed by facial expressions, gestures or the like, may have had some effect upon the decision of one or more jurors.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
Finally, in a footnote, the court decided that “[bjecause the violation is inherently prejudicial and because it infringes upon a substantial right of the defendants, it falls within the plain error doctrine.” Id., at 1439, n. 23.
The Court of Appeals vacated respondents’ remaining convictions and did not reach the other “substantial issues” that they had raised. Id., at 1428, n. 3. We granted certiorari to clarify the standard for “plain error” review by the courts of appeals under Rule 52(b). 504 U. S. 908 (1992).
II
“No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right,” or a right of any other sort, “may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it.” Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, 444 (1944). Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), which governs on appeal from criminal proceedings, provides a court of appeals a limited power to correct errors that were forfeited because not timely raised in district court. The Rule has remained unchanged since the original version of the Criminal Rules, and was intended as “a restatement of existing law.” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52, 18 U. S. C. App., p. 833. It is paired, appropriately, with Rule 52(a), which governs nonforfeited errors. Rule 52 provides:
“(a) Harmless Error. Any error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.
“(b) Plain Error. Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.”
Although “[a] rigid and undeviating judicially declared practice under which courts of review would invariably and under all circumstances decline to consider all questions which had not previously been specifically urged would be out of harmony with . . . the rules of fundamental justice,” Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U. S. 552, 557 (1941), the authority created by Rule 52(b) is circumscribed. There must be an “error” that is “plain” and that “affect[s] substantial rights.” Moreover, Rule 52(b) leaves the decision to correct the forfeited error within the sound discretion of the court of appeals, and the court should not exercise that discretion unless the error “ ‘seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” United States v. Young, 470 U. S. 1, 15 (1985) (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U. S. 157, 160 (1936)).
A
Rule 52(b) defines a single category of forfeited-but-reversible error. Although it is possible to read the Rule in the disjunctive, as creating two separate categories — “plain errors” and “defects affecting substantial rights”—that reading is surely wrong. See Young, 470 U. S., at 15, n. 12 (declining to adopt disjunctive reading). As we explained in Young, the phrase “error or defect” is more simply read as “error.” Ibid. The forfeited error “may be noticed” only if it is “plain” and “affect[s] substantial rights.” More precisely, a court of appeals may correct the error (either vacating for a new trial, or reversing outright) only if it meets these criteria. The appellate court must consider the error, putative or real, in deciding whether the judgment below should be overturned, but cannot provide that remedy unless Rule 52(b) applies (or unless some other provision authorizes the error’s correction, an issue that respondents do not raise).
The first limitation on appellate authority under Rule 52(b) is that there indeed be an “error.” Deviation from a legal rule is “error” unless the rule has been waived. For example, a defendant who knowingly and voluntarily pleads guilty in conformity with the requirements of Rule 11 cannot have his conviction vacated by a court of appeals on the ground that he ought to have had a trial. Because the right to trial is waivable, and because the defendant who enters a valid guilty plea waives that right, his conviction without a trial is not “error.”
Waiver is different from forfeiture. Whereas forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right, waiver is the “intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1938); see, e. g., Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868, 894, n. 2 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (distinguishing between “waiver” and “forfeiture”); Spritzer, Criminal Waiver, Procedural Default and the Burger Court, 126 U. Pa. L. Rev. 473, 474-477 (1978) (same); Westen, Away from Waiver: A Rationale for the Forfeiture of Constitutional Rights in Criminal Procedure, 75 Mich. L. Rev. 1214, 1214-1215 (1977) (same). Whether a particular right is waivable; whether the defendant must participate personally in the waiver; whether certain procedures are required for waiver; and whether the defendant’s choice must be particularly informed or voluntary, all depend on the right at stake. See, e.g., 2 W. LaFave & J. Israel, Criminal Procedure §11.6 (1984) (allocation of authority between defendant and counsel); Dix, Waiver in Criminal Procedure: A Brief for More Careful Analysis, 55 Texas L. Rev. 193 (1977) (waivability and standards for waiver). Mere forfeiture, as opposed to waiver, does not extinguish an “error” under Rule 52(b). Although in theory it could be argued that “[i]f the question was not presented to the trial court no error was committed by the trial court, hence there is nothing to review,” Orfield, The Scope of Appeal in Criminal Cases, 84 U. Pa. L. Rev. 825, 840 (1936), this is not the theory that Rule 52(b) adopts. If a legal rule was violated during the district court proceedings, and if the defendant did not waive the rule, then there has been an “error” within the meaning of Rule 52(b) despite the absence of a timely objection.
The second limitation on appellate authority under Rule 52(b) is that the error be “plain.” “Plain” is synonymous with “clear” or, equivalently, “obvious.” See Young, supra, at 17, n. 14; United States v. Frady, 456 U. S. 152, 163 (1982). We need not consider the special case where the error was unclear at the time of trial but becomes clear on appeal because the applicable law has been clarified. At a minimum, a court of appeals cannot correct an error pursuant to Rule 52(b) unless the error is clear under current law.
The third and final limitation on appellate authority under Rule 52(b) is that the plain error “affec[t] substantial rights.” This is the same language employed in Rule 52(a), and in most cases it means that the error must have been prejudicial: It must have affected the outcome of the district court proceedings. See, e. g., Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U. S. 250, 255-257 (1988); United States v. Lane, 474 U. S. 438, 454-464 (1986) (Brennan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U. S. 750, 758-765 (1946). When the defendant has made a timely objection to an error and Rule 52(a) applies, a court of appeals normally engages in a specific analysis of the district court record — a so-called “harmless error” inquiry — to determine whether the error was prejudicial. Rule 52(b) normally requires the same kind of inquiry, with one important difference: It is the defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice. In most eases, a court of appeals cannot correct the forfeited error unless the defendant shows that the error was prejudicial. See Young, supra, at 17, n. 14 (“[Fjederal courts have consistently interpreted the plain-error doctrine as requiring an appellate court to find that the claimed error . . . had [a] prejudicial impact on the jury’s deliberations”). This burden shifting is dictated by a subtle but important difference in language between the two parts of Rule 52: While Rule 52(a) precludes error correction only if the error “does not affect substantial rights” (emphasis added), Rule 52(b) authorizes no remedy unless the error does “affec[t] substantial rights.” See also Note, Appellate Review in a Criminal Case of Errors Made Below Not Properly Raised and Reserved, 23 Miss. L. J. 42, 57 (1951) (summarizing existing law) (“The error must be real and such that it probably influenced the verdict. . .”).
We need not decide whether the phrase “affecting substantial rights” is always synonymous with “prejudicial.” See generally Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U. S. 279, 310 (1991) (constitutional error may not be found harmless if error deprives defendant of the “ ‘basic protections [without which] a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function as a vehicle for determination of guilt or innocence, and no criminal punishment may be regarded as fundamentally fair’ ”) (quoting Rose v. Clark, 478 U. S. 570, 577-578 (1986)). There may be a special category of forfeited errors that can be corrected regardless of their effect on the outcome, but this issue need not be addressed. Nor need we address those errors that should be presumed prejudicial if the defendant cannot make a specific showing of prejudice. Normally, although perhaps not in every case, the defendant must make a specific showing of prejudice to satisfy the “affecting substantial rights” prong .of Rule 52(b).
B
Rule 52(b) is permissive, not mandatory. If the forfeited error is “plain” and “affect[s] substantial rights,” the court of appeals has authority to order correction, but is not required to do so. The language of the Rule (“may be noticed”), the nature of forfeiture, and the established appellate practice that Congress intended to continue all point to this conclusion. “[I]n criminal cases, where the life, or as in this case the liberty, of the defendant is at stake, the courts of the .United States, in the exercise of a sound discretion, may notice [forfeited error].” Sykes v. United States, 204 F. 909, 913-914 (CA8 1913). Accord, Crawford v. United States, 212 U. S. 183, 194 (1909); former Supreme Court Rule 27.6 (1939) (cited in Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. Rule 52(b), 18 U. S. C. App., p. 833) (“ ‘[T]he court, at its option, may notice a plain error not assigned or specified’ ”).
We previously have explained that the discretion conferred by Rule 52(b) should be employed “ ‘in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result.’” Young, 470 U. S., at 15 (quoting Frady, supra, at 163, n. 14). In our collateral-review jurisprudence, the term “miscarriage of justice” means that the defendant is actually innocent. See, e. g., Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333, 339-340 (1992). The court of appeals should no doubt correct a plain forfeited error that causes the conviction or sentencing of an actually innocent defendant, see, e. g., Wiborg v. United States, 163 U. S. 632 (1896), but we have never held that a Rule 52(b) remedy is only warranted in cases of actual innocence.
Rather, the standard that should guide the exercise of remedial discretion under Rule 52(b) was articulated in United States v. Atkinson, 297 U. S. 157 (1936). The court of appeals should correct a plain forfeited error affecting substantial rights if the error “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id., at 160. As we explained in Young, the “standard laid down in United States v. Atkinson [was] codified in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b),” 470 U. S., at 7, and we repeatedly have quoted the Atkinson language in describing plain-error review, see id., at 15; Frady, supra, at 163, n. 13; Silber v. United States, 370 U. S. 717, 718 (1962) (per curiam); Johnson v. United States, 318 U. S. 189, 200 (1943); United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 239 (1940); see also Connor v. Finch, 431 U. S. 407, 421, n. 19 (1977) (civil appeal). An error may “seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings” independent of the defendant’s innocence. Conversely, a plain error affecting substantial rights does not, without more, satisfy the Atkinson standard, for otherwise the discretion afforded by Rule 52(b) would be illusory.
With these basic principles in mind, we turn to the instant case.
III
The presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations is no .doubt a deviation from Rule 24(c). The Rule explicitly states: “An alternate juror who does not replace a regular juror shall be discharged after the jury retires to consider its verdict.” It is a separate question whether such deviation amounts to “error” when the defendant consents to the alternates’ presence. The Government supposes that there was indeed an “error” in this case, on the premise, that Rule 24(c) is nonwaivable, see Reply Brief for United States 9, n. 4, and we assume without deciding that this premise is correct. The Government also essentially concedes that the “error” was “plain.” See id., at 8-9, and n. 4.
We therefore focus our attention on whether the error “affect[ed] substantial rights” within the meaning of Rule 52(b), and conclude that it did not. The presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations is not the kind of error that “affect[s] substantial rights” independent of its prejudicial impact. Nor have respondents made a specific showing of prejudice. Finally, we see no reason to presume prejudice here.
Assuming arguendo that certain errors “affec[t] substantial rights” independent of prejudice, the instant violation of Rule 24(c) is not such an error. Although the presence of alternate jurors does contravene “'the cardinal principle that the deliberations of the jury shall remain private and secret,’” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 23(b), 18 U. S. C. App., p. 785 (quoting United States v. Virginia Erection Corp., 335 F. 2d 868, 872 (CA4 1964)), the primary if not exclusive purpose of jury privacy and secrecy
is to protect the jury's deliberations from improper influence. “[I]f no harm resulted from this intrusion [of an alternate juror into the jury room,] reversal would be pointless.” United States v. Watson, 669 F. 2d 1374, 1391 (CA11 1982). We generally have analyzed outside intrusions upon the jury for prejudicial impact. See, e. g., Parker v. Gladden, 385 U. S. 363 (1967) (per curiam) (bailiff’s comments to jurors, such as “Oh that wicked fellow he is guilty,” were prejudicial); Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025 (1984) (pretrial publicity was not prejudicial); Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U. S. 560 (1986) (presence of uniformed state troopers in courtroom was not prejudicial). A prime example is Remmer v. United States, 347 U. S. 227 (1954), where an outsider had communicated with a juror during a criminal trial, appearing to offer a bribe, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation then had investigated the incident. We noted that “[t]he sending of an F. B. I. agent in the midst of a trial to investigate a juror as to his conduct is bound to impress the juror,” and remanded for the District Court to “determine the circumstances, the impact thereof upon the juror, and whether or not it was prejudicial, in a hearing with all interested parties permitted to participate.” Id., at 229-230.
This “intrusion” jurisprudence was summarized in Smith v. Phillips, 455 U. S. 209 (1982):
“[D]ue process does not require a new trial every time a juror has been placed in a potentially compromising situation. Were that the rule, few trials would be constitutionally acceptable.... [I]t is virtually impossible to shield jurors from every contact or influence that might theoretically affect their vote. Due process means a jury capable and willing to decide the case solely on the evidence before it, and a trial judge ever watchful to prevent prejudicial occurrences and to determine the effect of such occurrences when they happen.” Id., at 217.
There may be cases where an intrusion should be presumed prejudicial, see, e. g., Patton, supra, at 1031-1035; Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 466 (1965), but a presumption of prejudice as opposed to a specific analysis does not change the ultimate inquiry: Did the intrusion affect the jury’s deliberations and thereby its verdict? We cannot imagine why egregious comments by a bailiff to a juror (Parker) or an apparent bribe followed by an official investigation (Remmer) should be evaluated in terms of “prejudice,” while the mere presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations should not. Of course, the issue here is whether the alternates’ presence sufficed to establish remedial authority under Rule 52(b), not whether it violated the Sixth Amendment or Due Process Clause, but we see no reason to depart from the normal interpretation of the phrase “affecting substantial rights.”
The question, then, is whether the instant violation of Rule 24(c) prejudiced respondents, either specifically or presumptively. In theory, the presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations might prejudice a defendant in two different ways: either because the alternates actually participated in the deliberations, verbally or through “body language”; or because the alternates’ presence exerted a “chilling” effect on the regular jurors. See Watson, supra, at 1391; United States v. Allison, 481 F. 2d 468, 472 (CA5 1973). Conversely, “if the alternate in fact abided by the court’s instructions to remain orally silent and not to otherwise indicate his views or attitude . . . and if the presence of the alternate did not operate as a restraint upon the regular jurors’ freedom of expression and action, we see little substantive difference between the presence of [the alternate] and the presence in the juryroom of. an unexamined book which had not been admitted into evidence.” Id., at 472.
Respondents have made no specific showing that the alternate jurors in this case either participated in the jury’s deliberations or “chilled” deliberation by the regular jurors. We need not decide whether testimony on this score by the alternate jurors or the regular jurors, through affidavits or at a Remmer-like hearing, would violate Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), compare Watson, supra, at 1391-1392, and n. 17, with United States v. Beasley, 464 F. 2d 468 (CA10 1972), or whether the courts of appeals have authority to remand for Remmer-like hearings on plain-error review. Respondents have never requested a hearing, and thus the record before us contains no direct evidence that the alternate jurors influenced the verdict. On this record, we are not persuaded that the instant violation of Rule 24(c) was actually prejudicial.
Nor will we presume prejudice for purposes of the Rule 52(b) analysis here. The Court of Appeals was incorrect in finding the error “inherently prejudicial.” 934 F. 2d, at 1439. Until the close of trial, the 2 alternate jurors were indistinguishable from the 12 regular jurors. Along with the regular jurors, they commenced their office with an oath, see Tr. 212 (Mar. 2,1987), received the normal initial admonishment, see id., at 212-218, heard the same evidence and arguments, and were not identified as alternates until after the District Court gave a final set of instructions, see App. 89-90. In those instructions, the District Court specifically enjoined the jurors that “according to the law, the alternates must not participate in the deliberations,” and reiterated, “we are going to ask that you not participate.” Ibid. The Court of Appeals should not have supposed that this injunction was contravened. “[It is] the almost invariable assumption of the law that jurors follow their instructions. ” Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U. S. 200, 206 (1987). “[We] presum[e] that jurors, conscious of the gravity of their task, attend closely the particular language of the trial court’s instructions in a criminal case and strive to understand, make sense of, and follow the instructions given them.” Francis v. Franklin, 471 U. S. 307, 324, n. 9 (1985). See also Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 694 (1984) (in assessing prejudice for purposes of ineffective-assistance claim, “a court should presume ... that the judge or jury acted according to law”). Nor do we think that the mere presence of alternate jurors entailed a sufficient risk of “chill” to justify a presumption of prejudice on that score.
In sum, respondents have not met their burden of showing prejudice under Rule 52(b). Whether the Government could have met its burden of showing the absence of prejudice, under Rule 52(a), if respondents had not forfeited their claim of error, is not at issue here. This is a plain-error case, and it is respondents who must persuade the appellate court that the deviation from Rule 24(c) was prejudicial.
Because the conceded error in this case did not “affecft] substantial rights,” the Court of Appeals had no authority to correct it. We need not consider whether the error, if prejudicial, would have warranted correction under the Atkinson standard as “seriously affectfing] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The six defendants in this case were indicted by a United States grand jury in the Middle District of Georgia for criminal conspiracy in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 241 (1964 ed.). That section provides in relevant part:
“If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same ;
“They shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
In five numbered paragraphs, the indictment alleged a single conspiracy by the defendants to deprive Negro citizens of the free exercise and enjoyment of several specified rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States. The defendants moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that it did not charge an offense under the laws of the United States. The District Court sustained the motion and dismissed the indictment as to all defendants and all numbered paragraphs of the indictment. 246 F. Supp. 475.
The United States appealed directly to this Court under the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3731. We postponed decision of the question of our jurisdiction to the hearing on the merits. 381 U. S. 932. It is now apparent that this Court does not have jurisdiction to decide one of the issues sought to be raised on this direct appeal. As to the other issues, however, our appellate jurisdiction is clear, and for the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment of the District Court. As in United States v. Price, post, p. 787, decided today, we deal here with issues of statutory construction, not with issues of constitutional power.
I.
The first numbered paragraph of the indictment, reflecting a portion of the language of § 201 (a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. '§ 2000a (a) (1964 ed.), alleged that the defendants conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate Negro citizens in the free exercise and enjoyment of:
“The right to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of motion picture theaters, restaurants, and other places of public accommodation.”
The District Court held that this paragraph of the indictment failed to state an offense against rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States. The court found a fatal flaw in the failure of the paragraph to include an allegation that the acts of the defendants were motivated by racial discrimination, an allegation the court thought essential to charge an interference with rights secured by Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court went on to say that, in any event, 18 U. S. C. § 241 is not an available sanction to protect rights secured by that title because § 207 (b) of the 1964 Act, 42 U. S. C. § 2000a-6 (b) (1964 ed.), specifies that the remedies provided in Title II itself are to be the exclusive means of enforcing the rights the title secures.
A direct appeal to this Court is available to the United States under the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3731, from “a decision or judgment . . . dismissing any indictment ... or any count thereof, where such decision or judgment is based upon the . . . construction of the statute upon which the indictment ... is founded.” In the present case, however, the District Court’s judgment as to the first paragraph of the indictment was based, at least alternatively, upon its determination that this paragraph was defective as a matter of pleading. Settled principles of review under the Criminal Appeals Act therefore preclude our review of the District Court’s judgment on this branch of the indictment. In United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, Chief Justice Hughes, speaking for a unanimous Court, set out these principles with characteristic clarity:
“The established principles governing our review are these: (1) Appeal does not lie from a judgment which rests on the mere deficiencies of the indictment as a pleading, as distinguished from a construction of the statute which underlies the indictment. (2) Nor will an appeal lie in a case where the District Court has considered the construction of the statute but has also rested its decision upon the independent ground of a defect in pleading which is not subject to our examination. In that case we cannot disturb the judgment and the question of construction becomes abstract. (3) This Court must accept the construction given to the indictment by the District Court as that is a matter we are not authorized to review. . . .” 308 U. S., at 193.
See also United States v. Swift & Co., 318 U. S. 442, 444.
The result is not changed by the circumstance that we have jurisdiction over this appeal as to the other paragraphs of the indictment. United States v. Borden, supra, involved an indictment comparable to the present one for the purposes of jurisdiction under the Criminal Appeals Act. In Borden, the District Court had held all four counts of the indictment invalid as a matter of construction of the Sherman Act, but had also held the third count defective as a matter of pleading. The Court accepted jurisdiction on direct appeal as to the first, second, and fourth counts of the indictment, but it dismissed the appeal as to the third count for want of jurisdiction.. “The Government’s appeal does not open the whole case.” 308 U. S. 188, 193.
It is hardly necessary to add that our ruling as to the Court’s1 lack of jurisdiction now to review this aspect of the case implies no opinion whatsoever as to the correctness either of the District Court’s appraisal of this paragraph of the indictment as a matter of pleading or of the court’s view of the preclusive effect of § 207 (b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
II.
The second numbered paragraph of the indictment alleged that the defendants conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate Negro citizens of the United States in the free exercise and enjoyment of:
“The right to the equal utilization, without discrimination upon the basis of race, of public facilities in the vicinity of Athens, Georgia, owned, operated or managed by or on behalf of the State of Georgia or any subdivision thereof.”
Correctly characterizing this paragraph as embracing rights protected by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth' Amendment, the District Court held as a matter of statutory construction that 18 U. S. C. § 241 does not encompass any Fourteenth Amendment rights, and further held as a matter of constitutional law that “any broader construction of § 241 . . . would render it void for indefiniteness.” 246 F. Supp., at 486. In so holding, the District Court was in error, as our opinion in United States v. Price, post, p. 787, decided today, makes abundantly clear.
To be sure, Price involves rights under the Due Process Clause, whereas the present case involves rights under the Equal Protection Clause. But no possible reason suggests itself for concluding that § 241 — if it protects Fourteenth Amendment rights — protects rights secured by the one Clause but not those secured by the other. We have made clear in Price that when § 241 speaks of “any right or privilege secured ... by the Constitution or laws of the United States,” it means precisely that.
Moreover, inclusion of Fourteenth Amendment rights within the compass of 18 U. S. C. § 241 does not render the statute unconstitutionally vague. Since the gravamen of the offense is conspiracy, the requirement that the offender must act with a specific intent to interfere with the federal rights in question is satisfied. Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91; United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 70, 93-95 (dissenting opinion). And the rights under the Equal Protection Clause described by this paragraph of the indictment have been so firmly and precisely established by a consistent line of decisions in this Court, that the lack of specification of these rights in the language of § 241 itself can raise no serious constitutional question on the ground of vagueness or indefiniteness.
Unlike the indictment in Price, however, the indictment in the present case names no person alleged to have acted in any way under the color of state law. The argument is therefore made that, since there exist no Equal Protection Clause rights against wholly private action, the judgment of the District Court on this branch of the case must be affirmed. On its face, the argument is unexceptionable. The Equal Protection Clause speaks to the State or to those acting under the color of its authority.
In this connection, we emphasize that § 241 by its clear language incorporates no more than the Equal Protection Clause itself; the statute does not purport to give substantive, as opposed to remedial, implementation to any rights secured by that Clause. Since we therefore deal here only with the bare terms of the Equal Protection Clause itself, nothing said in this opinion goes to the question of what kinds of other and broader legislation Congress might, constitutionally enact under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to implement that Clause or any other provision of the Amendment.
It is a commonplace that rights under the Equal Protection Clause itself arise only where there has been involvement of the State or of one acting under the color of its authority. The Equal Protection Clause “does not... add any thing to the rights which one citizen has under the Constitution against another.” United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 554-555. As Mr. Justice Douglas more recently put it, “The Fourteenth Amendment protects the individual against state action, not against wrongs done by individuals.” United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 70, 92 (dissenting opinion). This has been the view of the Court from the beginning. United States v. Cruikshank, supra; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3; Hodges v. United States, 203 U. S. 1; United States v. Powell, 212 U. S. 564. It remains the Court’s view today. See, e. g., Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296; United States v. Price, post, p. 787.
This is not to say, however, that the involvement of the State need be either exclusive or direct. In a variety of situations the Court has found state action of a nature sufficient to create rights under the Equal Protection Clause even though the participation of the State was peripheral, or its action was only one of several co-operative forces leading to the constitutional violation. See, e. g., Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1; Pennsylvania v. Board of Trusts, 353 U. S. 230; Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715; Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244; Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267; Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U. S. 130; Robinson v. Florida, 378 U. S. 153; Evans v. Newton, supra.
This case, however, requires no determination of the threshold level that state action must attain in order to create rights under the Equal Protection Clause. This is so because, contrary to the argument of the litigants, the indictment in fact contains an express allegation of state involvement sufficient at least to require the denial of a motion to dismiss. One of the means of accomplishing the object of the conspiracy, according to the indictment, was “By causing the arrest of Negroes by means of false reports that such Negroes had committed criminal acts.” In Bell v. Maryland, 378 U. S. 226, three members of the Court expressed the view that a private businessman’s invocation of state police and judicial action to carry out his own policy of racial discrimination was sufficient to create Equal Protection Clause rights in those against whom the racial discrimination was directed. Three other members of the Court strongly disagreed with that view, and three expressed no opinion on the question. The allegation of the extent of official involvement in the present case is not clear. It may charge no more than co-operative private and state action similar to that involved in Bell, but it may go considerably further. For example, the allegation is broad enough to cover a charge of active connivance by agents of the State in the making of the “false reports,” or other conduct amounting to official discrimination clearly sufficient to constitute denial of rights protected by the Equal Protection Clause. Although it is possible that a bill of particulars, or the proof if the case goes to trial, would disclose no co-operative action of that kind by officials of the State, the allegation is enough to prevent dismissal of this branch of the indictment.
III.
The fourth numbered paragraph of the indictment alleged that the defendants conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate Negro citizens of the United States in the free exercise and enjoyment of:
“The right to travel freely to and from the State of Georgia and to use highway facilities and other instrumentalities of interstate commerce within the State of Georgia.”
The District Court was in error in dismissing the indictment as to this paragraph. The constitutional right to travel from one State to another, and necessarily to use the highways and other instrumentalities of interstate commerce in doing so, occupies a position fundamental to the concept of our Federal Union. It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized. In Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, invalidating a Nevada tax on every person leaving the State by common carrier, the Court took as its guide the statement of Chief Justice Taney in the Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 492:
“For all the great purposes for which the Federal government was formed, we are one people, with one common country. We are all citizens of the United States; and, as members of the same community, must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own States.”
See 6 Wall., at 48-49.
Although the Articles of Confederation provided that “the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State,” that right finds no explicit mention in the Constitution. The reason, it has been suggested, is that a right so elementary was conceived from the beginning to be a necessary concomitant of the stronger Union the Constitution created. In any event, freedom to travel throughout the United States has long been recognized as a basic right under the Constitution. See Williams v. Fears, 179 U. S. 270, 274; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 97; Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, 177 (concurring opinion), 181 (concurring opinion); New York v. O’Neill, 359 U. S. 1, 6-8; 12-16 (dissenting opinion).
In Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, invalidating a California law which impeded the free interstate passage of the indigent, the Court based its reaffirmation of the federal right of interstate travel upon the Commerce Clause. This ground of decision was consistent with precedents firmly establishing that the federal commerce power surely encompasses the movement in interstate commerce of persons as well as commodities. Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 203; Covington; Cincinnati Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U. S. 204, 218-219; Hoke v. United States, 227 U. S. 308, 320; United States v. Hill, 248 U. S. 420, 423. It is also well settled in our decisions that the federal commerce power authorizes Congress to legislate for the protection of individuals from violations of civil rights that impinge on their free movement in interstate commerce. Mitchell v. United States, 313 U. S. 80; Henderson v. United States, 339 U. S. 816; Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U. S. 454; Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U. S. 241; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294.
Although there have been recurring differences in emphasis within the Court as to the source of the constitutional right of interstate travel, there is no need here to canvass those differences further. All have agreed that the right exists. Its explicit recognition as one of the federal rights protected by what is now 18 U. S. C. § 241 goes back at least as far as 1904. United States v. Moore, 129 F. 630, 633. We reaffirm it now.
This does not mean, of course, that every criminal conspiracy affecting an individual’s right of free interstate passage is within the sanction of 18 U. S. C. § 241. A specific intent to interfere with the federal right must be proved, and at a trial the defendants are entitled to a jury instruction phrased in those terms. Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 106-107. Thus, for example, a conspiracy to rob an interstate traveler would not, of itself, violate § 241. But if the predominant purpose of the conspiracy is to impede or prevent the exercise of the right of interstate travel, or to oppress a person because of his exercise of that right, then, whether or not motivated by racial discrimination, the conspiracy becomes a proper object of the federal law under which the indictment in this case was brought. Accordingly, it was error to grant the motion to dismiss on this branch of the indictment.
For these reasons, the judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The indictment, filed on October 16, 1964, was as follows:
“THE GRAND JURY CHARGES:
“Commencing on or about January 1, 1964, and continuing to the date of this indictment, HERBERT GUEST, JAMES SPER-GEON LACKEY, CECIL .WILLIAM MYERS, DENVER WILLIS PHILLIPS, JOSEPH HOWARD SIMS, and GEORGE HAMPTON TURNER, did, within the Middle District of Georgia, Athens Division, conspire together, with each other, and with other persons to the Grand Jury unknown, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate 'Negro citizens of the United States in the vicinity of Athens, Georgia, in the free exercise and enjoyment by said Negro citizens of the following rights and privileges secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States:
“1. The right to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of motion picture theaters, restaurants, and other places of public accommodation;
“2. The right to the equal utilization, without discrimination upon the basis of race, of public facilities in the vicinity of Athens, Georgia, owned, operated or managed by or on behalf of the State of Georgia or any subdivision thereof;
“3. The right to the full and equal use on the same terms as white citizens of the public streets and highways in the vicinity of Athens, Georgia;
“4. The right to travel freely to and from the State of Georgia and to use highway facilities and other instrumentalities of interstate commerce within the State of Georgia;
“5. Other rights exercised and enjoyed by white citizens in the vicinity of Athens, Georgia.
“It was a part of the plan and purpose of the conspiracy that its objects be achieved by various means, including the following:
“1. By shooting Negroes;
“2. By beating Negroes;
“3. By killing Negroes;
“4. By damaging and destroying property of Negroes;
“5. By pursuing Negroes in automobiles and threatening them with guns;
“6. By making telephone calls to Negroes to threaten their lives, property, and persons, and by making such threats in person;
“7. By going in disguise on the highway and on the premises of other persons;
“8. By causing the arrest of Negroes by means of false reports that such Negroes had committed criminal acts; and
“9. By burning crosses at night in public view.
“All in violation of Section 241, Title 18, United States Code.”
The only additional indication in the record concerning the factual details of the conduct with which the defendants were charged is the statement of the District Court that: “It is common knowledge that two, of the defendants, Sims and Myers, have already been prosecuted in the Superior Court of Madison County, Georgia for the murder of Lemuel A. Penn and by a jury found not guilty.” 246 F. Supp. 475, 487.
This appeal concerns only the first four numbered paragraphs of the indictment. The Government conceded in the District Court that the fifth paragraph added nothing to the indictment, and no question is raised here as to the dismissal of that paragraph.
Section 201 (a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000a (a) (1964 ed.), provides:
“All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.”
The criteria for coverage of motion picture theaters by the Act are stated in §§201 (b)(3) and 201 (c)(3), 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000a (b)(3) and 2000a (c)(3) (1964 ed.); the criteria for coverage of restaurants are stated in §§201 (b)(2) and 201 (c)(2), 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000a (b) (2) and 2000a (c)(2) (1964 ed.). No issue is raised here as to the failure of the indictment to allege specifically that the Act is applicable to the places of public accommodation described in this paragraph of the indictment.
The District .Court said: “The Government contends that the rights enumerated in paragraph 1 stem from Title 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and thus automatically come within the purview of § 241. The Government conceded on oral argument that paragraph one would add nothing to the indictment absent the Act. It is not clear how the rights mentioned in paragraph one can be said to come from the Act because § 201 (a), upon which the draftsman doubtless relied, lists the essential element 'without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.’ This element is omitted from paragraph one of the indictment, and does not appear in the charging part of the indictment. The Supreme Court said in Cruikshank, supra, 92 U. S. at page 556, where deprivation of right to vote was involved,
“ ‘We may suspect that “race” was the cause of the hostility; but it is not so averred. This is material to a description of the substance of the offense and cannot be supplied by implication. Everything essential must be charged positively, not inferentially. The defect here is not in form, but in substance.’ ” 246 F. Supp. 475, 484.
Section 207 (b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §2000a-6(b) (1964 ed.), states:
“The remedies provided in this title shall be the exclusive means of enforcing the rights based on this title, but nothing in this title shall preclude any individual or any State or local agency from asserting any right based on any other Federal or State law not inconsistent with this title, including any statute or ordinance requiring nondiscrimination in public establishments or accommodations, or from pursuing any remedy, civil or criminal, which may be available for the vindication or enforcement of such right.”
Relying on this provision and its legislative history, the District Court said: “It seems crystal clear that the Congress in enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not intend to subject anyone to any possible criminal penalties except those specifically provided for in the Act itself.” 246 F. Supp., at 485.
See, e. g., Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (schools); New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 358 U. S. 54, Wright v. Georgia, 373 U. S. 284, Watson v. Memphis, 373 U. S. 526, City of New Orleans v. Barthe, 376 U. S. 189 (parks and playgrounds); Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 350 U. S. 879 (golf course); Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City v. Dawson, 350 U. S. 877 (beach); Muir v. Louisville Park Theatrical Assn., 347 U. S. 971 (auditorium); Johnson v. Virginia, 373 U. S. 61 (courthouse); Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (parking garage); Turner v. City of Memphis, 369 U. S. 350 (airport).
“No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
See p. 747, supra.
Thus, contrary to the suggestion in Mr. Justice BrenNAN’s separate opinion, nothing said in this opinion has the slightest bearing on the validity or construction of Title III or Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000b, 2000c (1964 ed.).
See note 1, supra.
378 U. S. 226, at 242 (separate opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas); id., at 286 (separate opinion of Mr. Justice Goldberg).
Id., at 318 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Black) .
The third numbered paragraph alleged that the defendants conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate Negro citizens of the United States in the free exercise and enjoyment of:
“The right to the full and equal use on the same terms as white citizens of the public streets and highways in the vicinity of Athens, Georgia.”
Insofar as the third paragraph refers to the use of local public facilities, it is covered by the discussion of the second numbered paragraph of the indictment in Part II of this opinion. Insofar as the third paragraph refers to the use of streets or highways in interstate commerce, it is covered by the present discussion of the fourth numbered paragraph of the indictment.
Art. IV, Articles of Confederation.
See Chafee, Three Human Rights in the Constitution of 1787, at 185 (1956). '
The District Court relied heavily on United States v. Wheeler, 254 U. S. 281, in dismissing this branch of the indictment. That case involved an alleged conspiracy to compel residents of Arizona to move out of that State. The right of interstate travel was, therefore, not directly involved. Whatever continuing validity Wheeler may have as restricted to its own facts, the dicta in the Wheeler opinion relied on by the District Court in the present case have been discredited in subsequent decisions. Cf. Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, 177, 180 (Douglas, J., concurring); United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 70, 80.
As emphasized in Mr. Justice Harlan’s separate opinion, § 241 protects only against interference with rights secured by other federal laws or by the Constitution itself. The right to interstate travel is a right that the Constitution itself guarantees, as the cases cited in the text make clear. Although these cases in fact involved governmental interference with the right of free interstate travel, their reasoning fully supports the conclusion that the constitutional right of interstate travel is a right secured against interference from any source whatever, whether governmental or private. In this connection, it is important to reiterate that the right to travel freely from State to State finds constitutional protection that is quite independent of the Fourteenth Amendment.
We are not concerned here with the extent to which interstate travel may be regulated or controlled by the exercise of a State’s police power acting within the confines of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, 184 (concurring opinion); New York v. O’Neill, 359 U. S. 1, 6-8. Nor is there any issue here as to the permissible extent of federal interference with the right within the confines of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Cf. Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a multiple claims action in which the District Court entered a judgment disposing of but one claim. Pursuant to Rule 54 (b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as amended in 1946, that court expressly determined that there was no just reason for delay and expressly directed the entry of judgment. Thereupon, an appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals, and the issue before us is whether the latter court has jurisdiction to entertain that appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1291, although an unadjudicated counterclaim awaits disposition in the District Court. The issue is comparable to that decided in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, at 427, except that here the unadjudicated claim is a counterclaim arising in part out of the same transactions and occurrences as the adjudicated claim. By applying the reasoning used in the Sears case, we reach a like conclusion here and uphold the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals.
While the counterclaim arises in part out of the same transactions as does the adjudicated claim, it was filed long after the principal proceeding was begun, and is in the nature of an action ancillary to the principal proceeding and bears a separate case number. Upon request of both parties, the District Court has removed the counterclaim from the trial calendar, without prejudice to either party, leaving it subject to reinstatement for trial at any time by order of the court upon its own initiative, or upon request of either party after reasonable notice. A brief review of the entire proceedings and a disclosure of its subject matter throws light on the relationship between the adjudicated claim and the counterclaim.
In 1927, petitioner, The Cold Metal Process Company, an Ohio corporation, and United Engineering & Foundry Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, entered into a contract for the purpose of securing a patent in the name of Cold Metal relating to a certain type of steel rolling mill and of granting to United an exclusive license to make, use and sell mills under such patent. To that end, the parties contributed claims under their respective patent applications and it was agreed that the license should be granted when the patent was issued. The parties also agreed to try, by negotiation, to determine the amount of the payment by United for the license. If the parties could not agree on that point, the subject was to be submitted to arbitration in a manner specified in the contract.
In 1930, the patent was issued but Cold Metal refused to treat the 1927 contract as conferring an exclusive license on United. Cold Metal maintained that United was not a licensee until the amount due Cold Metal had been determined and paid. United, on the other hand, treated the contract as an enforceable exclusive license under which the license fee was to be determined later.
After litigation not now material, Cold Metal, in 1934, instituted the present proceeding, Equity No. 2991, against United in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Cold Metal asked (1) for an injunction restraining United from prosecuting certain suits, pending in Ohio and elsewhere, founded upon United's claim of exclusive rights under the patent, and (2) for determination of the amount to be paid by United under the 1927 contract. The court declined to issue a preliminary injunction, 9 F. Supp. 994, but Cold Metal appealed from such denial and, in 1935, obtained a reversal directing the injunction to be issued, 79 F. 2d 666.
In 1936, Cold Metal, in line with the foregoing results, filed a supplemental complaint asking that the 1927 contract be “cancelled, revoked and annulled” and that United be enjoined from further operations under the patent. However, in 1938, the District Court, after trial, held the contract valid and enforceable, and directed an accounting before a master. 83 F. Supp. 914.
Cold Metal appealed but, in 1939, the Court of Appeals reversed its 1935 decision and largely sustained United’s position. It ordered that the injunction against United’s infringement suits be dissolved and held that the 1927 contract created a valid and enforceable exclusive license in favor of United. It also stated that the master could determine, from an “understanding” between the parties as shown by the record, the amount due from United under the 1927 contract. 107 F. 2d 27.
In 1941, United asked leave to file an amended answer and counterclaim, complaining that Cold Metal’s recent acts were inconsistent with the 1939 judgment of the Court of Appeals. In 1942, the District Court denied that motion on the ground that it could carry out only the existing mandate of the Court of Appeals. 43 F. Supp. 375. It suggested, however, that the injunction sought by United in its counterclaim should be the subject matter of another action, and that United could assert, before the master, Cold Metal’s breaches of the 1927 contract. In 1943, the District Court modified its 1938 decree to make it conform to the Court of Appeals’ order of 1939. It also appointed a master to determine not only the amount due Cold Metal from United for its past operations, but the payments to be made on licensed mills in the future.
In 1949, United refiled its claims as an “Ancillary Cross Complaint” in Civil Action No. 7744. United sought, inter alia, (1) to enjoin the prosecution of infringement suits by Cold Metal against parties using mills under licenses granted by United, (2) to require Cold Metal to account for any funds it had collected for the use of such mills within the field of United’s exclusive license, and (3) to set off those funds from any payment or royalty that might be due from United to Cold Metal under the 1927 contract. In 1950, the District Court dismissed the cross complaint on the ground that it was not ancillary to Equity No. 2991. 92 F. Supp. 596. However, in 1951, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court. It held that United’s cross complaint was, in reality, a counterclaim, ancillary to Equity No. 2991, and, therefore, within the jurisdiction of the District Court. 190 F. 2d 217. The Court of Appeals reviewed the previous course of the proceedings and pointed out that the claims now made by United in this counterclaim are entirely dependent upon the 1939 decision of that court, 107 F. 2d 27, which upheld the validity of United’s exclusive license.
Into this situation, in 1954, came the master’s report on the accounting in Equity No. 2991. It listed the licensed mills, fixed the compensation payable under the 1927 contract, and found that United’s license had existed from 1930 to 1947 and that United’s customers were duly licensed to use the patented mills. It also held that certain United mills were exempt from royalty, that Cold Metal had failed to respect the license or to perform all of its obligations under the 1927 contract, but that United owed Cold Metal a substantial sum under it.
In 1955, the District Court approved the master’s report in all respects and entered judgment against United for $387,650, with interest at from the date of filing of the report. Both parties appealed. Cold Metal at once moved to dismiss United’s appeal on the ground that the District Court had not made the certification required by Rule 54 (b). With permission of the Court of Appeals, the District Court then amended its judgment to add such certification.
Again both parties appealed. Again Cold Metal moved to dismiss United's appeal from the amended judgment because the Court of Appeals lacked jurisdiction to entertain it. This time the motion was denied with a per curiam opinion in which the Court of Appeals said “We think the determination made under the circumstances of this case is the very kind of thing Rule 54 (b) was written to provide for. We see no violation of discretion on the part of the district judge in entering it.” 221 F. 2d 115.
Accordingly, on October 3, 1955, in the Court of Appeals, the parties argued their respective appeals on their merits in Equity No. 2991. However, before any decision was rendered on the merits, we granted certiorari upon Cold Metal’s petition questioning the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals to entertain the appeal. 350 U. S. 819. We agree with the Court of Appeals that this is the very kind of case for which amended Rule 54 (b) was designed. The appealability of the adjudicated claim is upheld so that the merits of the existing judgment may be determined at this stage of the proceedings.
Prior to the promulgation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1939, it may well have been true that the Court of Appeals would not, at this stage, have had jurisdiction over United’s appeal. Under the single judicial unit theory of finality which was then recognized, the Court of Appeals would have been without jurisdiction until United’s counterclaim also had been decided by the District Court. That would have been so even if the counterclaim did not arise out of the same transaction and occurrence as Cold Metal’s claim. However, as stated in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, Rule 54 (b), in its original form, modified the judicial unit theory in respect to multiple claims actions. Accordingly, under that rule, it is likely that if United’s counterclaim qualified as “permissive,” rather than as “compulsory,” the Court of Appeals would have had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal now before us. This conclusion follows from the fact that the test of appealability under the original rule was whether the adjudicated claims were separate from, and independent of, the unadjudicated claims. See Reeves v. Beardall, 316 U. S. 283.
However, as set forth in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, that test led to uncertainty, of which the present case might have been an example. The amended rule overcomes that difficulty and, under its terms, we need not decide whether United’s counterclaim is compulsory or permissive. The amended rule, in contrast to the rule in its original form, treats counterclaims, whether compulsory or permissive, like other multiple claims. It provides that “When more than one claim for relief is presented in an action, whether as a claim, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third-party claim, the [district] court may direct the entry of a final judgment upon one or more but less than all of the claims . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) Counterclaims and cross-claims are thus equated with the others. See Bendix Aviation Corp. v. Glass, 195 F. 2d 267 (C. A. 3d Cir.). Therefore, under the amended rule, the relationship of the adjudicated claims to the unadjudicated claims is one of the factors which the District Court can consider in the exercise of its discretion. If the District Court certifies a final order on a claim which arises out of the same transaction and occurrence as pending claims, and the Court of Appeals is satisfied that there has been no abuse of discretion, the order is appealable.
The reasoning and the result in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, is dispositive of this case. The order appealed from finally adjudicates Cold Metal’s claim for relief, and the Court of Appeals has held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in certifying the absence of just reasons for delay. That this order is appealable at a time when it would not have been appealable prior to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or under Rule 54 (b) in its original form, does not mean that Rule 54 (b), as amended, is invalid. It applies only to a final decision of one or more claims for relief. The amended rule meets the needs and problems of modern judicial administration by adjusting the unit for appeal to fit multiple claims actions, while retaining a right of judicial review over the discretion exercised by the District Court in determining when there is no just reason for delay. This does not impair the statutory concept of finality embraced in § 1291, and, as held in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, is within the rulemaking power of this Court.
Affirmed.
[For opinion of Me. Justice Frankfurter, joined by Mr. Justice Harlan, dissenting in this case, but concurring in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, see ante, p. 439.]
For text, see Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, at 434-435.
For text, see Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, at 431.
The entire agreement appears in 107 F. 2d 27, 28-29, n. 1.
See 3 F. Supp. 120, 68 F. 2d 564, cert. denied, 291 U. S. 675, all relating to Equity No. 2506.
The amendment included an express determination that there was “no just reason for delay in entering an order and final judgment disposing of the issues raised by the Report of the Special Master . . . This was done after a hearing during which the District Court said “I think, so far as this Court is concerned, without a decision by the Court of Appeals on that report [of the special master], that we would just be wandering in an area where we couldn’t see our way out if we tried any other issue until this case is decided.”
After the master’s report was filed, and before objections to it had been filed, counsel for each side jointly informed the court that they desired to dispose of the master’s report before trying the issues in the pending (counterclaim) Civil Action No. 7744, and that the final action on the master’s report might even make it undesirable to try that action. The court, thereupon, continued, sine die, the pretrial conference it had scheduled in Civil Action No. 7744, and removed the case from the trial calendar, without prejudice to either party and subject to reinstatement. That is the present status of the “counterclaim.”
See Ayres v. Carver, 17 How. 591; Bowker v. United States, 186 U. S. 135; General Electric Co. v. Marvel Rare Metals Co., 287 U. S. 430; Toomey v. Toomey, 80 U. S. App. D. C. 77, 149 F. 2d 19.
Fed. Rules Civ. Proe., 13 (b), defines a "permissive” counterclaim as follows: “A pleading may state as a counterclaim any claim against an opposing party not arising out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the opposing party’s claim.”
Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 13 (a), defines a compulsory counterclaim as follows:
“A pleading shall state as a counterclaim any claim which at the time of serving the pleading the pleader has against any opposing party, if it arises out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the opposing party’s claim and does not require for its adjudication the presence of third parties of whom the court cannot acquire jurisdiction, except that such a claim need not be so stated if at the time the action was commenced the claim was the subject of another pending action.”
See Audi Vision, Inc. v. RCA Mfg. Co., 136 F. 2d 621 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Toomey v. Toomey, supra.
See Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, ante, at 433-434.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
The National Stolen Property Act provides for the imposition of criminal penalties upon any person who “transports in interstate or foreign commerce any goods, wares, merchandise, securities or money, of the value of $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud.” 18 U. S. C. §2314. In this case, we must determine whether the statute reaches the interstate transportation of “bootleg” phonorecords, “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” only in the sense that they were manufactured and distributed without the consent of the copyright owners of the musical compositions performed on the records.
HH
After a bench trial in the United States District Court for the Central District of California conducted largely on the basis of a stipulated record, petitioner Paul Edmond Dowling was convicted of one count of conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 371; eight counts of interstate transportation of stolen property, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 2314; nine counts of copyright infringement, in violation of 17 U. S. C. § 506(a); and three counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1341. The offenses stemmed from an extensive bootleg record operation involving the manufacture and distribution by mail of recordings of vocal performances by Elvis Presley. The evidence demonstrated that sometime around 1976, Dowling, to that time an avid collector of Presley recordings, began in conjunction with codefendant William Samuel Theaker to manufacture phonorecords of unreleased Presley recordings. They used material from a variety of sources, including studio outtakes, acetates, soundtracks from Presley motion pictures, and tapes of Presley concerts and television appearances. Until early 1980, Dowling and Theaker had the records manufactured at a record-pressing company in Burbank, Cal. When that company later refused to take their orders, they sought out other record-pressing companies in Los Angeles and, through codefendant Richard Minor, in Miami, Fla. The bootleg entrepreneurs never obtained authorization from or paid royalties to the owners of the copyrights in the musical compositions.
In the beginning, Dowling, who resided near Baltimore, handled the “artistic” end of the operation, contributing his knowledge of the Presley subculture, seeking out and selecting the musical material, designing the covers and labels, and writing the liner notes, while Theaker, who lived in Los Angeles and had some familiarity with the music industry, took care of the business end, arranging for the record pressings, distributing catalogs, and filling orders. In early 1979, however, having come to suspect that the FBI was investigating the west coast operation, Theaker began making shipments by commercial trucking companies of large quantities of the albums to Dowling in Maryland. Throughout 1979 and 1980, the venturers did their marketing through Send Service, a labeling and addressing entity, which distributed at least 50,000 copies of their catalog and advertising flyers to addresses on mailing lists provided by Theaker and Dowling. Theaker would collect customers’ orders from post office boxes in Glendale, Cal., and mail them to Dowling in Maryland, who would fill the orders. The two did a substantial business: the stipulated testimony establishes that throughout this period Dowling mailed several hundred packages per week and regularly spent $1,000 per week in postage. The men also had occasion to make large shipments from Los Angeles to Minor in Miami, who purchased quantities of their albums for resale through his own channels.
The eight §2314 counts on which Dowling was convicted arose out of six shipments of bootleg phonorecords from Los Angeles to Baltimore and two shipments from Los Angeles to Miami. See n. 1, supra. The evidence established that each shipment included thousands of albums, that each album contained performances of copyrighted musical compositions for the use of which no licenses had been obtained nor royalties paid, and that the value of each shipment attributable to copyrighted material exceeded the statutory minimum.
Dowling appealed from all the convictions save those for copyright infringement, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in all respects. 739 F. 2d 1445 (1984). As to the charges under § 2314, the court relied on its decision in United States v. Belmont, 715 F. 2d 459 (1983), cert. denied, 465 U. S. 1022 (1984), where it had held that interstate transportation of videotape cassettes containing unauthorized copies of copyrighted motion pictures involved stolen goods within the meaning of the statute. As in Belmont, the court reasoned that the rights of copyright owners in their protected property were indistinguishable from ownership interests in other types of property and were equally deserving of protection under the statute. 739 F. 2d, at 1450, quoting 715 F. 2d, at 461-462.
We granted certiorari to resolve an apparent conflict among the Circuits concerning the application of the statute to interstate shipments of bootleg and pirated sound recordings and motion pictures whose unauthorized distribution infringed valid copyrights. 469 U. S. 1157 (1985).
f-H » — i
Federal crimes, of course, are solely creatures of statute.” Liparota v. United States, 471 U. S. 419, 424 (1985), citing United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32 (1812). Accordingly, when assessing the reach of a federal criminal statute, we must pay close heed to language, legislative history, and purpose in order strictly to determine the scope of the conduct the enactment forbids. Due respect for the prerogatives of Congress in defining federal crimes prompts restraint in this area, where we typically find a “narrow interpretation” appropriate. See Williams v. United States, 458 U. S. 279, 290 (1982). Chief Justice Marshall early observed:
“The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly, is perhaps not much less old than construction itself. It is founded on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals; and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislative, not in the judicial department. It is the legislature, not the Court, which is to define a crime, and ordain its punishment.” United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95 (1820).
Thus, the Court has stressed repeatedly that “ ‘ “when choice has to be made between two readings of what conduct Congress has made a crime, it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite.’”” Williams v. United States, 458 U. S., at 290, quoting United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 347 (1971), which in turn quotes United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp., 344 U. S. 218, 221-222 (1952).
A
Applying that prudent rule of construction here, we examine at the outset the statutory language. Section 2314 requires, first, that the defendant have transported “goods, wares, [or] merchandise” in interstate or foreign commerce; second, that those goods have a value of “$5,000 or more”; and, third, that the defendant “kno[w] the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud.” Dowling does not contest that he caused the shipment of goods in interstate commerce, or that the shipments had sufficient value to meet the monetary requirement. He argues, instead, that the goods shipped were not “stolen, converted or taken by fraud.” In response, the Government does not suggest that Dowling wrongfully came by the phonorecords actually shipped or the physical materials from which they were made; nor does it contend that the objects that Dowling caused to be shipped, the bootleg phonorecords, were “the same” as the copyrights in the musical compositions that he infringed by unauthorized distribution of Presley performances of those compositions. The Government argues, however, that the shipments come within the reach of §2314 because the phonorecords physically embodied performances of musical compositions that Dowling had no legal right to distribute. According to the Government, the unauthorized use of the musical compositions rendered the phonorecords “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” within the meaning of the statute. We must determine, therefore, whether phonorecords that include the performance of copyrighted musical compositions for the use of which no authorization has been sought nor royalties paid are consequently “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” for purposes of § 2314. We conclude that they are not.
The courts interpreting §2314 have never required, of course, that the items stolen and transported remain in entirely unaltered form. See, e. g., United States v. Moore, 571 F. 2d 154, 158 (CA3) (counterfeit printed Ticketron tickets “the same” as stolen blanks from which they were printed), cert. denied, 435 U. S. 956 (1978). Nor does it matter that the item owes a major portion of its value to an intangible component. See, e. g., United States v. Seagraves, 265 F. 2d 876 (CA3 1959) (geophysical maps identifying possible oil deposits); United States v. Greenwald, 479 F. 2d 320 (CA6) (documents bearing secret chemical formulae), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 854 (1973). But these cases and others prosecuted under § 2314 have always involved physical “goods, wares, [or] merchandise” that have themselves been “stolen, converted or taken by fraud.” This basic element comports with the common-sense meaning of the statutory language: by requiring that the “goods, wares, [or] merchandise” be “the same” as those “stolen, converted or taken by fraud,” the provision seems clearly to contemplate a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking of the subject goods.
In contrast, the Government’s theory here would make theft, conversion, or fraud equivalent to wrongful appropriation of statutorily protected rights in copyright. The copyright owner, however, holds no ordinary chattel. A copyright, like other intellectual property, comprises a series of carefully defined and carefully delimited interests to which the law affords correspondingly exact protections. “Section 106 of the Copyright Act confers a bundle of exclusive rights to the owner of the copyright,” which include the rights “to publish, copy, and distribute the author’s work.” Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U. S. 539, 546-547 (1985). See 17 U. S. C. § 106. However, “[t]his protection has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible uses of his work.” Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U. S. 417, 432 (1984); id., at 462-463 (dissenting opinion). For example, §107 of the Copyright Act “codifies the traditional privilege of other authors to make ‘fair use’ of an earlier writer’s work.” Harper & Row, supra, at 547. Likewise, § 115 grants compulsory licenses in nondramatic musical works. Thus, the property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple “goods, wares, [or] merchandise,” for the copyright holder’s dominion is subjected to precisely defined limits.
It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: “ ‘Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner,’ that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the five ways set forth in the statute, ‘is an infringer of the copyright.’ [17 U. S. C.] § 501(a).” Sony Corp., supra, at 433. There is no dispute in this case that Dowling’s unauthorized inclusion on his bootleg albums of performances of copyrighted compositions constituted infringement of those copyrights. It is less clear, however, that the taking that occurs when an infringer arrogates the use of another’s protected work comfortably fits the terms associated with physical removal employed by § 2314. The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud. As a result, it fits but awkwardly with the language Congress chose — “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” — to describe the sorts of goods whose interstate shipment §2314 makes criminal. “And, when interpreting a criminal statute that does not explicitly reach the conduct in question, we are reluctant to base an expansive reading on inferences drawn from subjective and variable ‘understandings.’” Williams v. United States, 458 U. S., at 286.
B
In light of the ill-fitting language, we turn to consider whether the history and purpose of § 2314 evince a plain congressional intention to reach interstate shipments of goods infringing copyrights. Our examination of the background of the provision makes more acute our reluctance to read §2314 to encompass merchandise whose contraband character derives from copyright infringement.
Congress enacted §2314 as an extension of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, ch. 89, 41 Stat. 324, currently codified at 18 U. S. C. §2312. Passed in 1919, the earlier Act was an attempt to supplement the efforts of the States to combat automobile thefts. Particularly in areas close to state lines, state law enforcement authorities were seriously hampered by car thieves’ ability to transport stolen vehicles beyond the jurisdiction in which the theft occurred. Legislating pursuant to its commerce power, Congress made unlawful the interstate transportation of stolen vehicles, thereby filling in the enforcement gap by “striking] down State lines which serve as barriers to protect [these interstate criminals] from justice.” 58 Cong. Rec. 5476 (1919) (statement of Rep. Newton).
Congress acted to fill an identical enforcement gap when in 1934 it “extended] the provisions of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act to other stolen property” by means of the National Stolen Property Act. Act of May 22, 1934, 48 Stat. 794. See S. Rep. No. 538, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934); H. R. Rep. No. 1462, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1599, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1, 3 (1934). Again, Congress acted under its commerce power to assist the States’ efforts to foil the “roving criminal,” whose movement across state lines stymied local law enforcement officials. 78 Cong. Rec. 2947 (1934) (statement of Attorney General Cummings). As with its progenitor, Congress responded in the National Stolen Property Act to “the need for federal action” in an area that normally would have been left to state law. United States v. Turley, 352 U. S. 407, 417 (1957).
No such need for supplemental federal action has ever existed, however, with respect to copyright infringement, for the obvious reason that Congress always has had the bestowed authority to legislate directly in this area. Article I, §8, cl. 8, of the Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
By virtue of the explicit constitutional grant, Congress has the unquestioned authority to penalize directly the distribution of goods that infringe copyright, whether or not those goods affect interstate commerce. Given that power, it is implausible to suppose that Congress intended to combat the problem of copyright infringement by the circuitous route hypothesized by the Government. See United States v. Smith, 686 F. 2d 234, 246 (CA6 1982). Of course, the enactment of criminal penalties for copyright infringement would not prevent Congress from choosing as well to criminalize the interstate shipment of infringing goods. But in dealing with the distribution of such goods, Congress has never thought it necessary to distinguish between intrastate and interstate activity. Nor does any good reason to do so occur to us. In sum, the premise of §2314 — the need to fill with federal action an enforcement chasm created by limited state jurisdiction — simply does not apply to the conduct the Government seeks to reach here.
C
The history of copyright infringement provisions affords additional reason to hesitate before extending § 2314 to cover the interstate shipments in this case. Not only has Congress chiefly relied on an array of civil remedies to provide copyright holders protection against infringement, see 17 U. S. C. §§502-505, but in exercising its power to render criminal certain forms of copyright infringement, it has acted with exceeding caution.
The first full-fledged criminal provisions appeared in the Copyright Act of 1909, and specified that misdemeanor penalties of up to one year in jail or a fine between $100 and $1,000, or both, be imposed upon “any person who willfully and for profit” infringed a protected copyright. This provision was little used. In 1974, however, Congress amended the section, by then 17 U. S. C. § 104 (1976 ed.) by the 1947 revision, substantially to increase penalties for record piracy. The new version retained the existing language, but supplemented it with a new subsection (b), which provided that one who “willfully and for profit” infringed a copyright in sound recordings would be subject to a fine of up to $25,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both. 17 U. S. C. § 104(b) (1976 ed.). The legislative history demonstrates that in increasing the penalties available for this category of infringement, Congress carefully calibrated the penalty to the problem: it had come to recognize that “record piracy is so profitable that ordinary penalties fail to deter prospective offenders.” H. R. Rep. No. 93-1581, p. 4 (1974). Even so, because it considered record piracy primarily an economic offense, Congress, after serious consideration, rejected a proposal to increase the available term of imprisonment to three years for a first offense and seven years for a subsequent offense. Ibid.
When in 1976, after more than 20 years of study, Congress adopted a comprehensive revision of the Copyright Act, see Mills Music, Inc. v. Snyder, 469 U. S. 153, 159-161 (1985); Sony Corp., 464 U. S., at 462-463, n. 9 (dissenting opinion), it again altered the scope of the criminal infringement actions, albeit cautiously. Section 101 of the new Act provided:
“Any person who infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both: Provided, however, That any person who infringes willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain the copyright in a sound recording afforded by subsections (1), (2), or (3) of section 106 or the copyright in a motion picture afforded by subsections (1), (3), or (4) of section 106 shall be fined not more than $25,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both, for the first such offense and shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both, for any subsequent offense.” 17 U. S. C. § 506(a) (1976 ed., Supp. V).
Two features of this provision are noteworthy: first, Congress extended to motion pictures the enhanced penalties applicable by virtue of prior § 104 to infringement of rights in sound recordings; and, second, Congress recited the infringing uses giving rise to liability. It is also noteworthy that despite the urging of representatives of the film industry, see Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on H. R. 2223 before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 716 (1975) (statement of Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.), and the initial inclination of the Senate, see S. Rep. No. 94-473, p. 146 (1976), Congress declined once again to provide felony penalties for copyright infringement involving sound recordings and.motion pictures.
Finally, by the Piracy and Counterfeiting Amendments Act of 1982, Pub. L. 97-180, 96 Stat. 91, Congress chose to address the problem of bootlegging and piracy of records, tapes, and films by imposing felony penalties on such activities. Section 5 of the 1982 Act revised 17 U. S. C. § 506(a) to provide that “[a]ny person who infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain shall be punished as provided in section 2319 of title 18.” Section 2319(b)(1), in turn, was then enacted to provide for a fine of up to $250,000, or imprisonment of up to five years, or both, if the offense “involves the reproduction or distribution, during any one-hundred-and-eighty-day period, of at least one thousand phonorecords or copies infringing the copyright in one or more sound recordings [or] at least sixty-five copies infringing the copyright in one or more motion pictures or other audiovisual works.” Subsection (b)(2) provides for a similar fine and up to two years’ imprisonment if the offense involves “more than one hundred but less than one thousand phonorecords or copies infringing the copyright in one or more sound recordings [or] more than seven but less than sixty-five copies infringing the copyright in one or more motion pictures or other audiovisual works.” And subsection (b)(3) provides for a fine of not more than $25,000 and up to one year’s imprisonment in any other case of willful infringement. The legislative history indicates that Congress set out from a belief that the existing misdemeanor penalties for copyright infringement were simply inadequate to deter the enormously lucrative activities of large-scale bootleggers and pirates. See 128 Cong. Rec. 9158-9159 (1982) (remarks of Rep. Kastenmeier); The Piracy and Counterfeiting Amendments Act of 1981: Hearings on S. 691 before the Subcommittee on Criminal Law of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1981) (statement of Renee L. Szybala, Special Assistant to the Associate Attorney General). Accordingly, it acted to “strengthen the laws against record, tape, and film piracy” by “increasing] the penalties... for copyright infringements involving such products,” thereby “bringing] the penalties for record and film piracy... into line with the enormous profits which are being reaped from such activities.” S. Rep. No. 97-274, pp. 1, 7 (1981).
Thus, the history of the criminal infringement provisions of the Copyright Act reveals a good deal of care on Congress’ part before subjecting copyright infringement to serious criminal penalties. First, Congress hesitated long before imposing felony sanctions on copyright infringers. Second, when it did so, it carefully chose those areas of infringement that required severe response — specifically, sound recordings and motion pictures — and studiously graded penalties even in those areas of heightened concern. This step-by-step, carefully considered approach is consistent with Congress’ traditional sensitivity to the special concerns implicated by the copyright laws.
In stark contrast, the Government’s theory of this case presupposes a congressional decision to bring the felony provisions of § 2814, which make available the comparatively light fine of not more than $10,000 but the relatively harsh term of imprisonment of up to 10 years, to bear on the distribution of a sufficient quantity of any infringing goods simply because of the presence here of a factor — interstate transportation — not otherwise thought relevant to copyright law. The Government thereby presumes congressional adoption of an indirect but blunderbuss solution to a problem treated with precision when considered directly. To the contrary, the discrepancy between the two approaches convinces us that Congress had no intention to reach copyright infringement when it enacted § 2314.
D
The broad consequences of the Government’s theory, both in the field of copyright and in kindred fields of intellectual property law, provide a final and dispositive factor against reading §2314 in the manner suggested. For example, in Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U. S. 539 (1985), this Court very recently held that The Nation, a weekly magazine of political commentary, had infringed former President Ford’s copyright in the unpublished manuscript of his memoirs by verbatim excerpting of some 300 words from the work. It rejected The Nation’s argument that the excerpting constituted fair use. Presented with the facts of that case as a hypothetical at oral argument in the present litigation, the Government conceded that its theory of § 2314 would permit prosecution of the magazine if it transported copies of sufficient value across state lines. Tr. of Oral Arg. 35. Whatever the wisdom or propriety of The Nation’s decision to publish the excerpts, we would pause, in the absence of any explicit indication of congressional intention, to bring such conduct within the purview of a criminal statute making available serious penalties for the interstate transportation of goods “stolen, converted or taken by fraud.”
Likewise, the field of copyright does not cabin the Government’s theory, which would as easily encompass the law of patents and other forms of intellectual property. If “the intangible idea protected by the copyright is effectively made tangible by its embodiment upon the tapes,” United States v. Gottesman, 724 F. 2d 1517, 1520 (CA11 1984), phonorecords, or films shipped in interstate commerce as to render those items stolen goods for purposes of §2314, so too would the intangible idea protected by a patent be made tangible by its embodiment in an article manufactured in accord with patented specifications. Thus, as the Government as much as acknowledged at argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 29, its view of the statute would readily permit its application to interstate shipments of patent-infringing goods. Despite its undoubted power to do so, however, Congress has not provided criminal penalties for distribution of goods infringing valid patents. Thus, the rationale supporting application of the statute under the circumstances of this case would equally justify its use in wide expanses of the law which Congress has evidenced no intention to enter by way of criminal sanction. This factor militates strongly against the reading proffered by the Government. Cf. Williams v. United States, 458 U. S., at 287.
HH HH HH
No more than other legislation do criminal statutes take on straitjackets upon enactment. In sanctioning the use of §2314 in the manner urged by the Government here, the Courts of Appeals understandably have sought to utilize an existing and readily available tool to combat the increasingly serious problem of bootlegging, piracy, and copyright infringement. Nevertheless, the deliberation with which Congress over the last decade has addressed the problem of copyright infringement for profit, as well as the precision with which it has chosen to apply criminal penalties in this area, demonstrates anew the wisdom of leaving it to the legislature to define crime and prescribe penalties. Here, the language of §2314 does not “plainly and unmistakably” cover petitioner Dowling’s conduct, United States v. Lacker, 134 U. S. 624, 628 (1890); the purpose of the provision to fill gaps in state law enforcement does not couch the problem under attack; and the rationale employed to apply the statute to petitioner’s conduct would support its extension to significant bodies of law that Congress gave no indication it intended to touch. In sum, Congress has not spoken with the requisite clarity. Invoking the “time-honored interpretive guideline” that “‘ambiguity concerning the ambit of criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity,”’ Liparota v. United States, 471 U. S., at 427, quoting Rewis v. United States, 401 U. S. 808, 812 (1971), we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Only the § 2314 counts concern us here. Counts Two through Seven of the indictment, referring to the statute, charged:
“On or about the dates listed below and to and from the locations hereinafter specified, defendants THEAKER and DOWLING knowingly and willfully caused to be transported in interstate commerce phonorecords of a value of more than $5,000, containing Elvis Presley performances of copyrighted musical compositions, which phonorecords, as the defendants then and there well knew, were stolen, converted and taken by fraud, in that they were manufactured without the consent of the copyright proprietors.” App. 6-7.
A chart then identified six shipments, each from Los Angeles County, Cal., to Baltimore, Md., the first dated January 12,1979, and the last November 8, 1979. Id., at 7. Counts Eight and Nine of the indictment referred to § 2314 and continued:
“On or about the dates listed below and to and from the locations hereinafter specified, defendants THEAKER, DOWLING and MINOR knowingly and willfully caused to be transported in interstate commerce phonorecords of a value of more than $5,000, containing Elvis Presley performances of copyrighted musical compositions, which phonorecords, as the defendants then and there well knew, were stolen, converted and taken by fraud, in that they were manufactured without the consent of the copyright proprietors.” Id., at 7-8.
A chart then identified two shipments, each from Los Angeles County, Cal., to Miami, Fla., the first dated November 8, 1979, and the second June 4, 1979. Id., at 8.
Dowling’s ease was severed from that of codefendants William Samuel Theaker and Richard Minor. Theaker pleaded guilty to six counts of the indictment. Brief for United States 2, n. 1. Minor was convicted in a separate trial on all counts naming him, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in all respects. United States v. Minor, 756 F. 2d 731 (1985).
A “bootleg” phonorecord is one which contains an unauthorized copy of a commercially unreleased performance. As in this ease, the bootleg material may come from various sources. For example, fans may record concert performances, motion picture soundtracks, or television appearances. Outsiders may obtain copies of “outtakes,” those portions of the tapes recorded in the studio but not included in the “master,” that is, the final edited version slated for release after transcription to phonorecords or commercial tapes. Or bootleggers may gain possession of an “acetate,” which is a phonorecord cut with a stylus rather than stamped, capable of being played only a few times before wearing out, and utilized to assess how a performance will likely sound on a phonorecord.
Though the terms frequently are used interchangeably, a “bootleg” record is not the same as a “pirated” one, the latter being an unauthorized copy of a performance already commercially released.
See n. 2, supra. For example, according to the stipulated testimony of the Presley archivist at RCA Records, which held the exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute sound recordings of Presley performances from early in his career through the time of trial in this case, the “Elvis Presley Dorsey Shows” contained performances from Presley’s appearances on a series of six television shows in January, February, and March 1956; “Elvis Presley From the Waist Up” contained performances from three appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in September and October 1956 and January 1957; “Plantation Rock” included a version of the title song recorded from an acetate, which other testimony indicated Dowling had purchased from the author of the song; “The Legend Lives On” included material from unreleased master tapes from the RCA Records inventory; “Rockin’ with Elvis New Year’s Eve” derived from a recording by an audience member at a 1976 concert in Pittsburgh; and “Elvis on Tour” came from the master tape or the film source of the film of the same name. Stipulation re Testimony of Joan Deary, 2 Record, Doc. No. 109, pp. 24, 25, 35, 37, 40, 44. With the exceptions of “Plantation Rock” and “Elvis on Tour,” quantities of each of these albums were included in the shipments giving rise to the § 2314 counts.
See Stipulation re Copyrights, Royalties and Licenses, 2 Record, Doc. No. 109, pp. 111-125, and Stipulation re Songs on Albums, 2 Record, Doe. No. 109, pp. 127-145. The Copyright Act requires record manufacturers to obtain licenses and pay royalties to copyright holders upon pressing records that contain performances of copyrighted musical compositions. 17 U. S. C. § 115.
While motion-picture copyrights protect the soundtracks of Presley’s movies, Congress did not extend federal copyright protection to sound recordings until the Sound Recording Act of 1971, Pub. L. 92-140, 85 Stat. 391, and then only to sound recordings fixed after February 15, 1972. See Goldstein v. California, 412 U. S. 546, 551-552 (1973). Therefore, most of the sound recordings involved in this case, as opposed to the musical compositions performed, are apparently not protected by copyright. In any event, the § 2314 counts rely solely on infringement of copyrights to musical compositions. See n. 1, supra.
See also United States v. Atherton, 561 F. 2d 747, 752 (CA9 1977) (motion pictures); United States v. Drebin, 557 F. 2d 1316, 1328 (CA9 1977) (motion pictures), cert. denied, 436 U. S. 904 (1978); United States v. Minor, 756 F. 2d 731 (CA9 1985) (sound recordings).
In United States v. Smith, 686 F. 2d 234 (CA5 1982), the court held that interstate transportation of unauthorized copies of copyrighted motion pictures recorded “off the air” during television broadcasting did not fall within the reach of § 2314. The other courts which have addressed the issue have either agreed with the Ninth Circuit that interstate transportation of copies of infringing motion pictures and sound recordings comes within the statute, or assumed the same. See United States v. Drum, 733 F. 2d 1503, 1505-1506 (
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 issue presented by this appeal is whether the laws of Texas may constitutionally grant legitimate children a judicially enforceable right to support from their natural fathers and at the same time deny that right to illegitimate children.
In 1969, appellant filed a petition in Texas District Court seeking support from appellee on behalf of her minor child. After a hearing, the state trial judge found that appellee is “the biological father” of the child, and that the child “needs the support and maintenance of her father,” but concluded that because the child was illegitimate “there is no legal obligation to support the child and the Plaintiff take nothing.” The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed this ruling over the objection that this illegitimate child was being denied equal protection of law. 466 S. W. 2d 41. The Texas Supreme Court refused application for a writ of error, finding no “reversible error.” We noted probable jurisdiction. 408 U. S. 920.
In Texas, both at common law and under the statutes of the State, the natural father has a continuing and primary duty to support his legitimate children. See Lane v. Phillips, 69 Tex. 240, 243, 6 S. W. 610, 611 (1887) ; Tex. Fam. Code §4.02 (1970) (husband's duty). That duty extends even beyond dissolution of the marriage, Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Art. 4639a (Supp. 1972-1973); Hooten v. Hooten, 15 S. W. 2d 141 (Tex. Ct. Civ. App. 1929), and is enforceable on the child’s behalf in civil proceedings and, further, is the subject of criminal sanctions. Tex. Penal Code § 602. The duty to support exists despite the fact that the father may not have custody of the child. Hooten v. Hooten, supra. The Court of Civil Appeals has held in this case that nowhere in this elaborate statutory scheme does the State recognize any enforceable duty on the part of the biological father to support his illegitimate children and that, absent a statutory duty to support, the controlling law is the Texas common-law rule that illegitimate children, unlike legitimate children, have no legal right to support from their fathers. See also Home of the Holy Infancy v. Kaska, 397 S. W. 2d 208 (Tex. 1965); Lane v. Phillips, supra, at 243, 6 S. W., at 611; Bjorgo v. Bjorgo, 391 S. W. 2d 528 (Tex. Ct. Civ. App. 1965). It is also true that fathers may set up illegitimacy as a defense to prosecutions for criminal nonsupport of their children. See Curtin v. State, 155 Tex. Cr. R. 625, 238 S. W. 2d 187 (1950); Beaver v. State, 96 Tex. Cr. R. 179, 256 S. W. 929 (1923).
In this context, appellant’s claim on behalf of her daughter that the child has been denied equal protection of the law is unmistakably presented. Indeed, at argument here, the attorney for the State of Texas, appearing as amicus curiae, conceded that but for the fact that this child is illegitimate she would be entitled to support from appellee under the laws of Texas.
We have held that under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment a State may not create a right of action in favor of children for the wrongful death of a parent and exclude illegitimate children from the benefit of such a right. Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968). Similarly, we have held that illegitimate children may not be excluded from sharing equally with other children in the recovery of workmen’s compensation benefits for the death of their parent. Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164 (1972). Under these decisions, a State may not invidiously discriminate against illegitimate children by denying them substantial benefits accorded children generally. We therefore hold that once a State posits a judicially enforceable right on behalf of children to needed support from their natural fathers there is no constitutionally sufficient justification for denying such an essential right to a child simply because its natural father has not married its mother. For a State to do so is “illogical and unjust.” Id., at 175. We recognize the lurking problems with respect to proof of paternity. Those problems are not to be lightly brushed aside, but neither can they be made into an impenetrable barrier that works to shield otherwise invidious discrimination. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 656-657 (1972); Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965).
The judgment is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 4.02 became effective after the commencement of appellant’s suit, but the provision is identical (except for punctuation) to its predecessor, Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Husband and Wife, Art. 4614, in 1 Tex. Laws, c. 309, p. 736 (60th Legislature, Reg. Sess. 1967). Section 4.02 was enacted as part of a codification of Texas family law.
Tr. of Oral Arg. 24. There was some question at argument whether the statutory scheme relating to paternal support of children was properly drawn into question in the state courts. In the circumstances of this case, we need not resolve the question. First, the State of Texas asserts no prejudice from appellant’s apparent failure to explicitly draw attention to the individual statutes that make up the so-called Texas rule regarding support of legitimate and illegitimate children. On the contrary, the State asserted here that it was prepared to meet appellant’s constitutional attack on its statutes on the merits. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28. Second, under our cases, “the unrestricted notation of probable jurisdiction of the appeal is to be understood as a grant of the writ” of certiorari on “nonap-pealable” issues presented in the case. Mishkin v. New York, 383 U. S. 502, 512 (1966). Appellant’s federal claim, which was rejected in the state courts, that her child was being denied equal protection of laws is, therefore, properly before us in any event.
See also Davis v. Richardson, 342 F. Supp. 588 (Conn.), aff’d, post, p. 1069 (1972); Griffin v. Richardson, 346 F. Supp. 1226 (Md.), aff’d, post, p. 1069 (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.
Mb. Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioners, collectively described as “Bayside,” are three affiliated corporations operating a large, vertically integrated poultry business in Maine. The question they present is whether six of their employees, who truck poultry feed from their feedmill to 119 farms on which their chickens are being raised, are “agricultural laborers” and therefore not covered by the National Labor Relations Act.
After a few preliminary talks, Bayside refused to bargain with the union representing these drivers on the ground that they were not “employees” within the meaning of the Act. The union’s resulting unfair labor practice charge was sustained by the National Labor Relations Board and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. An apparent conflict with decisions of the Fifth and Ninth Circuits led us to grant certiorari, 425 U. S. 970. We now affirm.
The protections of the National Labor Relations Act extend only to “employees.” Section 2 (3) of the Act; 29 U. S. C. § 152 (3), provides that the “term ‘employee’ . . . shall not include any individual employed as an agricultural laborer . . . .” Congress has further provided that the term “agricultural laborer” in the NLRA shall have the meaning specified in § 3 (f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is, therefore, that section and the decisions construing it which are relevant even though this proceeding arose under the NLRA.
Section 3 (f) provides, in relevant part:
“ ‘Agriculture’ includes farming in all its branches [including] the raising of . . . poultry, and any practices . . . performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations . . . .” 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U. S. C. § 203 (f).
This statutory definition includes farming in both a primary and a secondary sense. The raising of poultry is primary farming, but hauling products to or from a farm is not primary farming. Such hauling may, however, be secondary farming if it is work performed “by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations Since there is no claim that these drivers work “on a farm,” the question is whether their activity should be regarded as work performed “by a farmer,” The answer depends on the character of their employer’s activities.
An employer’s business may include both agricultural and nonagricultural activities. Thus, even though most of the operations on a sugar plantation are agricultural, persons employed in the plantation’s sugar-processing plant are not “agricultural employees.” Maneja v. Waialua Agricultural Co., 349 U. S. 254, 264-270. In this case, both parties agree that some of Bayside’s operations are agricultural and some are not.
The mill in which Bayside produces poultry feed and the processing plant in which it slaughters and dresses poultry are not agricultural operations. On the other hand, the six farms on which it produces hatching eggs, and its activities in breeding and hatching chicks, are clearly agricultural in character. The parties are in dispute with respect to the character of Bayside’s work related to the raising of the chickens.
The chickens are raised on 119 separate farms owned and operated by independent contractors. Pursuant to a standard contractual arrangement, Bayside provides each such farm with chicks, feed, medicine, fuel, litter, and vaccine. Bay-side retains title to the chicks and pays the farmer a guaranteed sum, plus a bonus based on the weight of the bird when grown, in exchange for the farmer’s services in housing and caring for the chicks. Bayside delivers the chicks to the independent farms when they are one day old and picks them up for processing about nine weeks later. During the nine-week period, the contract farmers feed the chicks with poultry feed delivered to their feedbins by Bayside drivers.
Bayside argues that the activity on the independent farms is part of Bayside’s farming operation. The argument is supported by the pervasive character of its control over the raising of the chicks, its ownership of the chicks, its assumption of the risks of casualty loss and market fluctuations, and its control over both the source and the destination of the poultry. In response, the Labor Board argues that the owners of the farms are independent contractors rather than employees of Bayside and therefore the farming activity at these locations is attributable to them rather than to Bayside.
The Labor Board has squarely and consistently rejected the argument that all of the activity on a contract farm should be regarded as agricultural activity of an integrated farmer such as Bayside. This conclusion by the Board is one we must respect even if the issue might “with nearly equal reason be resolved one way rather than another.”
Even if we should regard a contract farm as a hybrid operation where some of the agricultural activity is performed by Bayside and some by the owner of the farm, we would nevertheless be compelled to sustain the Board’s order. For the activity of storing poultry feed and then using it to feed the chicks is work performed by the contract farmer rather than by Bayside. Since the status of the drivers is determined by the character of the work which they perform for their own employer, the work of the contract farmer cannot make the drivers agricultural laborers. And their employer’s operation of the feedmill is a nonagricultural activity. Thus, the Board properly concluded that the work of the truck drivers on behalf of their employer is not work performed “by a farmer” whether attention is focused on the origin or the destination of the feed delivery.
The Board’s conclusion that these truck drivers are not agricultural laborers is based on a reasonable interpretation of the statute, is consistent with the Board’s prior holdings, and is supported by the Secretary of Labor’s construction of § 3 (f) , Moreover, the conclusion applies to but one specific instance of the “[m]yriad forms of service relationship, with infinite and subtle variations in the terms of employment, [which] blanket the nation’s economy,” and which the Board must confront on a daily basis. Accordingly, regardless of how we might have resolved the question as an initial matter, the appropriate weight which must be given to the judgment of the agency whose special duty is to apply this broad statutory language to varying fact patterns requires enforcement of the Board’s order.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Bayside Enterprises, Inc., and its wholly owned subsidiary Poultry Processing, Inc., are operating corporations; the subsidiary Penobscot Poultry Co. is apparently inactive.
The drivers are represented by Truck Drivers, Warehousemen and Helpers Union, Local No. 340, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. That local and the Amalgamated Meatcutters Local 385 jointly represent employees in petitioners’ processing plant.
216 N. L. R. B. 502, enf’d, 527 F. 2d 436 (1975). The Board’s order requires Bayside to bargain with the union.
NLRB v. Strain Poultry Farms, Inc., 405 F. 2d 1025 (CA5 1969); NLRB v. Ryckebosch, Inc., 471 F. 2d 20 (CA9 1972).
49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq.
Annually since 1946, Congress, in riders to the Appropriations Acts for the Board, has tied the definition of “agricultural laborer” in § 2 (3) of the NLRA to § 3 (f) of the FLSA. The latest such rider (90 Stat. 23) provides in relevant part as follows:
“Provided, That no part of this appropriation shall be available to organize or assist in organizing agricultural laborers or used in connection with investigations, hearings, directives, or orders concerning bargaining units composed of agricultural laborers as referred to in section 2 (3) of the Act of July 5, 1935 (29 U. S. C. 152), and as amended by the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947, as amended, and as defined in section 3 (f) of the Act of June 25, 1938 (29 U. S. C. 203) . . . .”
“First, there is the primary meaning. Agriculture includes farming in all its branches. Certain specific practices such as cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, etc., are listed as being included in this primary meaning. Second, there is the broader meaning. Agriculture is defined to include things other than farming as so illustrated. It includes any practices, whether or not themselves farming practices, which are performed either by a farmer or on a farm, incidentally to or in conjunction with 'such’ farming operations.” Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 337 U. S. 755, 762-763.
These operations are conducted by the subsidiary, Poultry Processing, Inc., which employs about 20 workers at its feedmill and about 380 at its processing plant in Belfast, Me.
The Board has held that “when an employer contracts with independent growers for the care and feeding of the employer’s chicks, the employer’s status as a farmer engaged in raising poultry ends with respect to those chicks.” Imco Poultry, 202 N. L. R. B. 259, 260 (1973), citing Strain Poultry Farms, Inc., 160 N. L. R. B. 236 (1966); 163 N. L. R. B. 972 (1967), enf. denied, 405 F. 2d 1025 (CA5 1969); Victor Ryckebosch, Inc., 189 N. L. R. B. 40 (1971), enf. denied, 471 F. 2d 20 (CA9 1972). Cf. Norton & McElroy Produce, Inc., 133 N. L. R. B. 104 (1961).
This is an instance of the kind contemplated by Mr. Justice Frankfurter in his concurrence in Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co., supra, at 770:
“Both in the employments which the Fair Labor Standards Act covers and in the exemptions it makes, the Congress has cast upon the courts the duty of making distinctions that often are bound to be so nice as to appear arbitrary in relation to each other. A specific situation, like that presented in this case, presents a problem for construction which may with nearly equal reason be resolved one way rather than another.”
The Board has found in comparable situations that delivery is incidental to the feedmill operation and therefore not an agricultural activity. McElrath Poultry Co., 206 N. L. R. B. 354, 355 (1973), enf. denied, 494 F. 2d 518 (CA5 1974); Samuel B. Gass, 154 N. L. R. B. 728, 732-733 (1965), enf'd, 377 F. 2d 438 (CA1 1967).
Samuel B. Gass, supra; Strain Poultry Farms, Inc., supra; Victor Ryckebosch, Inc., supra; Abbott Farms, Inc., 199 N. L. R. B. 472 (1972), enf. denied, 487 F. 2d 904 (CA5 1973); Imco Poultry, supra; McElrath Poultry Co., Inc., supra.
In 1961 the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor issued an interpretative bulletin which remains effective today. It reads, in pertinent part:
“Contract arrangements for raising poultry.
“Feed dealers and processors sometimes enter into contractual arrangements with farmers under which the latter agree to raise to marketable size baby chicks supplied by the former who also undertake to furnish all the required feed and possibly additional items. Typically, the feed dealer or processor retains title to the chickens until they are sold. Under such an arrangement, the activities of the farmers and their employees in raising the poultry are clearly within section 3 (f). The activities of the feed dealer or processor, on the other hand, are not ‘raising of poultry’ and employees engaged in them cannot be considered agricultural employees on that ground. Employees of the feed dealer or processor who perform work on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with the raising of poultry on the farm are employed in ‘secondary’ agriculture (see §§ 780.137 et seq., [explaining that work must be performed in connection with the farmer-employer's own farming to qualify as ‘secondary’ agriculture by a farmer] and Johnston v. Cotton Producers Assn., 244 F. 2d 553).” 29 CFR § 780.126 (1975).
NLRB v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 126. In that opinion, id., at 131, the Court stated:
‘‘But where the question is one of specific application of a broad statutory term in a proceeding in which the agency administering the statute must determine it initially, the reviewing court’s function is limited. Like the commissioner’s determination under the Longshoremen’s & Harbor Workers’ Act, that a man is not a ‘member of a crew’ (South Chicago Coal & Dock Co. v. Bassett, 309 U. S. 251) or that he was injured ‘in the course of employment’ (Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U. S. 244) and the Federal Communications Commission’s determination that one company is under the ‘control’ of another (Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. 125), the Board’s determination that specified persons are ‘employees’ under this Act is to be accepted if. it has ‘warrant in the record’ and a reasonable basis in law.” (Footnotes omitted.)
Cf. NLRB v. United Insurance Co., 390 U. S. 254, 260; Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474, 488; NLRB v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 350 U. S. 264, 269.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
OPINION OF THE COURT
[563 U.S. 455]
Justice Alito
delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is well established that “exigent circumstances,” including the need to prevent the destruction of evidence, permit police officers to conduct an otherwise permissible search without first obtaining a warrant. In this case, we consider whether this rule applies when police, by knocking on the door of a residence and announcing their presence, cause the occupants to attempt to destroy evidence. The Kentucky Supreme Court held that the exigent circumstances rule does not apply in the case at hand because the police should have foreseen that their conduct would prompt the occupants to attempt to destroy evidence. We reject this interpretation of the exigent circumstances rule. The conduct of the police prior to their entry into the apartment was entirely lawful. They did not violate the Fourth Amendment or threaten to do so. In such a situation, the exigent circumstances rule applies.
I
A
This case concerns the search of an apartment in Lexington, Kentucky. Police officers set up a controlled buy of crack cocaine outside an apartment complex. Undercover
[563 U.S. 456]
Officer Gibbons watched the deal take place from an unmarked car in a nearby parking lot. After the deal occurred, Gibbons radioed uniformed officers to move in on the suspect. He told the officers that the suspect was moving quickly toward the breezeway of an apartment building, and he urged them to “hurry up and get there” before the suspect entered an apartment. App. 20.
In response to the radio alert, the uniformed officers drove into the nearby parking lot, left their vehicles, and ran to the breezeway. Just as they entered the breezeway, they heard a door shut and detected a very strong odor of burnt marijuana. At the end of the breezeway, the officers saw two apartments, one on the left and one on the right, and they did not know which apartment the suspect had entered. Gibbons had radioed that the suspect was running into the apartment on the right, but the officers did not hear this statement because they had already left their vehicles. Because they smelled marijuana smoke emanating from the apartment on the left, they approached the door of that apartment.
Officer Steven Cobb, one of the uniformed officers who approached the door, testified that the officers banged on the left apartment door “as loud as [they] could” and announced, “ ‘This is the police’ ” or “ ‘Police, police, police.’ ” Id., at 22-23. Cobb said that “[a]s soon as [the officers] started banging on the door,” they “could hear people inside moving,” and “ [i] t sounded as [though] things were being moved inside the apartment.” Id., at 24. These noises, Cobb testified, led the officers to believe that drug-related evidence was about to be destroyed.
At that point, the officers announced that they “were going to make entry inside the apartment.” Ibid. Cobb then kicked in the door, the officers entered the apartment, and they found three people in the front room: respondent Hollis King, respondent’s girlfriend, and a guest who was smoking
[563 U.S. 457]
marijuana. The officers performed a protective sweep of the apartment during which they saw marijuana and powder cocaine in plain view. In a subsequent search, they also discovered crack cocaine, cash, and drug paraphernalia.
Police eventually entered the apartment on the right. Inside, they found the suspected drug dealer who was the initial target of their investigation.
B
In the Fayette County Circuit Court, a grand jury charged respondent with trafficking in marijuana, first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance, and second-degree persistent felony offender status. Respondent filed a motion to suppress the evidence from the warrantless search, but the Circuit Court denied the motion. The Circuit Court concluded that the officers had probable cause to investigate the marijuana odor and that the officers “properly conducted [the investigation] by initially knocking on the door of the apartment unit and awaiting the response or consensual entry.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 9a. Exigent circumstances justified the war-rantless entry, the court held, because “there was no response at all to the knocking,” and because “Officer Cobb heard movement in the apartment which he reasonably concluded were persons in the act of destroying evidence, particularly narcotics because of the smell.” Ibid. Respondent then entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving his right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. The court sentenced respondent to 11 years’ imprisonment.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless entry because
[563 U.S. 458]
the police reasonably believed that evidence would be destroyed. The police did not impermis-sibly create the exigency, the court explained, because they did not deliberately evade the warrant requirement.
The Supreme Court of Kentucky reversed. 302 S.W.3d 649 (2010). As a preliminary matter, the court observed that there was “certainly some question as to whether the sound of persons moving [inside the apartment] was sufficient to establish that evidence was being destroyed.” Id., at 655. But the court did not answer that question. Instead, it “assume [d] for the purpose of argument that exigent circumstances existed.” Ibid.
To determine whether police imper-missibly created the exigency, the Supreme Court of Kentucky announced a two-part test. First, the court held, police cannot “deliberately creat[e] the exigent circumstances with the bad faith intent to avoid the warrant requirement.” Id., at 656 (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, even absent bad faith, the court concluded, police may not rely on exigent circumstances if “it was reasonably foreseeable that the investigative tactics employed by the police would create the exigent circumstances.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the court found no evidence of bad faith, it held that exigent circumstances could not justify the search because it was reasonably foreseeable that the occupants would destroy evidence when the police knocked on the door and announced their presence. Ibid.
We granted certiorari. 561 U.S. 1057, 131 S. Ct. 61, 177 L. Ed. 2d 1150 (2010).
[563 U.S. 459]
II
A
The Fourth Amendment provides:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The text of the Amendment thus expressly imposes two requirements. First, all searches and seizures must be reasonable. Second, a warrant may not be issued unless probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity. See Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 584, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980).
Although the text of the Fourth Amendment does not specify when a search warrant must be obtained, this Court has inferred that a warrant must generally be secured. “It is a ‘basic principle of Fourth Amendment law,’ ” we have often said, “ ‘that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.’ ” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2006) (quoting Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 559, 124 S. Ct. 1284, 157 L. Ed. 2d 1068 (2004)). But we have also recognized that this presumption may be overcome in some circumstances because “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness.’ ” Brigham City, supra, at 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650; see also Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 47, 130 S. Ct. 546, 175 L. Ed. 2d 410 (2009) (per curiam). Accordingly, the warrant requirement is subject to certain reasonable exceptions. Brigham City, supra, at 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650.
[563 U.S. 460]
One well-recognized exception applies when “ ‘the exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a] war-rantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 394, 98 S. Ct. 2408, 57 L. Ed. 2d 290 (1978); see also Payton, supra, at 590, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (“[T]he Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant”).
This Court has identified several exigencies that may justify a warrant-less search of a home. See Brigham City, 547 U.S., at 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650. Under the “emergency aid” exception, for example, “officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.” Ibid.; see also, e.g., Fisher, supra, at 49, 130 S. Ct. 546, 175 L. Ed. 2d 410 (upholding warrant-less home entry based on emergency aid exception). Police officers may enter premises without a warrant when they are in hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect. See United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42-43, 96 S. Ct. 2406, 49 L. Ed. 2d 300 (1976). And—what is relevant here—the need “to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence” has long been recognized as a sufficient justification for a warrantless search. Brigham City, supra, at 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650; see also Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 116, n. 6, 126 S. Ct. 1515, 164 L. Ed. 2d 208 (2006); Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 100, 110 S. Ct. 1684, 109 L. Ed. 2d 85 (1990).
[563 U.S. 461]
B
Over the years, lower courts have developed an exception to the exigent circumstances rule, the so-called “police-created exigency” doctrine. Under this doctrine, police may not rely on the need to prevent destruction of evidence when that exigency was “created” or “manufactured” by the conduct of the police. See, e.g., United States v. Chambers, 395 F.3d 563, 566 (CA6 2005) (“[F]or a war-rantless search to stand, law enforcement officers must be responding to an unanticipated exigency rather than simply creating the exigency for themselves”); United States v. Gould, 364 F.3d 578, 590 (CA5 2004) (en banc) (“[A]lthough exigent circumstances may justify a warrantless probable cause entry into the home, they will not do so if the exigent circumstances were manufactured by the agents” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
In applying this exception for the “creation” or “manufacturing” of an exigency by the police, courts require something more than mere proof that fear of detection by the police caused the destruction of evidence. An additional showing is obviously needed because, as the Eighth Circuit has recognized, “in some sense the police always create the exigent circumstances.” United States v. Duchi, 906 F.2d 1278, 1284 (1990). That is to say, in the vast majority of cases in which evidence is destroyed by persons who are engaged in illegal conduct, the reason for the destruction is fear that the evidence will fall into the hands of law enforcement. Destruction of evidence issues probably occur most frequently in drug cases because drugs may be easily destroyed by flushing them down a toilet or rinsing them down a drain. Persons in possession of valuable drugs are unlikely to destroy them unless they fear discovery by the police. Consequently, a rule that precludes the police from making a warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence whenever their conduct causes the exigency would
[563 U.S. 462]
unreasonably shrink the reach of this well-established exception to the warrant requirement.
Presumably for the purpose of avoiding such a result, the lower courts have held that the police-created exigency doctrine requires more than simple causation, but the lower courts have not agreed on the test to be applied. Indeed, the petition in this case maintains that “[t]here are currently five different tests being used by the United States Courts of Appeals,” Pet. for Cert. 11, and that some state courts have crafted additional tests, id., at 19-20.
Ill
A
Despite the welter of tests devised by the lower courts, the answer to the question presented in this case follows directly and clearly from the principle that permits warrantless searches in the first place. As previously noted, warrantless searches are allowed when the circumstances make it reasonable, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, to dispense with the warrant requirement. Therefore, the answer to the question before us is that the exigent circumstances rule justifies a warrantless search when the conduct of the police preceding the exigency is reasonable in the same sense. Where, as here, the police did not create the exigency by engaging or threatening to engage in conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment, warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence is reasonable and thus allowed.
We have taken a similar approach in other cases involving warrantless searches. For example, we have held that law
[563 U.S. 463]
enforcement officers may seize evidence in plain view, provided that they have not violated the Fourth Amendment in arriving at the spot from which the observation of the evidence is made. See Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 136-140, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 110 L. Ed. 2d 112 (1990). As we put it in Horton, “[i]t is... an essential predicate to any valid war-rantless seizure of incriminating evidence that the officer did not violate the Fourth Amendment in arriving at the place from which the evidence could be plainly viewed.” Id., at 136, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 110 L. Ed. 2d 112. So long as this prerequisite is satisfied, however, it does not matter that the officer who makes the observation may have gone to the spot from which the evidence was seen with the hope of being able to view and seize the evidence. See id., at 138, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 110 L. Ed. 2d 112 (“The fact that an officer is interested in an item of evidence and fully expects to find it in the course of a search should not invalidate its seizure”). Instead, the Fourth Amendment requires only that the steps preceding the seizure be lawful. See id., at 136-137, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 110 L. Ed. 2d 112.
Similarly, officers may seek consent-based encounters if they are lawfully present in the place where the consensual encounter occurs. See INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 217, n. 5, 104 S. Ct. 1758, 80 L. Ed. 2d 247 (1984) (noting that officers who entered into consent-based encounters with employees in a factory building were “lawfully present [in the factory] pursuant to consent or a warrant”). If consent is freely given, it makes no difference that an officer may have approached the person with the hope or expectation of obtaining consent. See id., at 216, 104 S. Ct. 1758, 80 L. Ed. 2d 247 (“While most citizens will respond to a police request, the fact that people do so, and do so without being told they are free not to respond, hardly eliminates the consensual nature of the response”).
B
Some lower courts have adopted a rule that is similar to the one that we recognize today. See United States v. MacDonald, 916 F.2d 766, 772 (CA2 1990) (en banc) ( law enforcement officers “do not impermissibly create exigent circumstances”
[563 U.S. 464]
when they “act in an entirely lawful manner”); State v. Robinson, 2010 WI 80, ¶32, 327 Wis. 2d 302, 326-328, 786 N.W.2d 463, 475-476 (2010). But others, including the Kentucky Supreme Court, have imposed additional requirements that are unsound and that we now reject.
Bad faith. Some courts, including the Kentucky Supreme Court, ask whether law enforcement officers “ ‘deliberately created the exigent circumstances with the bad faith intent to avoid the warrant requirement.’ ” 302 S.W.3d, at 656 (quoting Gould, 364 F.3d, at 590); see also, e.g., Chambers, 395 F.3d, at 566; United States v. Socey, 846 F.2d 1439, 1448 (CADC 1988); United States v. Rengifo, 858 F.2d 800, 804 (CA1 1988).
This approach is fundamentally inconsistent with our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. “Our cases have repeatedly rejected” a subjective approach, asking only whether “the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify the action.” Brigham City, 547 U.S., at 404, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650 (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Fisher, 558 U.S., at 47-49, 130 S. Ct. 546, 175 L. Ed. 2d 410. Indeed, we have never held, outside limited contexts such as an “inventory search or administrative inspection..., that an officer’s motive invalidates objectively justifiable behavior under the Fourth Amendment.” Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89 (1996); see also Brigham City, supra, at 405, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650.
The reasons for looking to objective factors, rather than subjective intent, are clear. Legal tests based on reasonableness are generally objective, and this Court has long taken the view that “evenhanded law enforcement is best achieved by the application of objective standards of conduct, rather than standards that depend upon the subjective state of mind of the officer.” Horton, supra, at 138, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 110 L. Ed. 2d 112.
Reasonable foreseeability. Some courts, again including the Kentucky Supreme Court, hold that police may not rely on an exigency if “ ‘it was reasonably foreseeable that the investigative tactics employed by the police would create the
[563 U.S. 465]
exigent circumstances.’ ” 302 S.W.3d, at 656 (quoting Mann v. State, 357 Ark. 159, 172, 161 S.W.3d 826, 834 (2004)); see also, e.g., United States v. Mowatt, 513 F.3d 395, 402 (CA4 2008). Courts applying this test have invalidated warrantless home searches on the ground that it was reasonably foreseeable that police officers, by knocking on the door and announcing their presence, would lead a drug suspect to destroy evidence. See, e.g., id., at 402-403; 302 S.W.3d, at 656.
Contrary to this reasoning, however, we have rejected the notion that police may seize evidence without a warrant only when they come across the evidence by happenstance. In Horton, as noted, we held that the police may seize evidence in plain view even though the officers may be “interested in an item of evidence and fully expec[t] to find it in the course of a search.” 496 U.S., at 138, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 110 L. Ed. 2d 112.
Adoption of a reasonable foreseeability test would also introduce an unacceptable degree of unpredictability. For example, whenever law enforcement officers knock on the door of premises occupied by a person who may be involved in the drug trade, there is some possibility that the occupants may possess drugs and may seek to destroy them. Under a reasonable foreseeability test, it would be necessary to quantify the degree of predictability that must be reached before the police-created exigency doctrine comes into play.
A simple example illustrates the difficulties that such an approach would produce. Suppose that the officers in the present case did not smell marijuana smoke and thus knew only that there was a 50% chance that the fleeing suspect had entered the apartment on the left rather than the apartment on the right. Under those circumstances, would it have been reasonably foreseeable that the occupants of the apartment on the left would seek to destroy evidence upon learning that the police were at the door? Or suppose that the officers knew only that the suspect had disappeared into one of the apartments on a floor with 3, 5, 10, or even 20
[563 U.S. 466]
units? If the police chose a door at random and knocked for the purpose of asking the occupants if they knew a person who fit the description of the suspect, would it have been reasonably foreseeable that the occupants would seek to destroy evidence?
We have noted that “[t]he calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-397, 109 S. Ct. 1865, 104 L. Ed. 2d 443 (1989). The reasonable foreseeability test would create unacceptable and unwarranted difficulties for law enforcement officers who must make quick decisions in the field, as well as for judges who would be required to determine after the fact whether the destruction of evidence in response to a knock on the door was reasonably foreseeable based on what the officers knew at the time.
Probable cause and time to secure a warrant. Some courts, in applying the police-created exigency doctrine, fault law enforcement officers if, after acquiring evidence that is sufficient to establish probable cause to search particular premises, the officers do not seek a warrant but instead knock on the door and seek either to speak with an occupant or to obtain consent to search. See, e.g., Chambers, supra, at 569 (citing “[t]he failure to seek a warrant in the face of plentiful probable cause” as a factor indicating that the police deliberately created the exigency).
This approach unjustifiably interferes with legitimate law enforcement strategies. There are many entirely proper reasons why police may not want to seek a search warrant as soon as the bare minimum of evidence needed to establish probable cause is acquired. Without attempting to provide a comprehensive list of these reasons, we note a few.
First, the police may wish to speak with the occupants of a dwelling before deciding whether it is worthwhile to seek authorization for a search. They may think that a short and simple conversation may obviate the need to apply for and
[563 U.S. 467]
execute a warrant. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 228, 93 S. Ct. 2041, 36 L. Ed. 2d 854 (1973). Second, the police may want to ask an occupant of the premises for consent to search because doing so is simpler, faster, and less burdensome than applying for a warrant. A consensual search also “may result in considerably less inconvenience” and embarrassment to the occupants than a search conducted pursuant to a warrant. Ibid. Third, law enforcement officers may wish to obtain more evidence before submitting what might otherwise be considered a marginal warrant application. Fourth, prosecutors may wish to wait until they acquire evidence that can justify a search that is broader in scope than the search that a judicial officer is likely to authorize based on the evidence then available. And finally, in many cases, law enforcement may not want to execute a search that will disclose the existence of an investigation because doing so may interfere with the acquisition of additional evidence against those already under suspicion or evidence about additional but as yet unknown participants in a criminal scheme.
We have said that “[l]aw enforcement officers are under no constitutional duty to call a halt to criminal investigation the moment they have the minimum evidence to establish probable cause.” Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 310, 87 S. Ct. 408, 17 L. Ed. 2d 374 (1966). Faulting the police for failing to apply for a search warrant at the earliest possible time after obtaining probable cause imposes a duty that is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.
Standard, or good investigative tactics. Finally, some lower court cases suggest that law enforcement officers may be found to have created or manufactured an exigency if the court concludes that the course of their investigation was “contrary to standard or good law enforcement practices (or to the policies or practices of their jurisdictions).” Gould, 364 F.3d, at 591. This approach fails to provide clear guidance for law enforcement officers and authorizes courts to make judgments on matters that are the province of those
[563 U.S. 468]
who are responsible for federal and state law enforcement agencies.
C
Respondent argues for a rule that differs from those discussed above, but his rule is also flawed. Respondent contends that law enforcement officers impermissibly create an exigency when they “engage in conduct that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry is imminent and inevitable.” Brief for Respondent 24. In respondent’s view, relevant factors include the officers’ tone of voice in announcing their presence and the forcefulness of their knocks. But the ability of law enforcement officers to respond to an exigency cannot turn on such subtleties.
Police officers may have a very good reason to announce their presence loudly and to knock on the door with some force. A forceful knock may be necessary to alert the occupants that someone is at the door. Cf. United States v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 33, 124 S. Ct. 521, 157 L. Ed. 2d 343 (2003) (Police “rapped hard enough on the door to be heard by officers at the back door” and announced their presence, but defendant “was in the shower and testified that he heard nothing”). Furthermore, unless police officers identify themselves loudly enough, occupants may not know who is at their doorstep. Officers are permitted—indeed, encouraged—to identify themselves to citizens, and “in many circumstances this is cause for assurance, not discomfort.” United States v. Drayton, 536 U.S. 194, 204, 122 S. Ct. 2105, 153 L. Ed. 2d 242 (2002). Citizens who are startled by an unexpected knock on the door or by the sight of unknown persons in plain clothes on their doorstep may be relieved to learn that these persons are police officers. Others may appreciate the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether to answer the door to the police.
If respondent’s test were adopted, it would be extremely difficult for police officers to know how loudly they may announce their presence or how forcefully they may knock on a door without running afoul of the police-created exigency
[563 U.S. 469]
rule. And in most cases, it would be nearly impossible for a court to determine whether that threshold had been passed. The Fourth Amendment does not require the nebulous and impractical test that respondent proposes.
D
For these reasons, we conclude that the exigent circumstances rule applies when the police do not gain entry to premises by means of an actual or threatened violation of the Fourth Amendment. This holding provides ample protection for the privacy rights that the Amendment protects.
When law enforcement officers who are not armed with a warrant knock on a door, they do no more than any private citizen might do. And whether the person who knocks on the door and requests the opportunity to speak is a police officer or a private citizen, the occupant has no obligation to
[563 U.S. 470]
open the door or to speak. Cf. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497-498, 103 S. Ct. 1319, 75 L. Ed. 2d 229 (1983) (“[H]e may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way”). When the police knock on a door but the occupants choose not to respond or to speak, “the investigation will have reached a conspicuously low point,” and the occupants “will have the kind of warning that even the most elaborate security system cannot provide.” Chambers, 395 F.3d, at 577 (Sutton, J., dissenting). And even if an occupant chooses to open the door and speak with the officers, the occupant need not allow the officers to enter the premises and may refuse to answer any questions at any time.
Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame for the warrantless exigent circumstances search that may ensue.
IV
We now apply our interpretation of the police-created exigency doctrine to the facts of this case.
A
We need not decide whether exigent circumstances existed in this case. Any warrantless entry based on exigent circumstances must, of course, be supported by a genuine exigency. See Brigham City, 547 U.S., at 406, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650. The trial court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals found that there was a real exigency in this case, but the Kentucky Supreme Court expressed doubt on this issue, observing that there was “certainly some question as to whether the sound of persons moving [inside the apartment] was sufficient to establish that evidence was being destroyed.” 302 S.W.3d, at 655. The Kentucky Supreme Court “as-sum[ed] for the purpose of argument that exigent circumstances existed,” ibid., and it held that the police had impermissibly manufactured the exigency.
[563 U.S. 471]
We, too, assume for purposes of argument that an exigency existed. We decide only the question on which the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled and on which we granted certiorari: Under what circumstances do police impermissibly create an exigency? Any question about whether an exigency actually existed is better addressed by the Kentucky Supreme Court on remand. See Kirk v. Louisiana, 536 U.S. 635, 638, 122 S. Ct. 2458, 153 L. Ed. 2d 599 (2002) (per curiam) (reversing state-court judgment that exigent circumstances were not required for warrantless home entry and remanding for state court to determine whether exigent circumstances were present).
B
In this case, we see no evidence that the officers either violated the Fourth Amendment or threatened to do so prior to the point when they entered the apartment. Officer Cobb testified without contradiction that the officers “banged on the door as loud as [they] could” and announced either “ ‘Police, police, police’ ” or “ ‘This is the police.’ ” App. 22-23. This conduct was entirely consistent with the Fourth Amendment, and we are aware of no other evidence that might show that the officers either violated the Fourth Amendment or threatened to do so (for example, by announcing that they would break down the door if the occupants did not open the door voluntarily).
Respondent argues that the officers “demanded” entry to the apartment, but he has not pointed to any evidence in the record that supports this assertion. He relies on a passing statement made by the trial court in its opinion denying respondent’s motion to suppress. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 3a-4a. In recounting the events that preceded the search, the judge wrote that the officers “banged on the door of the apartment on the back left of the breezeway identifying themselves as police officers and demanding that the door be opened by the persons inside.” Ibid. (emphasis added and deleted). However, at a later point in this opinion, the
[563 U.S. 472]
judge stated that the officers “initially knock[ed] on the door of the apartment unit and await[ed] the response or consensual entry.” Id., at 9a. This later statement is consistent with the testimony at the suppression hearing and with the findings of the state appellate courts. See 302 S.W.3d, at 651 (The officers “knocked loudly on the back left apartment door and announced ‘police’ ”); App. to Pet. for Cert. 14a (The officers “knock[ed] on the door and announc[ed] themselves as police”); App. 22-24. There is no evidence of a “demand” of any sort, much less a demand that amounts to a threat to violate the Fourth Amendment. If there is contradictory evidence that has not been brought to our attention, the state court may elect to address that matter on remand.
Finally, respondent claims that the officers “explained to [the occupants that the officers] were going to make entry inside the apartment,” id., at 24, but the record is clear that the officers did not make this statement until after the exigency arose. As Officer Cobb testified, the officers “knew that there was possibly something that was going to be destroyed inside the apartment,” and “[a]t that point,... [they] explained... [that they] were going to make entry.” Ibid. (emphasis added). Given that this announcement was made after the exigency arose, it could not have created the exigency.
Like the court below, we assume for purposes of argument that an exigency existed. Because the officers in this case did not violate or threaten to violate the Fourth Amendment prior to the exigency, we hold that the exigency justified the warrantless search of the apartment.
The judgment of the Kentucky Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
. Respondent’s girlfriend leased the apartment, but respondent stayed there part of the time, and his child lived there. Based on these facts, Kentucky conceded in state court that respondent has Fourth Amendment standing to challenge the search. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 7a; see also 302 S.W.3d 649, 652 (Ky. 2010).
. After we granted certiorari, respondent filed a motion to dismiss the petition as improvidently granted, which we denied. 562 U.S. 1042, 131 S. Ct. 625, 178 L. Ed. 2d 432 (2010).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 163, 269, 8 U. S. C. §§ 1101, 1484, provides by § 352:
“(a) A person who has become a national by naturalization shall lose his nationality by—
“(1) having a continuous residence for three years in the territory of a foreign state of which he was formerly a national or in which the place of his birth is situated, except as provided in section 353 of this title, whether such residence commenced before or after the effective date of this Act . . . .” (Italics added.)
Appellant, a German national by birth, came to this country with her parents when a small child, acquired derivative American citizenship at the age of 16 through her mother, and, after graduating from Smith College, went abroad for postgraduate work. In 1956 while in France she became engaged to a German national, returned here briefly, and departed for Germany, where she married and where she has resided ever since. Since her marriage .she has returned to this country on two occasions for visits. Her husband is a lawyer in Cologne where appellant has been living. Two of her four sons, born in Germany, are dual nationals, having acquired American citizenship under § 301 (a) (7) of the 1952 Act. The American citizenship of the other two turns on this case. In 1959 the United States denied her a passport, the State Department certifying that she had lost her American citizenship under § 352 (a)(1), quoted above. Appellant sued for a declaratory judgment that she still is an American citizen. The District Court held against her, 218 F. Supp. 302, and the case is here on appeal. 375. U. S. 893.
The Solicitor General makes his case along the following lines.
Over a period of many years this Government has been seriously concerned by special problems engendered when naturalized citizens return for a long period to the countries of their former nationalities. It is upon this premise that the argument derives that Congress, through its power over foreign relations, has the power to deprive such citizens of their citizenship.
Other nations, it is said, frequently attempt to treat such persons as their own citizens, thus embroiling the United States in conflicts when it attempts to afford them protection. It is argued that expatriation is an alternative to withdrawal of diplomatic protection. It is also argued that Congress reasonably can protect against the tendency of three years’ residence in a naturalized citizen’s former homeland to weaken his or her allegiance to this country. The argument continues that it is not invidious discrimination for Congress to treat such naturalized citizens differently from the manner in which it treats native-born citizens and that Congress has the right to legislate with respect to the general class without regard to each factual violation. It is finally argued that Congress here, unlike the situation in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144, was aiming only to regulate and not .to punish, and that what Congress did had been deemed appropriate not only by this country but by many others and is in keeping with traditional American concepts of citizenship.
We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the “natural born” citizen is eligible to be President. Art. II, § 1.
While the rights of citizenship of the native born derive from § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment and the rights of the naturalized citizen derive from satisfying, free of fraud, the requirements set by Congress, the latter, apart from the exception noted, “becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the constitution, on the footing of a native. The constitution does not authorize Congress to enlarge or abridge those rights. The simple power of the national Legislature, is to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization, and the exercise of this power exhausts it, so far as respects the individual.” Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 827. And see Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9, 22; United States v. MacIntosh, 283 U. S. 605, 624; Knauer v. United States, 328 U. S. 654, 658.
Views of the Justices have varied when it comes to the problem of expatriation.
There is one view that the power of Congress to take away citizenship for activities of the citizen is nonexistent absent expatriation by the voluntary renunciation of nationality and allegiance. See Perez v. Brownell, 356 U. S. 44, 79 (dissenting opinion of Justices Black and Douglas) ; Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86 (opinion by Chief Justice Warren). That view has not yet commanded a majority of the entire Court. Hence we are faced with the issue presented and decided in Perez v. Brownell, supra, i. e., whether the present Act violates due process. That in turn comes to the question put in the following words in Perez:
“Is the means, withdrawal of citizenship, reasonably calculated to effect the end that is within the power of Congress to achieve, the avoidance of embarrassment in the conduct of our foreign relations . . . ?” 356 U. S., at 60.
In that case, where an American citizen voted in a foreign election, the answer was in the affirmative. In the present case the question is whether the same answer should be given merely because the naturalized citizen lived in her former homeland continuously for three years. We think not.
Speaking of the provision in the Nationality Act of 1940, which was the predecessor of § 352 (a)(1), Chairman Dickstein of the House said that the bill would “relieve this country of the responsibility of those who reside in foreign lands and only claim citizenship when it serves their purpose.” 86 Cong. Rec. 11944. And the Senate Report on the 1940 bill stated:
“These provisions for loss of nationality by residence abroad would greatly lessen the task of the United States in protecting through the Department of State nominal citizens of this country who are abroad but whose real interests, as shown by the conditions of their foreign stay, are not in this country.” S. Rep. No. 2150, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 4.
As stated by Judge Fahy, dissenting below, such legislation, touching as it does on the “most precious right” of citizenship (Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S., at 159), would have to be justified under the foreign relations power “by some more urgent public necessity than substituting administrative convenience for the individual right of which the citizen is deprived.” 218 F. Supp. 302, 320.
In Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, supra, a divided Court held that it was beyond the power of Congress to deprive an American of his citizenship automatically and without any prior judicial or administrative proceedings because he left the United States in time of war to evade or avoid training or service in the Armed Forces. The Court held that it was an unconstitutional use of congressional power because it took away citizenship as punishment for the offense of remaining outside the country to avoid military service, without, at the same time, affording him the procedural safeguards granted by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Yet even the dissenters, who felt that flight or absence to evade the duty of helping to defend the country in time of war amounted to manifest nonallegiance, made a reservation. Justice Stewart stated:
“Previous decisions have suggested that congressional exercise of the power to expatriate may be subject to a further constitutional restriction — a limitation upon the kind of activity which may be made the basis of denationalization. Withdrawal of citizenship is a drastic measure. Moreover, the power to expatriate endows government with authority to define and to limit the society which it represents and to which it is responsible.
“This Court has never held that Congress’ power to expatriate may be used unsparingly in every area in which it has general power to act. Our previous decisions upholding involuntary denationalization all involved conduct inconsistent with undiluted allegiance to this country.” 372 U. S., at 214.
This statute proceeds on the impermissible assumption that naturalized citizens as a class are less reliable and bear less allegiance to this country than do the native born. This is an assumption that is impossible for us to make. Moreover, while the Fifth Amendment contains no equal protection clause, it does forbid discrimination that is “so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.” Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 499. A native-born citizen is free to reside abroad indefinitely without suffering loss of citizenship. The discrimination aimed at naturalized citizens drastically limits their rights to live and work abroad in a way that other citizens may. It creates indeed a second-class citizenship. Living abroad, whether the citizen be naturalized or native born, is no badge of lack of allegiance and in no way evidences a voluntary renunciation of nationality and allegiance. It may indeed be compelled by family, business, or other legitimate reasons.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Brennan took no part in the decision of this case.
The exceptions relate, inter alia, to residence abroad in the employment of the United States and are not relevant here.
For other aspects of the ease see 372 U. S. 224.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to consider whether the State’s denial of unemployment compensation benefits to the petitioner, a Jehovah’s Witness who terminated his job because his religious beliefs forbade participation in the production of armaments, constituted a violation of his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. 444 U. S. 1070 (1980).
I
Thomas terminated his employment in the Blaw-Knox Foundry & Machinery Co. when he was transferred from the roll foundry to a department that produced turrets for military tanks. He claimed his religious beliefs prevented him from participating in the production of war materials. The respondent Review Board denied him unemployment compensation benefits by applying disqualifying provisions of the Indiana Employment Security Act.
Thomas, a Jehovah’s Witness, was hired initially to work in the roll foundry at Blaw-Knox. The function of that department was to fabricate sheet steel for a variety of industrial uses. On his application form, he listed his membership in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and noted that his hobbies were Bible study and Bible reading. However, he placed no conditions on his employment; and he did not describe his religious tenets in any detail on the form.
Approximately a year later, the roll foundry closed, and Blaw-Knox transferred Thomas to a department that fabricated turrets for military tanks. On his first day at this new job, Thomas realized that the work he was doing was weapons related. He checked the bulletin board where in-plant openings were listed, and discovered that all of the remaining departments at Blaw-Knox were engaged directly in the production of weapons. Since no transfer to another department would resolve his problem, he asked for a layoff. When that request was denied, he quit, asserting that he could not work on weapons without violating the principles of his religion. The record does not show that he was offered any non-weapons work by his employer, or that any such work was available.
Upon leaving Blaw-Knox, Thomas applied for unemployment compensation benefits under the Indiana Employment Security Act. At an administrative hearing where he was not represented by counsel, he testified that he believed that contributing to the production of arms violated his religion. He said that when he realized that his work on the tank turret line involved producing weapons for war, he consulted another Blaw-Knox employee — a friend and fellow Jehovah’s Witness. The friend advised him that working on weapons parts at Blaw-Know was not “unscriptural.” Thomas was not able to “rest with” this view, however. He concluded that his friend’s view was based upon a less strict reading of Witnesses’ principles than his own.
When asked at the hearing to explain what kind of work his religious convictions would permit, Thomas said that he would have no difficulty doing the type of work that he had done at the roll foundry. He testified that he could, in good conscience, engage indirectly in the production of materials that might be used ultimately to fabricate arms — for example, as an employee of a raw material supplier or of a roll foundry.
The hearing referee found that Thomas’ religious beliefs specifically precluded him from producing or directly aiding in the manufacture of items used in warfare. He also found that Thomas had terminated his employment because of these religious convictions. The referee reported:
“Claimant continually searched for a transfer to another department which would not be so armament related; however, this did not materialize, and prior to the date of his leaving, claimant requested a layoff, which was denied; and on November 6, 1975, claimant did quit due to his religious convictions.”
The referee concluded nonetheless that Thomas’ termination was not based upon a “good cause [arising] in connection with [his] work,” as required by the Indiana unemployment compensation statute. Accordingly, he was held not entitled to benefits. The Review Board adopted the referee’s findings and conclusions, and affirmed the denial of benefits.
The Indiana Court of Appeals, accepting the finding that Thomas terminated his employment “due to his religious convictions,” reversed the decision of the Review Board, and held that § 22-4-15-1, as applied, improperly burdened Thomas’ right to the free exercise of his religion. Accordingly, it ordered the Board to extend benefits to Thomas. 178 Ind. App. -, 381 N. E. 2d 888 (1978).
The Supreme Court of Indiana, dividing 3-2, vacated the decision of the Court of Appeals, and denied Thomas benefits. 271 Ind. -, 391 N. E. 2d 1127 (1979). With reference to the Indiana unemployment compensation statute, the court said:
“It is not intended to facilitate changing employment or to provide relief for those who quit work voluntarily for personal reasons. Voluntary unemployment is not compensable under the purpose of the Act, which is to provide benefits for persons unemployed through no fault of their own.
“Good cause which justifies voluntary termination must be job-related and objective in character.” Id., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1129 (footnotes omitted).
The court held that Thomas had quit voluntarily for personal reasons, and therefore did not qualify for benefits. Id., at —, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1130.
In discussing the petitioner’s free exercise claim, the court stated: “A personal philosophical choice rather than a religious choice, does not rise to the level of a first amendment claim.” Id., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1131. The court found the basis and the precise nature of Thomas’ belief unclear — but it concluded that the belief was more “personal philosophical choice” than religious belief. Nonetheless, it held that, even assuming that Thomas quit for religious reasons, he would not be entitled to benefits: under Indiana law, a termination motivated by religion is not for “good cause” objectively related to the work.
The Indiana court concluded that denying Thomas benefits would create only an indirect burden on his free exercise right and that the burden was justified by the legitimate state interest in preserving the integrity of the insurance fund and maintaining a stable work force by encouraging workers not to leave their jobs for personal reasons.
Finally, the court held that awarding unemployment compensation benefits to a person who terminates employment voluntarily for religious reasons, while denying such benefits to persons who terminate for other personal but nonreligious reasons, would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The judgment under review must be examined in light of our prior decisions, particularly Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963).
II
Only beliefs rooted in religion are protected by the Free Exercise Clause, which, by its terms, gives special protection to the exercise of religion. Sherbert v. Verner, supra; Wis consin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 215-216 (1972). The determination of what is a “religious” belief or practice is more often than not a difficult and delicate task, as the division in the Indiana Supreme Court attests. However, the resolution of that question is not to turn upon a judicial perception of the particular belief or practice in question; religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection.
In support of his claim for benefits, Thomas testified:
“Q. And then when it comes to actually producing the tank itself, hammering it out; that you will not do. . . .
“A. That’s right, that’s right when . . . I’m daily faced with the knowledge that these are tanks ....
“A. I really could not, you know, conscientiously continue to work with armaments. It would be against all of the . . . religious principles that ... I have come to learn . . . .” 271 Ind., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1132.
Based upon this and other testimony, the referee held that Thomas “quit due to his religious convictions.” The Review Board adopted that finding, and the finding is not challenged in this Court.
The Indiana Supreme Court apparently took a different view of the record. It concluded that “although the claimant’s reasons for quitting were described as religious, it was unclear what his belief was, and what the religious basis of his belief was.” In that court’s view, Thomas had made a merely “personal philosophical choice rather than a religious choice.”
In reaching its conclusion, the Indiana court seems to have placed considerable reliance on the facts that Thomas was “struggling” with his beliefs and that he was not able to “articulate” his belief precisely. It noted, for example, that Thomas admitted before the referee that he would not object to
“working for United States Steel or Inland Steel . . . producing] the raw product necessary for the production of any kind of tank . . . [because I] would not be a direct party to whoever they shipped it to [and] would not be . . . chargeable in . . . conscience. . . .” 271 Ind., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1131.
The court found this position inconsistent with Thomas’ stated opposition to participation in the production of armaments. But Thomas’ statements reveal no more than that he found work in the roll foundry sufficiently insulated from producing weapons of war. We see, therefore, that Thomas drew a line, and it is not for us to say that the line he drew was an unreasonable one. Courts should not undertake to dissect religious beliefs because the believer admits that he is “struggling” with his position or because his beliefs are not articulated with the clarity and precision that a more sophisticated person might employ.
The Indiana court also appears to have given significant weight to the fact that another Jehovah’s Witness had no scruples about working on tank turrets; for that other Witness, at least, such work was “scripturally” acceptable. Intrafaith differences of that kind are not uncommon among followers of a particular creed, and the judicial process is singularly ill equipped to resolve such differences in relation to the Religion Clauses. One can, of course, imagine an asserted claim so bizarre, so clearly nonreligious in motivation, as not to be entitled to protection under the Free Exercise Clause; but that is not the case here, and the guarantee of free exercise is not limited to beliefs which are shared by all of the members of a religious sect. Particularly in this sensitive area, it is not within the judicial function and judicial competence to inquire whether the petitioner or his fellow worker more correctly perceived the commands of their common faith. Courts are not arbiters of scriptural interpretation.
The narrow function of a reviewing court in this context is to determine whether there was an appropriate finding that petitioner terminated his work because of an honest conviction that such work was forbidden by his religion. Not surprisingly, the record before the referee and the Review Board was not made with an eye to the microscopic examination often exercised in appellate judicial review. However, judicial review is confined to the facts as found and conclusions drawn. On this record, it is clear that Thomas terminated his employment for religious reasons.
Ill
A
More than 30 years ago, the Court held that a person may not be compelled to choose between the exercise of a First Amendment right and participation in an otherwise available public program. A state may not
“exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation.” Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 16 (1947) (emphasis deleted).
Later, in Sherbert the Court examined South Carolina’s attempt to deny unemployment compensation benefits to a Sabbatarian who declined to work on Saturday. In sustaining her right to receive benefits, the Court held:
“The ruling [disqualifying Mrs. Sherbert from benefits because of her refusal to work on Saturday in violation of her faith] forces her to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work, on the other hand. Governmental imposition of such a choice puts the same kind of burden upon the free exercise of religion as would a fine imposed against [her] for her Saturday worship.” 374 U. S., at 404.
The respondent Review Board argues, and the Indiana Supreme Court held, that the burden upon religion here is only the indirect consequence of public welfare legislation that the State clearly has authority to enact. “Neutral objective standards must be met to qualify for compensation.” 271 Ind., at -, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1130. Indiana requires applicants for unemployment compensation to show that they left work for “good cause in connection with the work.” Ibid. A similar argument was made and rejected in Sherbert, however. It is true that, as in Sherbert, the Indiana law does not compel a violation of conscience. But, “this is only the beginning, not the end, of our inquiry.” 374 U. S., at 403-404. In a variety of ways we have said that “[a] regulation neutral on its face may, in its application, nonetheless offend the constitutional requirement for governmental neutrality if it unduly burdens the free exercise of religion.” Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S., at 220. Cf. Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970).
Here, as in Sherbert, the employee was put to a choice between fidelity to religious belief or cessation of work; the coercive impact on Thomas is indistinguishable from Sherbert, where the Court held:
“[N]ot only is it apparent that appellant’s declared ineligibility for benefits derives solely from the practice of her religion, but the pressure upon her to forego that practice is unmistakable.” 374 U. S., at 404.
Where the state conditions receipt of an important benefit upon conduct proscribed by a religious faith, or where it denies such a benefit because of conduct mandated by religious belief, thereby putting substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs, a burden upon religion exists. While the compulsion may be- indirect, the infringement upon free exercise is nonetheless substantial.
The respondents also contend that Sherbert is inapposite because, in that case, the employee was dismissed by the employer’s action. But we see that Mrs. Sherbert was dismissed because she refused to work on Saturdays after the plant went to a 6-day workweek. Had Thomas simply presented himself at the Blaw-Knox plant turret line but refused to perform any assigned work, it must be assumed that he, like Sherbert, would have been terminated by the employer’s action, if no other work was available. In both cases, the termination flowed from the fact that the employment, once acceptable, became religiously objectionable because of changed conditions.
B
The mere fact that the petitioner’s religious practice is burdened by a governmental program does not mean that an exemption accommodating his practice must be granted. The state may justify an inroad on religious liberty by showing that it is the least restrictive means of achieving some compelling state interest. However, it is still true that “[t]he essence of all that has been said and written on the subject is that only those interests of the highest order . . . can overbalance legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion.” Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, at 215.
The purposes urged to sustain the disqualifying provision of the Indiana unemployment compensation scheme are twofold: (1) to avoid the widespread unemployment and the consequent burden on the fund resulting if people were permitted to leave jobs for “personal” reasons; and (2) to avoid a detailed probing by employers into job applicants’ religious beliefs. These are by no means unimportant considerations. When the focus of the inquiry is properly narrowed, however, we must conclude that the interests advanced by the State do not justify the burden placed on free exercise of religion.
There is no evidence in the record to indicate that the number of people who find themselves in the predicament of choosing between benefits and religious beliefs is large enough to create “widespread unemployment,” or even to seriously affect unemployment — and no such claim was advanced by the Review Board. Similarly, although detailed inquiry by employers into applicants’ religious beliefs is undesirable, there is no evidence in the record to indicate that such inquiries will occur in Indiana, or that they have occurred in any of the states that extend benefits to people in the petitioner’s position. Nor is there any reason to believe that the number of people terminating employment for religious reasons will be so great as to motivate employers to make such inquiries.
Neither of the interests advanced is sufficiently compelling to justify the burden upon Thomas’ religious liberty. Accordingly, Thomas is entitled to receive benefits unless, as the respondents contend and the Indiana court held, such payment would violate the Establishment Clause.
IV
The respondents contend that to compel benefit payments to Thomas involves the State in fostering a religious faith. There is, in a sense, a “benefit” to Thomas deriving from his religious beliefs, but this manifests no more than the tension between the two Religious Clauses which the Court resolved in Sherbert:
“In holding as we do, plainly we are not fostering the 'establishment’ of the Seventh-day Adventist religion in South Carolina, for the extension of unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians in common with Sunday wor-shippers reflects nothing more than the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences, and does not represent that involvement of religious with secular institutions which it is the object of the Establishment Clause to forestall.” Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S., at 409.
See also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S., at 220-221; Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S., at 668-669; O’Hair v. Andrus, 198 U. S. App. D. C. 198, 201-204, 613 F. 2d 931, 93A-937 (1979) (Leventhal, J.).
Unless we are prepared to overrule Sherbert, supra, Thomas cannot be denied the benefits due him on the basis of the findings of the referee, the Review Board, and the Indiana Court of Appeals that he terminated his employment because of his religious convictions.
Reversed.
Justice Blackmun joins Parts I, II, and III of the Court’s opinion. As to Part IV thereof, he concurs in the result.
Indiana Code §22-4-15-1 (Supp. 1978) provides:
“With respect to benefit periods including extended benefit periods established subsequent to July 6, 1974, and before July 3, 1977, an individual who has voluntarily left his emplojunent without good cause in connection with the work or who was discharged from his employment for just cause shall be ineligible for waiting period or benefit rights for the week in which the disqualifying separation occurred and until he has subsequently earned remuneration in employment equal to or exceeding the weekly benefit amount of his claim in each of ten (10) weeks. The weeks of a disqualification period remaining at the expiration of an individual’s benefit period will be carried forward to an extended benefit period or to the benefit period of a subsequent claim only if the first week of such extended benefit period or subsequent benefit period falls within ten (10) consecutive weeks from the beginning of the disqualification period imposed on the prior claim.”
Ind. Code §22-4-1-1 et seq. (1976 and Supp. 1978).
It is reasonable to assume that some of the sheet steel processed in the roll foundry may have found its way into tanks or other weapons; the record, however, contains no evidence or finding on this point.
The referee indicated, App. to Pet. for Cert. 2a:
“The evidence reveals that approximate [sic] two to three weeks prior to claimant’s date of leaving, the ‘Roll Foundry’ was closed permanently and claimant was transferred to the terret [sic] line. [He], at this time, real [sic] realized that all of the other functions at The Blaw-Knox company were engaged in producing arms for the Armament Industry. Claimant’s religious beliefs specifically exempts [sic] claimants from producing or aiding in the manufacture of items used in the advancement of war.”
Id., at 2a-3a (emphasis added by petitioner).
The Review Board, like the referee, found that Thomas had left his job for religious reasons, id., at 5a:
“The evidence of record indicates that claimant . . . left his employment voluntarily because his religious beliefs . . . would not allow him to continue to work producing arms . . . .”
See, e. g., Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 495 (1961); United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78 (1944).
See n. 4, and text at n. 5, supra.
See n. 6, supra.
271 Ind., at —, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1133.
Id., at —, 391 N. E. 2d, at 1131.
A similar interest — the integrity of the insurance fund — was advanced and rejected in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 407 (1963).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The judgments are reversed. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Stewart join.
Petitioner alleges that Negroes were, systematically excluded from the grand jury that indicted him and the petit jury that convicted him of burglary in the Superior Court of Muscogee County, Georgia. In consequence he contends that his conviction is invalid under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because he is not himself a Negro, the respondent contends that he has hot suffered any unconstitutional discrimination, and that his conviction' must stand. ' On that ground, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of his petition for federal habeas corpus. 441 •F. 2d 370' (CA5 1971). We granted certiorari. 404 U. S. 964 (1971). We reverse.
I
At the- outset, we reject the contention that the only-issue before this Court is petitioner’s challenge to the composition of the grand jury that indicted him. The respondent argues that the challenge to the petit jury is not before us, because it fails to appear in the list of questions presented by the petition for certiorari. We do not regard that omission as controlling, however, in light of the fact that the two claims have been treated together at every stage of the proceedings below, they are treated together in the body of the petition for certiorari, and they are treated together in the brief filed by petitioner on. the merits in this Court. Petitioner cannot fairly be said to have abandoned his challenge to the petit jury, and the State has had ample opportunity to respond to that challenge, having done so at length below.
Moreover, in this case the principles governing the two claims are identical. First, it appears that the same selection process was used for both the grand jury and the petit jury. Consequently, the question whether jurors were in fact excluded on the basis of race will be answered the same way for both tribunals. Second, both the grand jury and the petit jury in this case must be measured solely by the general Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of due process and equal protection, and not by the specific constitutional provisions for the grand' jury and the petit jury. For the Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury does not apply in a state prosecution. Hurtado v. California, 110 IT. S. 516 (1884). And the Sixth Amendment right to a petit jury, made applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968), does not apply to state trials that took place before the decision in Duncan, as petitioner’s trial did. DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U.S. 631 (1968). Accordingly, we turn now to the commands of equal protection and of due process.
II
This Court has never before considered a white defendant’s challenge to the exclusion of Negroes from jury service. The essence of petitioner’s claim is this: that the tribunals that indicted and convicted him were constituted in a manner that is prohibited by the Constitution and by statute; that the impact of that error on any individual trial is unascertainable; and that consequently any indictment or conviction returned by such tribunals must be set aside.
There can be no doubt that, if petitioner’s allegations are true, both tribunals involved in this case were illegally constituted. He alleges that Negroes were systematically excluded from both the grand jury and the petit jury. This Court has repeatedly held that the Constitution prohibits such selection practices, with respect to the grand jury, the petit jury, or both. Moreover, Congress has made it a crime for a public official to exclude anyone from a grand or petit jury on the basis óf race, 18 U. S. C. § 243, and this Court upheld the statute, approving the congressional determination that such exclusion would violate the express prohibitions of the Equal Protection Clause. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339 (1880). The crime, and the unconstitutional state action, occur whether the- defendant is white or Negro, whether he is acquitted or convicted. In short, when a grand or petit jury has been selected on an impermissible basis, the existence of a constitutional violation does not depend on the circumstances of the person making the claim.
It is a separate question, however, whether petitioner is entitled to the relief he seeks on the basis of that constitutional violation. Respondent argues that even if the grand and petit juries were unconstitutionally selected, petitioner is not entitled to relief on that account because he has not shown how he was harmed by the error. It is argued that a Negro defendant’s right to challenge the exclusion of Negroes from jury service rests on a presumption that a jury so constituted will be prejudiced against him; that no such presumption is available to a white defendant; and consequently that a white defendant must introduce. affirmative evidence of actual harm in order to establish a basis for relief.
That argument takes too narrow a view of the kinds of harm that flow from discrimination in jury selection. The exclusion of Negroes from jury service, like the arbitrary exclusion of any other well-defined class of citizens, offends a number of related constitutional values.
In Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 308-309 (1880), this Court considered the question from the point of view of the Negro defendant’s right to equal protection of the laws. Btrauder was part of a landmark trilogy oí cases, in which this Court first dealt with the problem of racial discrimination in jury selection. In Strauder itself, a Negro defendant sought to remove his criminal trial to the federal. courts, pursuant to statute, on the. ground that Negroes were excluded by law from the grand and petit juries in .the state courts; the Court upheld his claim. In Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313 (1880), a Negro defendant sought removal on the ground that there were in fact no Negroes in the venire from which his jury was drawn; the Court held that, without more, his claim did not come within the precise terms of the removal statute. Finally, in Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 330 (1880), a state judge challenged the' statute under which he was convicted for the federal crime of excluding Negroes from state grand and petit juries; the Court upheld the statute as a valid means of enforcing the Equal Protection Clause. Because each of these three cases was amenable to decision on the narrow basis of an analysis of the Negro defendant’s right to equal protection, the Court brought all three under that single analytical umbrella.
But even in 1880 the Court recognized that other constitutional values were implicated. In Btrauder, the Court observed that the exclusion of Negroes from jury service injures not only defendants, but also other members of the excluded class: it denies the class of potential jurors the “privilege of participating equally '. . . in the administration of justice,” 100 U. S., at 308, and it stigmatizes the whole class, even those who . do not wish to participate, by declaring them unfit for jury service and thereby putting “a-brand upon them, affixed by law, an assertion of their inferiority.” Ibid. It is now clear that injunctive relief is available to vindicate these interests of the excluded jurors and the stigmatized class. Carter v. Jury Commission of Greene County, 396 U. S. 320 (1970); Turner v. Fouche, 396 U. S. 346 (1970); White v. Crook, 251 F. Supp. 401 (MD Ala. 1966).
Moreover, the Court has also. recognizecLthat the exclusion of a discernible class from jury service injures not only those defendants who belong to the excluded, class, but other defendants as well, in that it destroys the possibility that the jury will reflect a representative cross section of the community. In Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970), we sought to delineate some of the essential features of the jury that is guaranteed, in certain circumstances, by the Sixth Amendment. We concluded that it comprehends; inter alia, “a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community.” 399 U. S., at 100. Thus if the Sixth Amendment were applicable here, and petitioner were challenging a pqst-Duncan petit jury, he would clearly have standing to challenge the systematic exclusion of any identifiable group from jury service.
The precise question in this case, then, is whether a State may subject a defendant to indictment and trial by grand and petit juries that are plainly illegal in their composition, and leave the defendant without recourse on the ground that he had in any event no right to a grand or petit jury at all. We conclude, for reasons that follow, that to do so denies the defendant due process of law.
Ill
“A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.” In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136 (1955). The due process right to a competent and impartial tribunal is quite separate from the right to any particular form of proceeding. Due process requires a competent and impartial tribunal in administrative hearings, Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 271 (1970), and in trials to a judge, Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 (1927). Similarly, if a State chooses, quite apart from constitutional compulsion, to use a grand or petit jury, due process imposes limitations on the composition of that Jury-
Long before this Court held that the Constitution imposes the requirement of jury trial on the States, it was well established that the Due Process Clause protects a defendant from jurors who are actually incapable of rendering an impartial verdict, based on the evidence and the law. Thus a defendant cannot, consistent with due process, be subjected to trial by an insane juror, Jordan v. Massachusetts, 225 U. S. 167, 176 (1912), by jurors who are intimidated by the threat of mob violence, Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86 (1923), or by jurors who have formed a fixed opinion about the case from newspaper publicity, Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717 (1961).
Moreover, even if there is no showing of actual bias in the tribunal, this Court has held that due process is denied by circumstances that create the likelihood or the appearance of bias. This rule, too, was well established long before the right to jury trial was made applicable in state trial's, and does not depend on it. Thus it has been invoked in trials to a judge, e. g., Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 (1927); In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133 (1955); Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U. S. 455 (1971); and in pre-Duncan state jury trials, e. g., Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 466 (1965); Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532, 550 (1965). In Tumey v. Ohio, supra, this Court held that a judge could not, consistent with due process, try a case when he had a financial stake in the outcome, notwithstanding the possibility that he might resist the temptation to be influenced by that interest. And in Turner v. Louisiana, supra, the Court held that a jury could not, consistent with due process, try a case after it had been placed in the protective custody of the principal prosecution witnesses, notwithstanding the possibility that the jurors might not be influenced by the association. , As this Court said in In re Murchison, supra, “[f] airness of course requires an absence of actual' bias in the trial of cases. But our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness.” 349 U. S., at 136.
These principles compel the conclusion that a State cannot, consistent with due process, subject a defendant to indictment or trial by a jury that has been selected in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner, in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States. Illegal and unconstitutional jury selection procedures cast doubt on the integrity of the whole judicial process. They create' the appearance of bias in the decision of j individual cases, and they increase the risk of actual ¡ bias as well.
If it were possible to say with confidence that the risk of bias resulting from the arbitrary action involved here is confined to cases involving Negro defendants, then perhaps the right to challenge the tribunal on . that ground could be similarly confined. The case of the white defendant might then be thought to present a species of" harmless error.
But the exclusion from jury service of a substantial and identifiable class of citizens has a potential impact.that is too subtle and too pervasive to admit of confinement to particular issues or particular cases. First, if we assume that the exclusion of Negroes affects the fairness of the jury only with respect to issues presenting a clear opportunity for the operation of- race prejudice, that assumption does not provide a workable guide for decision in particular cases. For the opportunity to appeal to race prejudice is latent in a vast range of issues, cutting across the entire fabric of our society.
Moreover, we are unwilling to make the assumption Ji that the exclusion of Negroes has relevance only for j j issues involving race. When any large and identifiable1 segment of the community is excluded from jury service, the effect is to remove from the jury room qualities of human nature and varieties of human experience, the range of which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It is not necessary to assume that the excluded group will consistently vote as a class in order to conclude, as we do, that its exclusion deprives the jury of a perspective on human events that may have unsuspected importance, in any case that may be presented.
It is in the nature of the practices here challenged that proof of actual harm, or. lack of harm, is virtually impossible to adduce. For there is no way to determine what jury would have been selected under a constitutionally valid selection system, or how that jury would have decided the case. Consequently, it is necessary to decide on principle which side shall suffer the consequences of unavoidable uncertainty. See Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525-526 (1958); In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 370-373 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). In light of the great potential for harm latent in an unconstitutional jury-selection system, and the strong interest of the criminal defendant in avoiding that harm, any doubt should be resolved in favor of giving the opportunity for challenging the jury to too many defendants, rather than giving it to too few.
■ Accordingly, we hold that, whatever his race, a criminal ¡defendant has standing to challenge the systein used to select his grand or petit jury, on the ground that it Arbitrarily excludes from service the members of any race, and thereby denies him due process of law. This certainly is true in this case, where the claim is that Negroes were systematically excluded from jury service. For Congress has made such exclusion a crime. 18 U. S. C. § 243.
IV
Having resolvfed the question of standing, we turn briefly to the further disposition of this case. There is, of course, no question here of justifying the .system under attack. For whatever may be the law with regard to other exclusions from jury service, it is clear beyond all doubt that the exclusion of Negroes cannot pass constitutional muster. Accordingly, if petitioner’s allegations are correct, and Negroes were systematically excluded from his grand and petit juries, then he was indicted, and convicted by tribunals that fail to satisfy the elementary requirements of due process, and neither the indictment nor the conviction can stand. Since he was precluded from proving the facts alleged in support of his claim, the judgment must be reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
The history of this litigation is long and- complicated. Petitioner was indicted on June 6, 1966. His first trial resulted in a conviction that was reversed on Fourth Amendment grounds, 114 Ga. App. 595, 152 S. E. 2d 647 (1966). A second trial, held on December 8, 1966, resulted in the conviction challenged here, which was affirmed, 115 Ga. App. 743, 156 S. E. 2d 195 (1967). Petitioner for the first time raised the claim of discriminatory jury selection in a petition for federal habeas corpus, which was summarily denied on July 5, 1967. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that petitioner had failed to exhaust then-available state remedies with respect to his otherwise highly col-orable claim, 397 F. 2d 731, 735-741 (CA5 1968). Petitioner then filed a second petition for federal habeas corpus on the same ground, alleging that intervening state court decisions clearly foreclosed his claim in the state courts. That petition was denied on the grounds (1) that it was repetitious, (2) that petitioner had failed to exhaust, and (3) that his claims were lacking in merit. App. 15. The Court of Appeals again affirmed, rejecting the first two grounds and resting entirely on the third, i. e., rejecting petitioner’s substantive claims. 441 F. 2d 370 (1971). The exhaustion point thus having been resolved in petitioner’s favor below, the State quite properly does not press it here.
See Brief for Appellee in Court of Appeals 28-43.
The jury lists were made up from the tax digests, which were by law segregated according to race; moreover, the jury lists contained a proportion of Negroes much smaller than the proportion in the population or intthe tax digests.- The jury-selection system of Muscogee County, Georgia, was explored in detail and struck down as unconstitutional in Vanleeward v. Rutledge, 369 F. 2d 584 (CA5 1966), contemporaneously with petitioner’s trial. On petitioner’s first federal appeal, the Court of Appeals suggested, though it did not hold, that the Vanleeward findings and conclusions oh this point ihould be regarded as conclusive with respect to Peters, and thereby the expense and delay of a full evidentiary hearing might be avoided, 397 F. 2d, at 740.
A number of state courts and lower federal courts have imposed a “same class” rule on challenges to discriminatory jury selection, holding that the exclusion of a class from jury service is subject to challenge only by a member of the excluded class. Only a few courts have rejected the rule; e. g., Allen v. State, 110 Ga. App. 56, 137 S. E. 2d 711 (1964) (not followed by other panels of same court); State v. Madison, 240 Md. 265, 213 A. 2d 880 (1965). The cases are collected, and criticized, in Note, The Defendant’s Challenge to a Racial Criterion in Jury Selection, 74 Yale L. J. 919 (1965). See also Note, The Congress, The Court and Jury Selection; 52 Va. L. Rev. 1069 (1966); This Court avoided passing on the "same class” rule in Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, 289-290 (1947), and has never since then approved or rejected it.
He also claims his own rights under the Equal Protection Clause have been violated, a claim we need not consider in light of our disposition.
Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S. 625 (1972); Arnold v. North Carolina, 376 U. S. 773 (1964); Eubanks v. Louisiana, 356 U. S. 584 (1958); Reece v. Georgia, 350 U. S.. 85 (1955); Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282 (1950); Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400 (1942); Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128 (1940); Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354 (1939); Rogers v. Alabama, 192 U. S. 226 (1904); Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442 (1900); Bush v. Kentucky, 107 U. S. 110 (1883).
Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559 (1953); Hollins v. Oklahoma, 295 U. S. 394 (1935).
Sims v. Georgia, 389 U. S. 404 (1967); Jones v. Georgia, 389 U. S. 24 (1967) ; Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 545 (1967); Coleman v. Alabama, 377 U. S. 129 (1964); Patton v. Mississippi, 332 U. S. 463 (1947); Hale v. Kentucky, 303 U. S. 613 (1938); Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587 (1935); Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316 (1906); Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370 (1881); Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880).
The principle of the representative jury was first articulated by this Court as a requirement of equal protection, in cases vindicating the right of a Negro defendant to challenge the systematic exclusion of Negroes from his grand and petit juries. E. g., Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 130 (1940). Subsequently, in the exercise of its supervisory power over federal courts, this Court extended the principle, to permit any defendant to challenge the arbitrary exclusion from jury service of his own or any other class. E. g., Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 83-87 (1942); Thiel v. Southern, Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 220 (1946); Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187 (1946). Finally it emerged as an aspect of the constitutional right to jury trial in Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78, 100 (1970).
It is of course a separate question whether his challenge would prevail, i. e., whether the exclusion might be found to have sufficient justification. . See Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U. S. 638, 640 (1906), holding that' a State may exclude certain occupational categories from jury service “on the bona fide ground that it [is] , for the good of the community that their regular work should not be interrupted.” We have no occasion here to consider what interests might justify an exclusion, or what standard should be applied, since the only question in this case is not the validity of an exclusion but simply standing to challenge it.
Or the class may be expanded slightly to include white civil rights workers, see Allen v. State, 110 Ga. App. 56, 62, 137 S. E. 2d 711, 715 (1964) (alternative holding).
In rejecting, for the federal courts, the exclusion of women from jury service, this Court made the following observations, which are equally relevant to the exclusion of other discernible groups:
“The truth is that the two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one is different from a community composed of both; the subtle interplay of influence one on the other is among the imponderables. To insulate the courtroom from either may not in a given case make an iota of difference. Yet a flavor, a distinct quality is lost if either sex is excluded.” Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187, 193-194 (1946) (footnote omitted).
Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400, 406 (1942).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question posed is whether, under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA or Act), 104 Stat. 327, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 12101 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. Ill), an employer who requires as a job qualification that an employee meet an otherwise applicable federal safety regulation must justify enforcing the regulation solely because its standard may be waived in an individual ease. We answer no.
I
In August 1990, petitioner, Albertson’s, Inc., a grocery-store chain with supermarkets in several States, hired respondent, Hallie Kirkingburg, as a truckdriver based at its Portland, Oregon, warehouse. Kirkingburg had more than a decade’s driving experience and performed well when petitioner’s transportation manager took him on a road test.
Before starting work, Kirkingburg was examined to see if he met federal vision standards for commercial truck-drivers. 143 P. 3d 1228, 1230-1231 (CA9 1998). For many decades the Department of Transportation and its predecessors have been responsible for devising these standards for individuals who drive commercial vehicles in interstate commerce. Since 1971, the basic vision regulation has required corrected distant visual acuity of at least 20/40 in each eye and distant binocular acuity of at least 20/40. See 35 Fed. Reg. 6458, 6463 (1970); 57 Fed. Reg. 6793, 6794 (1992); 49 CFR § 391.41(b)(10) (1998). Kirkingburg, however, suffers from amblyopia, an uncorreetable condition that leaves him with 20/200 vision in his left eye and monocular vision in effect. Despite Kirkingburg’s weak left eye, the doctor erroneously certified that he met the DOT’S basic vision standards, and Albertson’s hired him.
In December 1991, Kirkingburg injured himself on the job and took a leave of absence. Before returning to work in November 1992, Kirkingburg went for a further physical as required by the company. This time, the examining physician correctly assessed Kirkingburg’s vision and explained that his eyesight did not meet the basic DOT standards. The physician, or his nurse, told Kirkingburg that in order to be legally qualified to drive, he would have to obtain a waiver of its basic vision standards from the DOT. See 143 F. 3d, at 1230; App. 284-285. The doctor was alluding to a scheme begun in July 1992 for giving DOT certification to applicants with deficient vision who had three years of recent experience driving a commercial vehicle without a license suspension or revocation, involvement in a reportable accident in which the applicant was cited for a moving violation, conviction for certain driving-related offenses, citation for certain serious traffic violations, or more than two convictions for any other moving violations. A waiver applicant had to agree to have his vision cheeked annually for deterioration, and to report certain information about his driving experience to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA or Administration), the agency within the DOT responsible for overseeing the motor carrier safety regulations. See 57 Fed. Reg. 31458, 31460-31461 (1992). Kirkingburg applied for a waiver, but because he could not meet the basic DOT vision standard Albertson’s fired him from his job as a truckdriver. In early 1993, after he had left Albertson’s, Kirkingburg received a DOT waiver, but Albertson’s refused to rehire him. See 143 F. 3d, at 1231.
Kirkingburg sued Albertson’s, claiming that firing him violated the ADA. Albertson’s moved for summary judgment solely on the ground that Kirkingburg was "not ‘otherwise qualified’ to perform the job of truck driver with or without reasonable accommodation.” App. 39-40; see id., at 119. The District Court granted the motion, ruling that Albert-son’s had reasonably concluded that Kirkingburg was not qualified without an accommodation because he could not, as admitted, meet the basic DOT vision standards. The court held that giving Kirkingburg time to get a DOT waiver was not a required reasonable accommodation because the waiver program was “a flawed experiment that has not altered the DOT vision requirements.” Id., at 120.
A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed. In addition to pressing its claim that Kirkingburg was not otherwise qualified, Albertson’s for the first time on appeal took the position that it was entitled to summary judgment because Kirkingburg did not have a disability within the meaning of the Act. See id., at 182-185. The Court of Appeals considered but rejected the new argument, concluding that because Kirkingburg had presented “uncontroverted evidence” that his vision was effectively monocular, he had demonstrated that “the manner in which he sees differs significantly from the manner in which most people see.” 143 F. 3d, at 1232. That difference in manner, the court held, was sufficient to establish disability. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals then addressed the ground upon which the District Court had granted summary judgment, acknowledging that Albertson’s consistently required its truekdrivers to meet the DOT’S basic vision standards and that Kirkingburg had not met them (and indeed could not). The court recognized that the ADA allowed Albertson’s to establish a reasonable job-related vision standard as a prerequisite for hiring and that Albertson’s could rely on Government regulations as a basis for setting its standard. The court held, however, that Albertson’s could not use compliance with a Government regulation as the justification for its vision requirement because the waiver program, which Albertson’s disregarded, was “a lawful and legitimate part of the DOT regulatory scheme.” Id., at 1286. The Court of Appeals conceded that Albertson’s was free to set a vision standard different from that mandated by the DOT, but held that under the ADA, Albertson’s would have to justify its independent standard as necessary to prevent ‘“a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace.’” Ibid, (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 12118(b)). Although the court suggested that Albertson’s might be able to make such a showing on remand, 143 F. 3d, at 1236, it ultimately took the position that the company could not, interpreting petitioner’s rejection of DOT waivers as flying in the face of the judgment about safety already embodied in the DOT’s decision to grant them, id., at 1237.
Judge Rymer dissented. She contended that Albertson’s had properly relied on the basic DOT vision standards in refusing to accept waivers because, when Albertson’s fired Kirkingburg, the waiver program did not rest upon “a rule or a regulation with the force of law,” but was merely a way of gathering data to use in deciding whether to refashion the still-applicable vision standards. Id., at 1239.
II
Though we need not speak to the issue whether Kirk-ingburg was an individual with a disability in order to resolve this case, that issue falls within the first question on which we granted certiorari, 525 U. S. 1064 (1999), and we think it worthwhile to address it briefly in order to correct three missteps the Ninth Circuit made in its discussion of the matter. Under the ADA:
“The term ‘disability' means, with respect to an individual—
“(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual;
“(B) a record of such an impairment; or
“(C) being regarded as having such an impairment.” 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2).
We are concerned only with the first definition. There is no dispute either that Kirkingburg’s amblyopia is a physical impairment within the meaning of the Act, see 29 CFR § 1630.2(h)(1) (1998) (defining “physical impairment” as “[a]ny physiological disorder, or condition... affecting one or more of the following body systems:... special sense organs”), or that seeing is one of his major life activities, see § 16S0.2(i) (giving seeing as an example of a major life activity). The question is whether his monocular vision alone “substantially limits” Kirkingburg’s seeing.
In giving its affirmative answer, the Ninth Circuit relied on a regulation issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), defining “substantially limits” as “[significantly restriet[s] as to the condition, manner or duration under which an individual can perform a particular major life activity as compared to the condition, manner, or duration under which the average person in the general population can perform that same major life activity.” § 1630.2( j)(ii). The Ninth Circuit concluded that “the manner in which [Kirkingburg] sees differs significantly from the manner in which most people see” because, “[t]o put it in its simplest terms [he] sees using only one eye; most people see using two.” 143 F. 3d, at 1232. The Ninth Circuit majority also relied on a recent Eighth Circuit decision, whose holding it characterized in similar terms: “It was enough to warrant a finding of disability... that the plaintiff could see out of only one eye: the manner in which he performed the major life activity of seeing was different.” Ibid. (characterizing Doane v. Omaha, 115 F. 3d 624, 627-628 (1997)).
But in several respects the Ninth Circuit was too quick to find a disability. First, although the EEOC definition of “substantially limits” cited by the Ninth Circuit requires a “significant restriction]” in an individual’s manner of performing a major life activity, the court appeared willing to settle for a mere difference. By transforming “significant restriction” into “difference,” the court undercut the fundamental statutory requirement that only impairments causing “substantial limitations]” in individuals’ ability to perform major life activities constitute disabilities. While the Act “addresses substantial limitations on major life activities, not utter inabilities,” Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U. S. 624, 641 (1998), it concerns itself only with limitations that are in fact substantial.
Second, the Ninth Circuit appeared to suggest that in gauging whether a monocular individual has a disability a court need not take account of the individual’s ability to compensate for the impairment. The court acknowledged that Kirkingburg’s “brain has developed subconscious mechanisms for coping with [his] visual impairment and thus his body compensates for his disability.” 143 F. 3d, at 1232. But in treating monocularity as itself sufficient to establish disability and in embracing Doane, the Ninth Circuit apparently adopted the view that whether “the individual had learned to compensate for the disability by making subconscious adjustments to the manner in which he sensed depth and perceived peripheral objects,” 143 F. 3d, at 1232, was irrelevant to the determination of disability. See, e. g., Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 130 F. 3d 893, 901, n. 7 (CA101997) (characterizing Doane as standing for the proposition that mitigating measures should be disregarded in assessing disability); EEOC v. Union Pacific R. Co., 6 F. Supp. 2d 1135, 1137 (Idaho 1998) (same). We have just held, however, in Sutton v. United Airlines, Inc., ante, at 482, that mitigating measures must be taken into account in judging whether an individual possesses a disability. We see no principled basis for distinguishing between measures undertaken with artificial aids, like medications and devices, and measures undertaken, whether consciously or not, with the body’s own systems.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the Court of Appeals did not pay much heed to the statutory obligation to determine the existence of disabilities on a ease-by-ease basis. The Act expresses that mandate clearly by defining “disability” “with respect to an individual,” 42 U. S. C. § 12102(2), and in terms of the impact of an impairment on “such individual,” § 12102(2)(A). See Sutton, ante, at 483; cf. 29 CFR pt. 1630, App. § 1630.2(j) (1998) (“The determination of whether an individual has a disability is not necessarily based on the name or diagnosis of the impairment the person has, but rather on the effect of that impairment on the life of the individual”); ibid. (“The determination of whether an individual is substantially limited in a major life activity must be made on a case by case basis”). While some impairments may invariably cause a substantial limitation of a major life activity, cf. Bragdon, supra, at 642 (declining to address whether HIV infection is a per se disability), we cannot say that monocularity does. That category, as we understand it, may embrace a group whose members vary by the degree of visual acuity in the weaker eye, the age at which they suffered their vision loss, the extent of their compensating adjustments in visual techniques, and the ultimate scope of the restrictions on their visual abilities. These variables are not the stuff of a per se rule. While monocularity inevitably leads to some loss of horizontal field of vision and depth perception, consequences the Ninth Circuit mentioned, see 143 F. 3d, at 1232, the court did not identify the degree of loss suffered by Kirkingburg, nor are we aware of any evidence in the record specifying the extent of his visual restrictions.
This is not to suggest that monocular individuals have an onerous burden in trying to show that they are disabled. On the contrary, our brief examination of some of the medical literature leaves us sharing the Government’s judgment that people with monocular vision “ordinarily” will meet the Act’s definition of disability, Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 11, and we suppose that defendant companies will often not contest the issue. We simply hold that the Act requires monocular individuals, like others claiming the Act’s protection, to prove a disability by offering evidence that the extent of the limitation in terms of their own experience, as in loss of depth perception and visual field, is substantial.
III
Petitioner’s primary contention is that even if Kirkingburg was disabled, he was not a “qualified” individual with a disability, see 42 U. S. C. § 12112(a), because Albertson’s merely insisted on the minimum level of visual acuity set forth in the DOT’S Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR § 391.41 (b)(10) (1998). If Albertson’s was entitled to enforce that standard as defining an “essential job functio[n] of the employment position,” see 42 U. S. C. § 12111(8), that is the end of the case, for Kirkingburg concededly could not satisfy it.
Under Title I of the ADA, employers may justify their use of “qualification standards... that screen out or tend to screen out or otherwise deny a job or benefit to an individual with a disability,” so long as such standards are “job-related and consistent with business necessity, and... performance cannot be accomplished by reasonable accommodation... § 12113(a). See also § 12112(b)(6) (defining discrimination to include “using qualification standards... that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability... unless the standard... is shown to be job-related for the position in question and is consistent with business necessity").
Kirkingburg and the Government argue that these provisions do not authorize an employer to follow even a facially applicable regulatory standard subject to waiver without making some enquiry beyond determining whether the applicant or employee meets that standard, yes or no. Before an employer may insist on compliance, they say, the employer must make a showing with reference to the particular job that the waivable regulatory standard is “job-related... and... consistent with business necessity,” see § 12112(b)(6), and that after consideration of the capabilities of the individual a reasonable accommodation could not fairly resolve the competing interests when an applicant or employee cannot wholly satisfy an otherwise justifiable job qualification.
The Government extends this argument by reference to a further section of the statute, which at first blush appears to be a permissive provision for the employer’s and the public’s benefit. An employer may impose as a qualification standard “a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace,” § 12118(b), with “direct threat” being defined by the Act as “a significant risk to the health or safety of others that cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation,” § 12111(3); see also 29 CFR § 1630.2(r) (1998). The Government urges us to read subsections (a) and (b) together to mean that when an employer would impose any safety qualification standard, however specific, tending to screen out individuals with disabilities, the application of the requirement must satisfy the ADA’s “direct threat” criterion, see Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 22. That criterion ordinarily requires “an individualized assessment of the individual’s present ability to safely perform the essential functions of the job,” 29 CFR §1630.2(r) (1998), '‘based on medical or other objective evidence,” Bragdon, 524 U. S., at 649 (citing School Bd. of Nassau Cty. v. Arline, 480 U. S. 273, 288 (1987)); see 29 CFR §1630.2(r) (1998) (assessment of direct threat “shall be based on a reasonable medical judgment that relies on the most current medical knowledge and/or on the best available objective evidence”).
Albertson’s answers essentially that even assuming the Government has proposed a sound reading of the statute for the general run of eases, this ease is not in the general run. It is crucial to its position that Albertson’s here was not insisting upon a job qualification merely of its own devising, subject to possible questions about genuine appropriateness and justifiable application to an individual for whom some accommodation may be reasonable. The job qualification it was applying was the distant visual acuity standard of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR §391.41(b)(10) (1998), which is made binding on Albertson’s by §391.11: “[A] motor carrier shall not... permit a person to drive a commercial motor vehicle unless that person is qualified to drive,” by, among other things, meeting the physical qualification standards set forth in §391.41. The validity of these regulations is unchallenged, they have the force of law, and they contain no qualifying language about individualized determinations.
If we looked no further, there would be no basis to question petitioner’s unconditional obligation to follow the regulations and its consequent right to do so. This, indeed, was the understanding of Congress when it enacted the ADA, see infra, at 573-574. But there is more: the waiver program.
The Court of Appeals majority concluded that the waiver program “precludes [employers] from declaring that persons determined by DOT to be capable of performing the job of commercial truck driver are incapable of performing that job by virtue of their disability,” and that in the face of a waiver an employer “will not be able to avoid the [ADA’s] strictures by showing that its standards are necessary to prevent a direct safety threat,” 143 F. 3d, at 1237. The Court of Appeals thus assumed that the regulatory provisions for the waiver program had to be treated as being on par with the basic visual acuity regulation, as if the general rule had been modified by some different safety standard made applicable by grant of a waiver. Cf. Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U. S. 511, 515 (1993) (noting the “ ‘cardinal rule that a statute is to be read as a whole’” (quoting King v. St Vincent’s Hospital, 502 U. S. 215, 221 (1991))). On this reading, an individualized determination under a different substantive safety rule was an element of the regulatory regime, which would easily fit with any requirement of 42 U. S. C. §§ 12113(a) and (b) to consider reasonable accommodation. An employer resting solely on the federal standard for its visual acuity qualification would be required to accept a waiver once obtained, and probably to provide an applicant some opportunity to obtain a waiver whenever that was reasonably possible. If this was sound analysis, the District Court’s summary judgment for Albertson’s was error.
But the reasoning underlying the Court of Appeals’s decision was unsound, for we think it was error to read the regulations establishing the waiver program as modifying the content of the basic visual acuity standard in a way that dis-entitled an employer like Albertson’s to insist on it. To be sure, this is not immediately apparent. If one starts with the statutory provisions authorizing regulations by the DOT as they stood at the time the DOT began the waiver program, one would reasonably presume that the general regulatory standard and the regulatory waiver standard ought to be accorded equal substantive significance, so that the content of any general regulation would as a matter of law be deemed modified by the terms of any waiver standard thus applied to it. Compare 49 U. S. C. App. § 2505(a)(3) (1988 ed.) (“Such regulation shall... ensure that... the physical condition of operators of commercial motor vehicles is adequate to enable them to operate the vehicles safely”), with 49 U. S. C. App. § 2505(f) (1988 ed.) (“After notice and an opportunity for comment, the Secretary may waive, in whole or in part, application of any regulation issued under this section with respect to any person or class of persons if the Secretary determines that such waiver is not contrary to the public interest and is consistent with the safe operation of commercial motor vehicles”). Safe operation is supposed to be the touchstone of regulation in each instance.
As to the general visual acuity regulations in force under the former provision, affirmative determinations that the selected standards were needed for safe operation were indeed the predicates of the DOT action. Starting in 1937, the federal agencies authorized to regulate commercial motor vehicle safety set increasingly rigorous visual acuity standards, culminating in the current one, which has remained unchanged since it became effective in 1971. When the FHWA proposed it, the agency found that “[a]ccident experience in recent years has demonstrated that reduction of the effects of organic and physical disorders, emotional impairments, and other limitations of the good health of drivers are increasingly important factors in accident prevention,” 34 Fed. Reg. 9080, 9081 (1969) (Notice of Proposed Rule Making); the current standard was adopted to reflect the agency’s conclusion that “drivers of modern, more complex vehicles” must be able to “withstand the increased physical and mental demands that their occupation now imposes.” 35 Fed. Reg. 6458 (1970). Given these findings and “in the light of discussions with the Administration’s medieal advisers,” id., at 6459, the FHWA made a considered determination about the level of visual acuity needed for safe operation of commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce, an “area [in which] the risks involved are so well known and so serious as to dictate the utmost caution.” Id., at 17419.
For several reasons, one would expect any regulation governing a waiver program to establish a comparable substantive standard (albeit for exceptional cases), grounded on known facts indicating at least that safe operation would not be jeopardized. First, of course, safe operation was the criterion of the statute authorizing an administrative waiver scheme, as noted already. Second, the impetus to develop a waiver program was a concern that the existing substantive standard might be more demanding than safety required. When Congress enacted the ADA, it recognized that federal safety rules would limit application of the ADA as a matter of law. The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee Report on the ADA stated that “a person with a disability applying for or currently holding a job subject to [DOT standards for drivers] must be able to satisfy these physical qualification standards in order to be considered a qualified individual with a disability under title I of this legislation.” S. Rep. No. 101-116, pp. 27-28 (1998). The two primary House Committees shared this understanding, see H. R. Rep. No. 101-485, pt. 2, p. 57 (1990) (House Education and Labor Committee Report); id., pt. 3, at 34 (House Judiciary Committee Report). Accordingly, two of these Committees asked “the Secretary of Transportation [to] undertake a thorough review’’ of current knowledge about the capabilities of individuals with disabilities and available technological aids and devices, and make “any necessary changes” within two years of the enactment of the ADA. S. Rep. No. 101-116, at 27-28; see H. R. Rep. No. 101-485, pt. 2, at 57; see also id., pt. 3, at 34 (expressing the expectation that the Secretary of Transportation would “review these requirements to determine whether they are valid under this Act”). Finally, when the FHWA instituted the waiver program it addressed the statutory mandate by stating in its notice of final disposition that the scheme would be “consistent with the safe operation of commercial motor vehicles,” just as 49 U. S. C. App. § 2505(f) (1988 ed.) required, 57 Fed. Reg. 31460 (1992).
And yet, despite this background, the regulations establishing the waiver program did not modify the general visual acuity standards. It is not that the waiver regulations failed to do so in a merely formal sense, as by turning waiver decisions on driving records, not sight requirements. The FHWA in fact made it clear that it had no evidentiary basis for concluding that the pre-existing standards could be lowered consistently with public safety. When, in 1992, the FHWA published an “[a]dvance notice of proposed rule-making” requesting comments “on the need, if any, to amend its driver qualification requirements relating to the vision standard,” id., at 6793, it candidly proposed its waiver scheme as simply a means of obtaining information bearing on the justifiability of revising the binding standards already in place, see id., at 10295. The agency explained that the “object of the waiver program is to provide objective data to be considered in relation to a rulemaking exploring the feasibility of relaxing the current absolute vision standards in 49 CFR part 391 in favor of a more individualized standard.” Ibid. As proposed, therefore, there was not only no change in the unconditional acuity standards, but.no indication even that the FHWA then had a basis in fact to believe anything more lenient would be consistent with public safety as a general matter. After a bumpy stretch of administrative procedure, see Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety v. FHWA, 28 F. 3d 1288, 1290 (CADC 1994), the FHWA’s final disposition explained again that the waivers were proposed as a way to gather facts going to the wisdom of changing the existing law. The waiver program “will enable the FHWA to conduct a study comparing a group of experienced, visually deficient drivers with a control group of experienced drivers who meet the current Federal vision requirements. This study will provide the empirical data necessary to evaluate the relationships between specific visual deficiencies and the operation of [commercial motor vehicles]. The data will permit the FHWA to properly evaluate its current vision requirement in the context of actual driver performance, and, if necessary, establish a new vision requirement which is safe, fair, and rationally related to the latest medical knowledge and highway technology.” 57 Fed. Reg. 31458 (1992). And if all this were not enough to show that the FHWA was planning to give waivers solely to collect information, it acknowledged that a study it had commissioned had done no more than “ ‘illuminat[e] the lack of empirical data to establish a link between vision disorders and commercial motor vehicle safety,’” and “‘failed to provide a sufficient foundation on which to propose a satisfactory vision standard for drivers of [commercial motor vehicles] in interstate commerce,’ ” Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, supra, at 1293 (quoting 57 Fed. Reg. 31458 (1992)).
In sum, the regulatory record made it plain that the waiver regulation did not rest on any final, factual conclusion that the waiver scheme would be conducive to public safety in the manner of the general acuity standards and did not purport to modify the substantive content of the general acuity regulation in any way. The waiver program was simply an experiment with safety, however well intended, resting on a hypothesis whose confirmation or refutation in practice would provide a factual basis for reconsidering the existing standards.
Nothing in the waiver regulation, of course, required an employer of commercial drivers to accept the hypothesis and participate in the Government’s experiment. The only question, then, is whether the ADA should be read to require such an employer to defend a decision to decline the experiment. Is it reasonable, that is, to read the ADA as requiring an employer like Albertson’s to shoulder the general statutory burden to justify a job qualification that would tend to exclude the disabled, whenever the employer chooses to abide by the otherwise clearly applicable, unamended substantive regulatory standard despite the Government’s willingness to waive it experimentally and without any finding of its being inappropriate? If the answer were yes, an employer would in fact have an obligation of which we can think of no comparable example in our law. The employer would be required in effect to justify de novo an existing and otherwise applicable safety regulation issued by the Government itself. The employer would be required on a ease-by-ease basis to reinvent the Government’s own wheel when the Government had merely begun an experiment to provide data to consider changing the underlying specifications. And what is even more, the employer would be required to do so when the Government had made an affirmative record indicating that contemporary empirical evidence was hard to come by. It is simply not credible that Congress enacted the ADA (before there was any waiver program) with the understanding that employers choosing to respect the Government’s sole substantive visual acuity regulation in the face of an experimental waiver might be burdened with an obligation to defend the regulation’s application according to its own terms.
The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is accordingly reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer join Parts I and III of this opinion.
See Motor Carrier Act, § 204(a), 49 Stat. 546; Department of Transportation Act, § 6(e)(6)(C), 80 Stat. 939-940; 49 CFR § 1.4(c)(9) (1968); Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984, §206, 98 Stat. 2835, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 31136(a)(3); 49 CFR §1.48(aa) (1998).
Visual acuity has a number of components but most commonly refers to “the ability to determine the presence of or to distinguish between more than one identifying feature in a visible target.” G. von Noorden, Binocular Vision and Ocular Motility 114 (4th ed. 1990). Herman Snellen was a Dutch ophthalmologist who, in 1862, devised the familiar letter chart still used to measure visual acuity. The first figure in the Snellen score refers to distance between the viewer and the visual target, typically 20 feet. The second corresponds to the distance at which a person with normal acuity could distinguish letters of the size that the viewer can distinguish at 20 feet. See C. Snyder, Our Ophthalmic Heritage 97-99 (1967); D. Vaughan, T. Asburg, & P. Riordan-Eva, General Ophthalmology 30 (15th ed. 1999).
“Amblyopia,” derived from Greek roots meaning dull vision, is a general medical term for “poor vision caused by abnormal visual development secondary to abnormal visual stimulation.” K. Wright et al., Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus 126 (1995); see id., at 126-131; see also Von Noorden, supra, at 208-245.
Several months later, Kirkingburg's vision was recertified by a physician, again erroneously. Both times Kirkingburg received certification although his vision as measured did not meet the DOT minimum requirement. See 143 F. 3d 1228, 1230, and n. 2 (CA9 1998); App. 49-50, 297-298, 360-361.
In February 1992, the FHWA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to review its vision standards. See 57 Fed. Reg. 6798. Shortly thereafter, the FHWA announced its intent to set up a waiver program and its preliminary acceptance of waiver applications. See id., at 10295. It modified the proposed conditions for the waivers and requested comments in June. See id., at 23370. After receiving and considering the comments, the Administration announced its final decision to grant waivers in July.
Albertson’s offered Kirkingburg at least one and possibly two alternative jobs. The first was as a “yard hostler,” a truckdrivér within the premises of petitioner’s warehouse property, the second as a tire mechanic. The company apparently withdrew the first offer, though the parties dispute the exact sequence of events. Kirkingburg turned down the second because it paid much less than driving a truck. See App. 14-16, 41-42.
The ADA provides: “No covered entity shall discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability of such individual in regard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees, employee compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment.” 42 U. S. C. § 12112(a).
“Whether a monocular individual is ‘disabled' per se, under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” Pet. for Cert, i (citation omitted).
The Ninth Circuit also discussed whether Kirkingburg was disabled under the third, “regarded as,” definition of “disability.” See 143 F. 3d, at 1233. Albertson’s did not challenge that aspect of the Court of Appeals’s decision in its petition for certiorari, and we therefore do not address it. See this Court’s Rule 14.1(a); see also, e. g., Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 535 (1992).
As the parties have not questioned the regulations and interpretive guidance promulgated by the EEOC relating to the ADA’s definitional section, 42 U. S. C. § 12102, for the purposes of this case, we assume, without deciding, that such regulations are valid, and we have no occasion to decide what level of deference, if any, they are due, see Sutton v. United Airlines, Inc., ante, at 479-480.
Before the Ninth Circuit, Albertson’s presented the issue of Kirking-burg’s failure to meet the Act’s definition of disability as an alternative ground for affirmance, i. e., for a grant of summary judgment in the company’s favor. It thus contended that Kirkingburg had “failed to produce any material issue of fact” that he was disabled. App. 182. Parts of the Ninth Circuit’s discussion suggest that it was merely denying the company’s request for summary judgment, leaving the issue open for factual development and resolution on remand. See, e. g., 148 F. 3d, at 1232 (“Albertson’s first contends that Kirkingburg failed to raise a genuine issue of fact regarding whether
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
After a lapse of 15 years, the Court again focuses its attention on the patentability of inventions under the standard of Art. I, § 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution and under the conditions prescribed by the laws of the United States. Since our last expression on patent validity, A. & P. Tea Co. v. Supermarket Corp., 340 U. S. 147 (1950), the Congress has for the first time expressly added a third statutory dimension to the two requirements of novelty and utility that had been the sole statutory test since the Patent Act of 1793. This is the test of obviousness, i. e., whether “the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.” § 103 of the Patent Act of 1952, 35 U. S. C. § 103 (1964 ed.).
The questions, involved in each of the companion cases before us, are what effect the 1952 Act had upon traditional statutory and judicial tests of patenta-bility and what definitive tests are now required. We have concluded that the 1952 Act was intended to codify judicial precedents embracing the principle long ago announced by this Court in Hotchkiss v. Greenwood, 11 How. 248 (1851), and that, while the clear language of § 103 places emphasis on an inquiry into obviousness, the general level of innovation necessary to sustain patent-ability remains the same.
The Cases.
(a). No. 11, Graham v. John Deere Co., an infringement suit by petitioners, presents a conflict between two Circuits over the validity of a single patent on a “Clamp for vibrating Shank Plows.” The invention, a combination of old mechanical elements, involves a device designed to absorb shock from plow shanks as they plow through rocky soil and thus to prevent damage to the plow. In 1955, the Fifth Circuit had held the patent valid under its rule that when a combination produces an “old result in a cheaper and otherwise more advantageous way,” it is patentable. Jeoffroy Mfg., Inc. v. Graham, 219 F. 2d 511, cert. denied, 350 U. S. 826. In 1964, the Eighth Circuit held, in the case at bar, that there was no new result in the patented combination and that the patent was, therefore, not valid. 333 F. 2d 529, reversing 216 F. Supp. 272. We granted certiorari, 379 U. S. 956. Although we have determined that neither Circuit applied the correct test, we conclude that the patent is invalid under § 103 and, therefore, we affirm the judgment of the Eighth Circuit.
(b). No. 37, Calmar, Inc. v. Cook Chemical Co., and No. 43, Colgate-Palmolive, Co., v. Cook Chemical Co., both from the Eighth Circuit, were separate declaratory judgment actions, but were filed contemporaneously. Petitioner in Calmar is the manufacturer of a finger-operated sprayer with a “hold-down” cap of the type commonly seen on grocers’ shelves inserted in bottles of insecticides and other liquids prior to shipment. Petitioner in Colgate-Palmolive is a purchaser of the sprayers and uses them in the distribution of its products. Each action sought a declaration of invalidity and noninfringement of a patent on similar sprayers issued to. Cook Chemical as assignee of Baxter I. Scoggin, Jr., the inventor. By cross-action, Cook Chemical claimed infringement. The actions were consolidated for trial and the patent was sustained by the District Court. 220 F. Supp. 414. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 336 F.'2d 110, and we granted certiorari, 380 U. S. 949. We reverse.
Manifestly, the validity of each of these patents turns on the facts. The basic problems, however, are the same in each case and require initially a discussion of the constitutional and statutory provisions covering the patentability of the inventions.
II.
At the outset it must be remembered that the federal patent power stems from a specific constitutional provision which authorizes the Congress “To promote the Progress of... useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to... Inventors the exclusive Right to their... Discoveries.” Art. I, § 8, cl. 8. The clause is both a grant of power and a limitation. This qualified authority, unlike the power often exercised in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the English Crown, is limited to the promotion of advances in the “useful arts.” It was written against the backdrop of the practices — even-, tually curtailed by the Statute of Monopolies — of the Crown in granting monopolies to court favorites in goods or businesses which had long before been enjoyed by the public. See Meinhardt, Inventions, Patents and Monopoly, pp. 30-35 (London, 1946). The Congress in the exercise of the patent power may not overreach the restraints imposed by the stated constitutional purpose. Nor may it enlarge the patent monopoly without regard to the innovation, advancement or social benefit gained thereby. Moreover, Congress may not authorize the issuance of patents whose effects are to remove existent knowledge from the public domain, or to restrict free access to materials already available. Innovation, advancement, and things which add to the sum of useful knowledge are inherent requisites in a patent system which by constitutional command must “promote the Progress of... useful Arts.” This is the standard, expressed in the Constitution and it may not be ignored. And it is in this light that patent validity “requires reference to a standard written into the Constitution.” A. & P. Tea Co. v. Supermarket Corp., supra, at 154 (concurring opinion).
Within the limits of the constitutional grant, the Congress may, of course, implement the stated purpose of the Framers by selecting the policy which in its judgment best effectuates the constitutional aim. This is but a corollary to the grant to Congress of any Article I power. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1. Within the scope established by the Constitution, Congress may set out conditions and tests for patentability. McClurg v. Kingsland, 1 How. 202, 206. It is the duty of the Commissioner of Patents and of the courts in the administration of the patent system to give effect to the constitutional standard by appropriate application, in each case, of the statutory scheme of the Congress.
Congress quickly responded to the bidding of the Constitution by enacting the Patent Act of 1790 during the second session of the First Congress. It created an agency in the Department of State headed by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Department of War and the Attorney General, any two of whom could issue a patent for a period not exceeding 14 years to any petitioner that “hath... invented or discovered any useful art, manufacture,... or device, or any improvement therein not before known or used” if the board found that “the invention or discovery [was] sufficiently useful and important....” 1 Stat. 110. This group, whose members administered the patent system along with their other public duties, was known by its own designation as “Commissioners for the Promotion of Useful Arts.”
Thomas Jefferson, who as Secretary of State was a member of the group, was its moving spirit and might well be called the “first administrator of our patent system.” See Federico, Operation of the Patent Act of 1790, 18 J. Pat. Off. Soc. 237, 238 (1936). He was not only an administrator of the patent system under the 1790 Act, but was also the author of the 1793 Patent Act. In addition, Jefferson was himself an inventor of great note. His unpatented improvements on plows, to mention but one line of his inventions, won acclaim and recognition on both sides of the Atlantic. Because of his active interest and influence in the early development of the patent system, Jefferson’s views on the general nature of the limited patent monopoly under the Constitution, as well as his conclusions as to conditions for patentability under the statutory scheme, are worthy of note.
Jefferson, like other Americans, had an instinctive aversion to monopolies. It was a monopoly on tea that sparked the Revolution and Jefferson certainly did not favor an equivalent form of monopoly under the new government. His abhorrence of monopoly extended initially to patents as well. From France, he wrote to Madison (July 1788) urging a Bill of Rights provision restricting monopoly, and as against the argument that limited monopoly might serve to incite “ingenuity,” he argued forcefully that “the benefit even of limited monopolies is too doubtful to be opposed to that of their general suppression,” Y Writings of Thomas Jefferson, at 47 (Ford ed., 1895).
His views ripened, however, and in another letter to Madison (Aug. 1789) after the drafting of the Bill of Rights, Jefferson stated that he would have been pleased by an express provision in this form:
“Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature & their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding — years but for no longer term & no other purpose.” Id,., at 113.
And he later wrote:
“Certainly an inventor ought to be allowed a right to the benefit of his invention for some certain time.... Nobody wishes more than I do that ingenuity should receive a liberal encouragement.” Letter to Oliver Evans (May 1807), V Writings of Thomas Jefferson, at 75-76 (Washington ed.).
Jefferson’s philosophy on the nature and purpose of the patent monopoly is expressed in a letter to Isaac McPherson (Aug. 1813), a portion of which we set out in the margin. He rejected a natural-rights theory in intellectual property rights and clearly recognized the social and economic rationale of the patent system. The patent monopoly was not designed to secure to the inventor his natural right in his discoveries. Rather, it was a reward, an inducement, to bring forth new knowledge. The grant of an exclusive right to an invention was the creation of society — at odds with the inherent free nature of disclosed ideas — and was not to be freely given. Only inventions and discoveries which furthered human knowledge, and were new and useful, justified the special inducement of a limited private monopoly. Jefferson did not believe in granting patents for small details, obvious improvements, or frivolous devices. His writings evidence his insistence upon a high level of patentability.
As a member of the patent board for several years, Jefferson saw clearly the difficulty in “drawing a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not.” The board on which he served sought to draw such a line and formulated several rules which are preserved in Jefferson's correspondence. Despite the board's efforts, Jefferson saw “with what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured.” Because of the “abundance” of cases and the fact that the investigations occupied “more time of the members of the board than they could spare from higher duties, the whole was turned over to the judiciary, to be matured into a system, under which every one might know when his actions were safe and lawful.” Letter to McPherson, supra, at 181, 182. Apparently Congress agreed with Jefferson and the board that the courts should develop additional conditions for patentability. Although the Patent Act was amended, revised or codified some 50 times between 1790 and 1950, Congress steered clear of a statutory set of requirements other than the bare novelty and utility tests reformulated in Jefferson’s draft of the 1793 Patent Act.
III.
The difficulty of formulating conditions for patent-ability was heightened by the generality of the constitutional grant and the statutes implementing it, together with the underlying policy of the patent system that “the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent,” as Jefferson put it, must outweigh the restrictive effect of the limited patent monopoly. The inherent problem was to develop some means of weeding out those inventions which would not be disclosed or devised but for the inducement of a patent.
This Court formulated a general condition of patent-ability in 1851 in Hotchkiss v. Greenwood, 11 How. 248. The patent involved a mere substitution of materials— porcelain or clay for wood or metal in doorknobs — and the Court condemned it, holding:
“[U]nless more ingenuity and skill... were required... than were possessed by an ordinary mechanic acquainted with the business, there was an absence of that degree of skill and ingenuity which constitute essential elements of every invention. In other words, the improvement is the work of the skilful mechanic, not that of the inventor.” At p. 267.
Hotchkiss, by positing the condition that a patentable invention evidence more ingenuity and skill than that possessed by an ordinary mechanic acquainted with the business, merely distinguished between new and useful innovations that were capable of sustaining a patent and those that were not. The Hotchkiss test laid the cornerstone of the judicial evolution suggested by Jefferson and left to the courts by Congress. The language in the case, and in those which followed, gave birth to “invention” as a word of legal art signifying patentable inventions. Yet, as this Court has observed, “[t]he truth is the word [‘invention’] cannot be defined in such manner as to afford any substantial aid in determining whether a particular device involves an exercise of the inventive faculty or not.” McClain v. Ortmayer, 141 U. S. 419, 427 (1891); A. & P. Tea Co. v. Supermarket Corp., supra, at 151. Its use as a label brought about a large variety of opinions as to its meaning both in the Patent Office, in the courts, and at the bar. The Hotchkiss formulation, however, lies not in any label, but in its functional approach to questions of patentability. In practice, Hotchkiss has required a comparison between the subject matter of the patent, or patent application, and the background skill of the calling. It has been from this comparison that patentability was in each case determined.
The 1952 Patent Act.
The Act sets out the conditions of patentability in three sections. An analysis of the structure of these three sections indicates that patentability is dependent upon three explicit conditions: novelty and utility as articulated and defined in § 101 and § 1Q2, and non-obviousness, the new statutory formulation, as set out in § 103. The first two sections, which trace closely the 1874 codification, express the “new and useful” tests which have always existed in the statutory scheme and, for our purposes here, need no clarification. The pivotal section around which the present controversy centers is § 103. It provides:
Ҥ 103. Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter
“A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.”
The section is cast in relatively unambiguous terms. Patentability is to depend, in addition to novelty and utility, upon the “non-obvious” nature of the “subject matter sought to be patented” to a person having ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
The first sentence of this section is strongly reminiscent of the language in Hotchkiss. Both formulations place emphasis on the pertinent art existing at the time the invention was made and both are implicitly tied to advances in that art. The major distinction is that Congress has emphasized “nonobviousness” as the operative- test of the section, rather than the less definite “invention” language of Hotchkiss that Congress thought had led to “a large variety” of expressions in decisions and writings. In the title itself the Congress used the phrase “Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter” (italics added), thus focusing upon “non-obviousness” rather than “invention.” The Senate and House Reports, S. Rep. No. 1979, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. (1952); H. R. Rep. No. 1923, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. (1952), reflect this emphasis in these terms:
“Section 103, for the first time in our statute, provides a condition which exists in the law and has existed for more than 100 years, but only by reason of decisions of the courts. An invention which has been made, and which is new in the sense that the same thing has not been made before, may still not be patentable if the difference between the new thing and what was known before is not considered sufficiently great to warrant a patent. That has been expressed in a large variety of ways in decisions of the courts and in writings. Section 103 states this requirement in the title. It refers to the difference between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art, meaning what was known before as described in section 102. If this difference is such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time to a person skilled in the art, then the subject matter cannot be patented.
“That provision paraphrases language which has often been used in decisions of the courts, and the section is added to the statute for uniformity and definiteness. This section should have a stabilizing effect and minimize great departures which have appeared in some cases.” H. R. Rep., supra, at 7; S. Rep., supra, at 6.
It is undisputed that this section was, for the first time, a statutory expression of an additional requirement for patentability, originally expressed in Hotchkiss. It also seems apparent that Congress intended by the last sentence of § 103 to abolish the test it believed this Court announced in the controversial phrase “flash of creative genius,” used in Cuno Corp. v. Automatic Devices Corp., 314 U. S. 84 (1941).
It is contended, however, by some of the parties and by several of the amici that the first sentence of § 103 was intended to sweep away judicial precedents and to lower the level of patentability. Others contend that the Congress intended to codify the essential purpose reflected in existing judicial precedents — the rejection of insignificant variations and innovations of a commonplace sort — and also to focus inquiries under § 103 upon nonobviousness, rather than upon “invention,” as a means of achieving more stability and predictability in determining patentability and validity.
The Reviser’s Note to this section, with apparent reference to Hotchkiss, recognizes that judicial requirements as to “lack of patentable novelty [have] been followed since at least as early as 1850.” The note indicates that the section was inserted because it “may have some stabilizing effect, and also to serve as a basis for the addition at a later time of some criteria which may be worked out.” To this same effect are the reports of both Houses, supra, which state that the first sentence of the section “paraphrases language which has often been used in decisions of the courts, and the section is added to the statute for uniformity and definiteness.”
We believe that this legislative history, as well as other sources, shows that the revision was not intended by Congress to change the general level of patentable invention. We conclude that the section was intended merely as a codification of judicial precedents embracing the Hotchkiss condition, with congressional directions that inquiries into the obviousness of the subject matter sought to be patented are a prerequisite to patentability.
V.
Approached in this light, the § 103 additional condition, when followed realistically, will permit a more practical test of patentability. The emphasis on non-obviousness is one of inquiry, not quality, and, as such, comports with the constitutional strictures.
While the ultimate question of patent validity is one of law, A. & P. Tea Co. v. Supermarket Corp., supra, at 155, the § 103 condition, which is but one of three conditions, each of which must be satisfied, lends itself to several basic factual inquiries. Under § 103, the scope and content of the prior art are to be determined; differences between the prior art and the claims at issue are to be ascertained; and the level of ordinary shill in the pertinent art resolved. Against this background, the obviousness or nonobviousness of the subject matter is determined. Such secondary considerations as commercial success, long felt but unsolved needs, failure of others, etc., might be utilized to give light to the circumstances surrounding the origin of the subject matter sought to be patented. As indicia of obviousness or nonobviousness, these inquiries may have relevancy. See Note, Sub tests of “Nonobviousness”: A Nontechnical Approach to Patent Validity, 1.12 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1169 (1964).
This is not to say, however, that there will not be difficulties in applying the nonobviousness test. What is obvious is not a question upon which there is likely to be uniformity of thought in every given factual context. The difficulties, however, are comparable to those encountered daily by the courts in such frames of reference as negligence and scienter, and should be amenable to a case-by-case development. We believe that strict observance of the requirements laid down here will result in that uniformity and definiteness which Congress called for in the 1952 Act.
While we have focused attention on the appropriate standard to be applied by the courts, it must be remembered that the primary responsibility for sifting out unpatentable material lies in the Patent Office. To await litigation is — for all practical purposes — to debilitate the patent system. We have observed a notorious difference between the standards applied by the Patent Office and by the courts. While many reasons can be adduced to explain the discrepancy, one may well be the free rein often exercised by Examiners in their use of the concept of “invention.” In this connection we note that the Patent Office is confronted with a most difficult task. Almost 100,000 applications for patents are filed each year. Of these, about 50,000 are granted and the backlog now runs well over 200,000. 1965 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents 13-14. This is itself a compelling reason for the Commissioner to strictly adhere to the 1952 Act as interpreted here. This would, we believe, not only expedite disposition but bring about a closer concurrence between administrative and judicial precedent.
Although we conclude here that the inquiry which the Patent Office and the courts must make as to patent-ability must be beamed with greater intensity on the requirements of § 103, it bears repeating that we find no change in the general strictness with which the overall test is to be applied. We have been urged to find in § 103 a relaxed standard, supposedly a congressional reaction to the “increased standard” applied by this Court in its decisions over the last 20 or 30 years. The standard has remained invariable in this Court. Technology, however, has advanced — and with remarkable rapidity in the last 50 years. Moreover, the ambit of applicable art in given fields of science has widened by disciplines unheard of a half century ago. It is but an evenhanded application to require that those persons granted the benefit of a patent monopoly be charged with an awareness of these changed conditions. The same is true of the less technical, but still useful arts. He who seeks to build a better mousetrap today has a long path to tread before reaching the Patent Office.
VI.
We now turn to the application of the conditions found necessary for patentability to the cases involved here:
A. The Patent in Issue in No. 11, Graham v. John Deere Co.
This patent, No. 2,627,798 (hereinafter called the-’798 patent) relates to a spring clamp which permits plow shanks to be pushed upward when they hit obstructions in the soil, and then springs the shanks back into normal position when the obstruction is passed over. The device, which we show diagrammatically in the accompanying sketches (Appendix, Fig. 1), is fixed to the plow frame as a unit. The mechanism around which the controversy centers is basically a hinge. The top half of it, known as the upper plate (marked 1 in the sketches), is a heavy metal piece clamped to the plow frame (2) and is stationary relative to the plow frame. The lower half of the hinge, known as the hinge plate (3), is connected to the rear of the upper plate by a hinge pin (4) and rotates downward with respect to it. The shank (5), which is bolted to the forward end of the hinge plate (at 6), runs beneath the plate and parallel to it for about nine inches, passes through a stirrup (7), and then continues backward for several feet curving down toward the ground. The chisel (8), which does the actual plowing, is attached to the rear end of the shank. As the plow frame is pulled forward, the chisel rips through the soil, thereby plowing it. In the normal position, the hinge plate and the shank are kept tight against the upper plate by a spring (9), which is atop the upper plate. A rod (10) runs through the center of the spring, extending down through holes in both plates and the shank. Its upper end is bolted to the top of the spring while its lower end is hooked against the underside of the shank.
When the chisel hits a rock or other obstruction in the soil, the obstruction forces the chisel and the rear portion of the shank to move upward. The shank is pivoted (at 11) against the rear of the hinge plate and pries open the hinge against the closing tendency of the spring. (See sketch labeled “Open Position,” Appendix, Fig. 1.) This closing tendency is caused by the fact that, as the hinge is opened, the connecting rod is pulled downward and the spring is compressed. When the obstruction is passed over, the upward force on the chisel disappears and the spring pulls the shank and hinge plate back into their original position. The lower, rear portion of the hinge plate is constructed in the form of a stirrup (7) which brackets the shank, passing around and beneath it. The shank fits loosely into the stirrup (permitting a slight up and down play). The stirrup is designed to prevent the shank from recoiling away from the hinge plate, and thus prevents excessive strain on the shank near its bolted connection. The stirrup also girds the shank, preventing it from fishtailing from side to side.
In practical use, a number of spring-hinge-shank combinations are clamped to a plow frame, forming a set of ground-working chisels capable of withstanding the shock of rocks and other obstructions in the soil without breaking the shanks.
Background of the Patent.
Chisel plows, as they are called, were developed for plowing in areas where the ground is relatively free from rocks or stones. Originally, the shanks were rigidly attached to the plow frames. When such plows were used in the rocky, glacial soils of some of the Northern States, they were found to have serious defects. As the chisels hit buried rocks, a vibratory motion was set up and tremendous forces were transmitted to the shank near its connection to the frame. The shanks would break. Graham, one of the petitioners, sought to meet that problem, and in 1950 obtained a patent, U. S. No. 2,493,811 (hereinafter '811), on a spring clamp which solved some of the difficulties. Graham and his companies manufactured and sold the ’811 clamps. In 1950, Graham modified the ’811 structure and filed for a patent. That patent, the one in issue, was granted in 1953. This suit against competing plow manufacturers resulted from charges by petitioners that several of respondents’ devices infringed the ’798 patent.
The Prior Art.
Five prior patents indicating the state of the art were cited by the Patent Office in the prosecution of the 798 application. Four of these patents, 10 other United States patents and two prior-use spring-clamp arrangements not of record in the 798 file wrapper were relied upon by respondents as revealing the prior art. The District Court and the Court of Appeals found that the prior art “as a whole in one form or another contains all of the mechanical elements of the 798 Patent.” One of the prior-use clamp devices not before the Patent Examiner- — Glencoe—was found to have “all of the elements.”
We confine our discussion to the prior patent of Graham, ’811, and to the Glencoe clamp device, both among the references asserted by respondents. The Graham ’811 and 798 patent devices are similar in all elements, save two: (1) the stirrup and the bolted connection of the shank to the hinge plate do not appear in ’811; and (2) the position of the shank is reversed, being placed in patent ’811 above the hinge plate, sandwiched between it and the upper plate. The shank is held in place by the spring rod which is hooked against the bottom of the hinge plate passing through a slot in the shank. Other differences are of no consequence to our examination. In practice the ’811 patent arrangement permitted the shank to wobble or fishtail because it was not rigidly fixed to the hinge plate; moreover, as the hinge plate was below the shank, the latter caused wear on the upper plate, a member difficult to repair or replace.
Graham’s 798 patent application contained 12 claims. All were rejected as not distinguished from the Graham ’811 patent. The inverted position of the shank was specifically rejected as was the bolting of the shank to the hinge plate. The Patent Office examiner found these to be “matters of design well within the expected skill of the art and devoid of invention.” Graham withdrew the original claims and substituted the two new ones which are substantially those in issue here. His contention was that wear was reduced in patent ’798 between the shank and the heel or rear of the upper plate. He also emphasized several new features, the relevant one here being that the bolt used to connect the hinge plate and shank maintained the upper face of the shank in continuing and constant contact with the underface of the hinge plate.
Graham did not urge before the Patent Office the greater “flexing” qualities of the 798 patent arrangement which he so heavily relied on in the courts. The sole element in patent 798 which petitioners argue before us is the interchanging of the shank and hinge plate and the consequences flowing from this arrangement. The contention is that this arrangement — which petitioners claim is not disclosed in the prior art — permits the shank to flex under stress for its entire length. As we have sketched (see sketch, “Graham 798 Patent” in Appendix, Fig. 2), when the chisel hits an obstruction the resultant force (A) pushes the rear of the shank upward and the shank pivots against the rear of the hinge plate at (C). The natural tendency is for that portion of the shank between the pivot point and the bolted connection (i. e., between C and D) to bow downward and away from the hinge plate. The maximum distance (B) that the shank moves away from the plate is slight — for emphasis, greatly exaggerated in the sketches. This is so because of the strength of the shank and the short — nine inches or so — length of that portion of the shank between (C) and (D). On the contrary, in patent ’811 (see sketch, “Graham ’811 Patent” in Appendix, Fig. 2), the pivot point is the upper plate at point (c); and while the tendency for the shank to bow between points (c) and (d) is the same as in ’798, the shank is restricted because of the underlying hinge plate and cannot flex as freely. In practical effect, the shank flexes only between points (a) and (c), and not along the entire length of the shank, as in ’798. Petitioners say that this difference in flex, though small, effectively absorbs the tremendous forces of the shock of obstructions whereas prior art arrangements failed.
The Obviousness of the Differences.
We cannot agree with petitioners. We assume that the prior art does not disclose such an arrangement as petitioners claim in patent ’798. Still we do not believe that the argument on which petitioners’ contention is bottomed supports the validity of the patent. The tendency of the shank to flex is the same in all cases. If free-flexing, as petitioners now argue, is the crucial difference above the prior art, then it appears evident that the desired result would be obtainable by not boxing the shank within the confines of the hinge. The only other effective place available in the arrangement was to attach it below the hinge plate and run it through a stirrup or bracket that would not disturb its flexing qualities. Certainly a person having ordinary skill in the ■prior art, given the fact that the flex in the shank could be utilized more effectively if allowed to run the entire length of the shank, would immediately see that the thing to do was what Graham did, i. e., invert the shank and the hinge plate.
Petitioners’ argument basing validity on the free-flex theory raised for the first time on appeal is reminiscent of Lincoln Engineering Co. v. Stewart-Warner Corp., 303 U. S. 545 (1938), where the Court called such an effort “an afterthought. No such function... is hinted at in the specifications of the patent. If this were so vital an element in the functioning of the apparatus it is strange that all mention of it was omitted.” At p. 550. No “flexing” argument was raised in the Patent Office. Indeed, the trial judge specifically found that “flexing is not a claim of the patent in suit...” and would not permit interrogation as to flexing in the accused devices. Moreover, the clear testimony of petitioners’ experts shows that the flexing advantages flowing from the ’798 arrangement are not, in fact, a significant feature in the patent-.
We find no nonobvious facets in the ’798 arrangement. The wear and repair claims were sufficient to overcome the patent examiner’s original conclusions as to the validity of the patent. However, some of the prior art, notably Glencoe, was not before him. There the hinge plate is below the shank but, as the courts below found, all of the elements in the 798 patent are present in the Glencoe structure. Furthermore, even though the position of the shank and hinge plate appears reversed in Glencoe, the mechanical operation is identical. The shank there pivots about the underside of the stirrup, which in Glen-coe is above the shank. In other words, the stirrup in Glencoe serves exactly the same function as the heel of the hinge plate in 798. The mere shifting of the wear point to the heel of the 798- hinge plate from the stirrup of Glencoe — itself a part of the hinge plate — presents no operative mechanical distinctions, much less nonobvious differences.
B. The Patent in Issue
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is the propriety of a writ of. mandamus issued by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to compel the petitioner, a United States District Judge, to vacate a portion of a pretrial order in a criminal case.
Simmie Horwitz, the defendant in a criminal tax evasion case pending before petitioner in the Northern District of Illinois, filed a motion for a bill of particulars, which contained thirty requests for information. The Government resisted a number of the requests, and over the course of several hearings most of these objections were either withdrawn by the Government or satisfied by an appropriate narrowing of the scope of the bill of particulars by petitioner. Ultimately the dispute centered solely on defendant’s request number 25. This request sought certain information concerning any oral statements of the defendant relied upon by the Government to support the charge in the indictment. It asked the names and addresses of the persons to whom such statements were made, the times and places at which they were made, whether the witnesses to the statements were government agents and whether any transcripts or mem-oranda of the statements had been prepared by the witnesses and given to the Government. After considerable discussion with counsel for both sides, petitioner ordered the Government to furnish the information. The United States Attorney declined to comply with the order on the grounds that request number 25 constituted a demand for a list of prosecution witnesses and that petitioner had no power under Rule 7 (f) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to require the Government to produce such a list.
Petitioner indicated his intention to dismiss the indictments against Horwitz because of the Government’s refusal to comply with his order for a bill of particulars. Before the order of dismissal was entered, however, the Government sought and obtained ex parte from the Seventh Circuit a stay of all proceedings in the case. The Court of Appeals also granted the Government leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus and issued a rule to show cause why such a writ should not issue to compel petitioner to strike request number 25 from his bill of particulars order. This case was submitted on the briefs, and the Court of Appeals at first denied the writ. The Government petitioned for reconsideration, however, and the Court of Appeals, without taking new briefs or hearing oral argument, reversed itself and without opinion issued a writ of mandamus directing petitioner “to vacate his order directing the Government to answer question 25 in defendant's motion for bill of particulars.” We granted certiorari, 386 U. S. 955 (1967), because of the wide implications of the decision below for the orderly administration of criminal justice in the federal courts. We vacate the writ and remand the case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
Both parties have devoted substantial argument in this Court to the propriety of petitioner’s order. In our view of the case, however, it is unnecessary to reach this question. The peremptory writ of mandamus has traditionally been used in the federal courts only “to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction or to compel it to exercise its authority when it is its duty to do so.” Roche v. Evaporated Milk Assn., 319 U. S. 21, 26 (1943). While the courts have never confined themselves to an arbitrary and technical definition of “jurisdiction,” it is clear that only exceptional circumstances amounting to a judicial “usurpation of power” will justify the invocation of this extraordinary remedy. De Beers Consol. Mines, Ltd. v. United States, 325 U. S. 212, 217 (1945). Thus the writ has been invoked where unwarranted judicial action threatened “to embarrass the executive arm of the Government in conducting foreign relations,” Ex parte Peru, 318 U. S. 578, 588 (1943), where it was the only means of forestalling intrusion by the federal judiciary on a delicate area of federal-state relations, Maryland v. Soper, 270 U. S. 9 (1926), where it was necessary to confine a lower court to the terms of an appellate tribunal's mandate, United States v. United States Dist. Court, 334 U. S. 258 (1948), and where a district judge displayed a persistent disregard of the Rules of Civil Procedure promulgated by this Court, La Buy v. Howes Leather Co., 352 U. S. 249 (1957); see McCullough v. Cosgrave, 309 U. S. 634 (1940); Los Angeles Brush Mfg. Corp. v. James, 272 U. S. 701, 706, 707 (1927) (dictum). And the party seeking mandamus has “the burden of showing that its right to issuance of the writ is ‘clear and indisputable.' ” Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Holland, 346 U. S. 379, 384 (1953); see United States v. Dwell, 172 U. S. 576, 582 (1899).
We also approach this case with an awareness of additional considerations which flow from the fact that the underlying proceeding is a criminal prosecution. All our jurisprudence is strongly colored by the notion that appellate review should be postponed, except in certain narrowly defined circumstances, until after final judgment has been rendered by the trial court. See, e. g., Judiciary Act of 1789, §§ 21, 22, 25, 1 Stat. 73, 83, 84, 85; Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U. S. 323, 326 (1940); McLish v. Roff, 141 U. S. 661 (1891). This general policy against piecemeal appeals takes on added weight in criminal cases, where the defendant is entitled to a speedy resolution of the charges against him. DiBella v. United States, 369 U. S. 121, 126 (1962). Moreover, “in the federal jurisprudence, at least, appeals by the Government in criminal cases are something unusual, exceptional, not favored,” Carroll v. United States, 354 U. S. 394, 400 (1957), at least in part because they always threaten to offend the policies behind the double-jeopardy prohibition, cf. Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U. S. 141 (1962). Government appeal in the federal courts has thus been limited by Congress to narrow categories of orders terminating the prosecution, see 18 U. S. C. § 3731, and the Criminal Appeals Act is strictly construed against the Government’s right of appeal, Carroll v. United States, 354 U. S. 394, 399-400 (1957). Mandamus, of course, may never be employed as a substitute for appeal in derogation of these clear policies. E. g., Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U. S. 141 (1962); Parr v. United States, 351 U. S. 513, 520-521 (1956); Bank of Columbia v. Sweeny, 1 Pet. 567, 569 (1828). Nor is the case against permitting the writ to be used as a substitute for interlocutory appeal “made less compelling ... by the fact that the Government has no later right to appeal.” DiBella v. United States, 369 U. S. 121, 130 (1962). This is not to say that mandamus may never be used to review procedural orders in criminal cases. It has been invoked successfully where the action of the trial court totally deprived the Government of its right to initiate a prosecution, Ex parte United States, 287 U. S. 241 (1932), and where the court overreached its judicial power to deny the Government the rightful fruits of a valid conviction, Ex parte United States, 242 U. S. 27 (1916). But this Court has never approved the use of the writ to review an interlocutory procedural order in a criminal case which did not have the effect of a dismissal. We need not decide under what circumstances, if any, such a use of mandamus would be appropriate. It is enough to note that we approach the decision in this case with an awareness of the constitutional precepts that a man is entitled to a speedy trial and that he may not be placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense.
In light of these considerations and criteria, neither the record before us nor the cryptic order of the Court of Appeals justifies the invocation of the extraordinary writ in this case.
We do not understand the Government to argue that petitioner was in any sense without “jurisdiction” to order it to file a bill of particulars. Suffice it to note that Rule 7 (f) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure specifically empowers the trial court to “direct the filing of a bill of particulars,” and that federal trial courts have always had very broad discretion in ruling upon requests for such bills, compare Wong Tai v. United States, 273 U. S. 77, 82 (1927). Furthermore, it is not uncommon for the Government to be required to disclose the names of some potential witnesses in a bill of particulars, where this information is necessary or useful in the defendant’s preparation for trial. See, e. g., United States v. White, 370 F. 2d 559 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1966). See also United States v. Debrow, 346 U. S. 374, 378 (1953).
The Government seeks instead to justify the employment of the writ in this instance on the ground that petitioner’s conduct displays a “pattern of manifest noncompliance with the rules governing federal criminal trials.” It argues that the federal rules place settled limitations upon pretrial discovery in criminal cases, and that a trial court may not, in the absence of compelling justification, order the Government to produce a list of its witnesses in advance of trial. It argues further that in only one category of cases, i. e., prosecutions for treason and other capital offenses, is the Government required to turn over to the defense such a list of its witnesses. A general policy of requiring such disclosure without a particularized showing of need would, it is contended, offend the informant’s privilege. Petitioner, according to the Government, adopted “a uniform rule in his courtroom requiring the government in a criminal case to furnish the defense, on motion for a bill of particulars, a list of potential witnesses.” The Government concludes that since petitioner obviously had no power to adopt such a rule, mandamus will lie under this Court’s decision in La Buy v. Howes Leather Co., 352 U. S. 249 (1957), to correct this studied disregard of the limitations placed upon the district courts by the federal rules.
The action of the Court of Appeals cannot, on the record before us, bear the weight of this justification. There is absolutely no foundation in this record for the Government’s assertions concerning petitioner’s practice. The legal proposition that mandamus will lie in appropriate cases to correct willful disobedience of the rules laid down by this Court is not controverted. But the position of the Government rests on two central factual premises: (1) that petitioner in effect ordered it to produce a list of witnesses in advance of trial; and (2) that petitioner took this action pursuant to a deliberately adopted policy in disregard of the rules of criminal procedure. Neither of these premises finds support in the record.
Petitioner repeatedly and, we think, correctly emphasized that request number 25 did not call for a list of government witnesses. He carefully noted that it was utterly immaterial under the terms of request number 25 whether the Government planned to call any of the individuals whose names were sought to the witness stand during the trial. Furthermore, it is clear as a practical matter that the Government’s proof in this case, as in any prosecution of this complex nature, will extend far beyond mere damaging admissions of the defendant, and that witnesses will in all probability be called who have never heard Horwitz make any incriminating statements. Nor, if the list of people who have allegedly heard Hor-witz make damaging admissions is long, is it likely that they will all be called to testify for the Government. Thus while the two categories have a clear probable overlap, they are not co-extensive. And, as petitioner stated in the opinion accompanying his original order to the Government to file a bill of particulars:
“The reason for requiring disclosure of their names ... is not that they will or may be witnesses, but that the defendant requires identification of the times, places and persons present in order to prepare his defense.”
Indeed, petitioner excused the Government from answering request number 29 (a), which was so broad as to constitute in effect a demand for a list of prosecution witnesses. Finally, it should be noted that in the opinion accompanying the original order, petitioner averred his willingness to narrow the order of disclosure upon a showing by the Government “that such disclosure will involve physical risk to the individuals or prejudice the government in its ability to produce its evidence.” He repeated this offer numerous times in the subsequent hearings on the Government’s objections to the bill, but the United States Attorney never suggested that such a showing could be made in this case.
The record is equally devoid of support for the notion that petitioner had adopted a deliberate policy in open defiance of the federal rules in matters of pretrial criminal discovery. The extended colloquy between petitioner and government counsel reveals at most that petitioner took a generally liberal view of the discovery rights of criminal defendants. But petitioner was careful never to divorce his ruling from his view of the legitimate needs of the defendant in the case before him, and there is no indication that he considered the case to be governed by a uniform and inflexible rule of disclosure. Thus the most that can be claimed on this record is that petitioner may have erred in ruling on matters within his jurisdiction. See Parr v. United States, 351 U. S. 513, 520 (1956). But “[t]he extraordinary writs do not reach to such cases; they may not be used to thwart the congressional policy against piecemeal appeals.” Id., at 520-521. Mandamus, it must be remembered, does not “run the gauntlet of reversible errors.” Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Holland, 346 U. S. 379, 382 (1953). Its office is not to “control the decision of the trial court,” but rather merely to confine the lower court to the sphere of its discretionary power. Id., at 383. Thus the record before us simply fails to demonstrate the necessity for the drastic remedy employed by the Court of Appeals.
Even more important in our view, however, than these deficiencies in the record is the failure of the Court of Appeals to attempt to supply any reasoned justification of its action. Had the Government in fact shown that petitioner adopted a policy in deliberate disregard of the criminal discovery rules and that this policy had proved seriously disruptive of the efficient administration of criminal justice in the Northern District of Illinois, it would have raised serious questions under this Court’s decision in La Buy v. Howes Leather Co., 352 U. S. 249 (1957) , In La Buy, however, we specifically relied upon evidence in the record which showed a pattern of improper references of cases to special masters by the District Judge. 352 U. S., at 258. There is no evidence in this record concerning petitioner’s practice in other cases, aside from his own remark that the Government was generally dissatisfied with it, and his statements do not reveal any intent to evade or disregard the rules. We do not know what he ordered the Government to reveal under what circumstances in other cases. This state of the record renders the silence of the Court of Appeals all the more critical. We recognized in La Buy that the familiarity of a court of appeals with the practice of the individual district courts within its circuit was relevant to an assessment of the need for mandamus as a corrective measure. See 352 U. S., at 258. But without an opinion from the Court of Appeals we do not know what role, if any, this factor played in the decision below. In fact, we are in the dark with respect to the position of the Court of Appeals on all the issues crucial to an informed exercise of our power of review. We do not know: (1) what the Court of Appeals found petitioner to have done; (2) what it objected to in petitioner’s course of conduct — whether it was the order in this particular case or some general practice adopted by petitioner in this and other cases; (3) what it thought was the proper scope of a bill of particulars under Rule 7 (f) and what limitations it thought the criminal rules placed •upon the particular or generalized discretion of a district court to order the Government to file such a bill; or (4) what relevance, if any, it attached to the fact that this order was entered in a criminal case, in assessing the availability of mandamus. We cannot properly identify the questions for decision in the case before us without illumination of this unclear record by the measured and exposed reflection of the Court of Appeals.
Due regard, not merely for the reviewing functions of this Court, but for the “drastic and extraordinary” nature of the mandamus remedy, Ex parte Fahey, 332 U. S. 258, 259 (1947), and for the extremely awkward position in which it places the District Judge, id., at 260, demands that a court issuing the writ give a reasoned exposition of the basis for its action.
Mandamus is not a punitive remedy. The entire thrust of the Government's justification for mandamus in this case, moreover, is that the writ serves a vital corrective and didactic function. While these aims lay at the core of this Court’s decisions in La Buy and Schlagenhauf v. Holder, 379 U. S. 104 (1964), we fail to see how they can be served here without findings of fact by the issuing court and some statement of the court’s legal reasoning. A mandamus from the blue without rationale is tantamount to an abdication of the very expository and supervisory functions of an appellate court upon which the Government rests its attempt to justify the action below.
The peremptory common-law writs are among the most potent weapons in the-judicial arsenal. “As extraordinary remedies, they are reserved for really extraordinary causes.” Ex parte Fahey, 332 U. S. 258, 260 (1947). There is nothing in the record here to demonstrate that this case falls into that category, and thus the judgment below cannot stand. What might be the proper decision upon a more complete record, supplemented by the findings and conclusions of the Court of Appeals, we cannot and do not say. Hence the writ is vacated and the cause is remanded to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. is s0 ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Request number 25 originally read:
“25. If [the Government relies upon any oral statements of the defendant], state with respect to each such statement, if there was more than one:
“a. The name and address of the person to whom the statement was made;
“b. The date on which the statement was made;
“c. The place where it was made;
“d. The substance of the statement;
“e. Whether the person to whom the statement was made was a Government Agent at the time of the statement;
“f. The names and addresses of any other persons present at the time the statement was made; and
“g. Whether a written memorandum or verbatim transcript of the oral statement was made, and, if. so, whether the Government has possession of the memorandum or transcript.”
The Government objected, inter alia, to compliance with part “d” on work-product grounds. At first petitioner sustained this objection and struck part “d” altogether; however, he later ordered the Government to reveal the substance of statements made to government agents, but not of those made to private parties.
The order of the Court of Appeals denying the writ read, in its entirety:
“This is a petition by the government for writ of mandamus to compel respondent, a district court judge, to vacate his order which effectually directs the government in a criminal cause to give the defendant names and addresses of persons to whom defendant in said cause made oral statements to support the charges in the indictments. Briefs have been filed in this court by both parties. The court has considered the briefs and is fully informed of the points made and the positions of the parties with respect to the issue, and
“The court finds that the order subject of the petition is not an appealable order, and a review of it would offend the policy against piecemeal appeals in criminal cases, Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U. S. 323; that mandamus may not be used as a means of reviewing the non-appealable order, Boche v. Evaporated Milk Association, 319 U. S. 21; that federal courts use mandamus for the traditional purpose of confining a district court to a lawful exercise of its jurisdiction or to compel it to exercise its proper jurisdiction, Roche v. Evaporated Milk Association; that the district judge’s order upon the government to furnish names and addresses of witnesses to a defendant may be erroneous, a question we do not decide, but the ruling itself was within the court’s jurisdiction, Roche v. Evaporated Milk Association; that the ruling can be reviewed on appeal from a final judgment; and that there is no question here that the district judge refused to exercise his proper jurisdiction.
“It Is Therefore Ordered that the petition for writ of mandamus be and it is hereby denied.”
The original order denying the writ was entered on July 12, 1966. On August 16, 1966, the court granted the Government’s petition for reconsideration, remarking only that:
“The court finds that in the circumstances of this particular case the court should consider the merits of the ruling of the district court challenged by the government, rather than to remit the government to a radical alternative appealable judgment available to the trial judge upon the government’s persistent refusal to comply;
“It is therefore ordered that the order of this court of July 12, 1966, be and it is hereby vacated, and the cause is taken by the court upon the petition for the writ, the briefs of both parties and the record.”
Subsequently, on October 4, 1966, the Court of Appeals granted the writ. Its entire order reads as follows:
“This cause came on to be heard upon the Government’s petition for writ of mandamus ordering respondent to vacate his order directing the Government to answer question 25 in defendant’s motion for bill of particulars, which question sought, among other things, the names and addresses of persons to whom defendant made oral statements supporting the indictment charging wilful evasion of income tax, and which statements the Government would rely upon at the trial; upon the rule issued upon respondent to show cause why the writ should not issue; upon the brief of respondent answering the rule, and the brief of the Government; and upon the record.
“And the Court having on August 16, 1966 vacated its July 12, 1966 order denying the writ, and having reconsidered the question,
“It Is Ordered that a writ of mandamus issue as prayed in the Government’s petition directing respondent to vacate his order directing the Government to answer question 25 in defendant’s motion for bill of particulars.”
It is likewise unnecessary for us to reach the question whether the writ in the circumstances of this case may be said to issue in aid of an exercise of the Court of Appeals’ appellate jurisdiction. See 28 U. S. C. § 1651; Roche v. Evaporated Milk Assn., 319 U. S. 21, 25 (1943). Compare In re United States, 348 F. 2d 624 (C. A. 1st Cir. 1965), with United States v. Bondy, 171 F. 2d 642 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1948). In our view, even assuming that the possible future appeal in this case would support the Court of Appeals’ mandamus jurisdiction, it was an abuse of discretion for the court to act as it did in the circumstances of this case.
Thus it is irrelevant, and we do not decide, whether the Government could appeal in the event petitioner dismissed the Horwitz indictments because of its refusal to comply with his bill of particulars order. Both parties agree that it is highly doubtful that it could appeal. See United States v. Apex Distrib. Co., 270 F. 2d 747 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1959). The Government argues that it is unseemly to force it to defy the court in order to seek review of its order, and doubly so because it may secure review with certainty only if the United States Attorney is cited for contempt, compare Bowman Dairy Co. v. United States, 341 U. S. 214 (1951), in view of the doubtful status of its right to appeal a dismissal. But this misses the mark. Congress clearly contemplated when it placed drastic limits upon the Government’s right of review in criminal cases that it would be completely unable to secure review of some orders having a substantial effect on its ability to secure criminal convictions. This Court cannot and will not grant the Government a right of review which Congress has chosen to withhold. Carroll v. United States, 354 U. S. 394, 407-408 (1957). We may assume for purposes of this decision that there may be no other way for the Government to seek review of individual orders directing it to file bills of particulars.
Nor do we understand the Government to argue that a judge has no “power” to enter an erroneous order. Acceptance of this semantic fallacy would undermine the settled limitations upon the power of an appellate court to review interlocutory orders. Neither “jurisdiction” nor “power” can be said to “run the gauntlet of reversible errors.” Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Holland, 346 U. S. 379, 382 (1953). Courts faced with petitions for the peremptory writs must be careful lest they suffer themselves to be misled by labels such as “abuse of discretion” and “want of power” into interlocutory review of nonappealable orders on the mere ground that they may be erroneous. “Certainly Congress knew that some interlocutory orders might be erroneous when it chose to make them non-reviewable.” De Beers Consol. Mines, Ltd. v. United States, 325 U. S. 212, 223, 225 (1945) (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas).
It should be noted that Rule 7 (f) was amended, effective July 1, 1966, to eliminate the requirement that a defendant seeking a bill of particulars make a showing of “cause.” The Government argues that this amendment was not designed “to transform the bill of particulars into an instrument of broad discovery.” Brief for United States, p. 15, n. 5. We intimate no view regarding the construction of the amendment. Petitioner’s order was entered before the amendment was promulgated. The impact of the amendment on the present proceeding will, of course, be a question open upon remand.
Brief for United States, p. 24.
Brief for United States, p. 11.
We note in passing that La Buy and the other decisions of this Court approving the use of mandamus as a means of policing compliance with the procedural rules were civil cases. See Schlagenhauf v. Holder, 379 U. S. 104 (1964); McCullough v. Cosgrave, 309 U. S. 634 (1940); Los Angeles Brush Mfg. Corp. v. James, 272 U. S. 701, 706, 707 (1927) (dictum). We have pointed out that the fact this case involves a criminal prosecution has contextual relevance. See supra, at 96-98. In view of our reading of the record, however, we need not venture an abstract pronouncement on the question whether this fact imposes a more stringent standard for the invocation of mandamus by the Government where the allegation is that a district judge has deviated from the federal rules.
Petitioner at one point stated to government counsel:
“I told you that any time you made a representation with any foundation in support of it that the disclosure of the name of an individual would either jeopardize him physically or jeopardize the government’s proof in the case and that his testimony might be altered or effort might be made to persuade him not to testify, or something else, I am prepared to say under those circumstances of that showing we don’t risk people’s lives or their security, their physical well-being, and we don’t encourage any possible circumstances in which testimony can be suppressed. That is consistent, it seems to me, with my general philosophy that you shouldn’t be suppressing things; and if there is a threat of suppression then I will take the lesser suppression to prevent the greater.”
Earlier, after government counsel suggested that the danger of fabricated defenses justified a policy against the disclosure of the names of potential government witnesses, petitioner replied:
“Now any evidence of a fabrication, believe me, we will deal with it. The laws of perjury — we have had convictions for perjury here, and we will have them again, I have no doubt, arising out of criminal cases, but I am not prepared to say to a defendant that you may not have the information which it seems to me you reasonably require to prepare your defense because I am afraid you or somebody helping you will lie and we won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Upon further inquiry, the United States Attorney made no suggestion that there was a particular danger that disclosure of the names sought by request number 25 would result in subornation of perjury.
Petitioner remarked at one stage:
“You know, I have great concern that in a civil case we require both sides to submit their witnesses to maximum deposition when all that is involved is money. In a criminal case, the government doesn’t even want to disclose the name of a person so the other side can go out and interview him when what is concerned is life or liberty. To me this is a very strange aberration of the processes of justice as between civil and criminal cases. When all that is involved is money, we say put your cards on the table. Where life and liberty are involved, we say to the prosecution you don’t have to tell him a thing.”
The Government seeks to make much of an exchange in which petitioner remarked that he would “go further” than what the United States Attorney referred to as "the proposed new rules of discovery under the criminal rules by the American Bar Association.” The reference, according to the Government, is to the amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which were pending in this Court at the time, and the exchange reveals petitioner’s determination to require broad criminal discovery despite the limitations of the rules. We cannot accept this argument. In the first place, the colloquy clearly reveals that petitioner considered the proposed rules irrelevant to the question before him. In the second place, petitioner made it plain that he thought his position could in any event be rested on a reading of the proposed rules:
“The Court: ... I would go further than they go, but they certainly go a lot further than you- — a lot further.
“Mr. Schultz [United States Attorney]: They would not require the answers to these questions.
“The Court: I don’t agree with that. They would not require the giving of a list of witnesses, and I don’t conceive that I am ... .”
After his initial ruling that the defendant was entitled to the information sought by request number 25 because he needed it to prepare his defense adequately, petitioner continually asserted a willingness to consider any factors peculiar to the ease which militated against disclosure of this information and to narrow his order in light of any such considerations. See n. 11, supra. Moreover, on several occasions it was petitioner who sought to narrow the focus of the discussion to the particular instance by insisting that the United States Attorney relate his generalized policy objections to the facts of the particular case:
“Mr. Schultz: We are not only talking about this very case, your Honor.
“The Court: Well, I am talking about this case. That is what I am ruling on. That is what I ruled on last week or earlier this week. That is what you are asking me to reconsider, to vacate.”
And again:
“Why shouldn’t they have an opportunity to interview the witnesses? Why should they put them on cold at the time, or why should I have to recess then while they go and interview the witnesses to see what their testimony would be?
“I don’t understand it, Mr. Schultz. I just don’t understand in this situation — I can understand a lot of situations, but in this situation. We are not talking about some other case, but in this case, this ease in which you say that there were incriminating admissions made.”
The Government also places reliance on Schlagenhauf v. Holder, 379 U. S. 104 (1964), arguing that it “reaffirmed” La Buy. Insofar as it did so, the case does not help the Government here, since we have no quarrel with La Buy, which is simply inapposite where there is no showing of a persistent disregard of the federal rules. And it cannot be contended that Schlagenhauf on its facts supports an invocation of mandamus in this case. The Court there did note that the various questions concerning the construction of Rule 35 were new and substantial, but it rested the existence of mandamus jurisdiction squarely on the fact that there was real doubt whether the District Court had any power at all to order a defendant to submit to a physical examination.
Petitioner stated that
“it is no secret that the government is disturbed that I am making available to defendants the identity of people who are alleged to have been present when transactions took place, which the government contends are illegal. . . .
“. . . I have never required them to disclose their evidence, but I have required them to identify the people with whom the defendant is supposed to have participated in an illegal act but who were present.”
We note merely that petitioner was careful to distinguish his practice from requiring the Government to produce its evidence or a list of witnesses. _ In any event, petitioner’s passing remarks concerning a running dispute with the Government are insufficient to support an invocation of La Buy, absent some evidence concerning petitioner’s actions in other cases, or at the very least some illumination of this dialogue flowing from the Court of Appeals’ experience with petitioner’s general practice and its reading of Rule 7 (f).
Another puzzling aspect of the action of the Court of Appeals is what it did not do. Requests 7, 14, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29 called for the disclosure of the names of persons who might conceivably be called as witnesses by the Government at Horwitz' trial. The Government objected to being required to answer requests 7, 14, 25, and 29. Ultimately petitioner excused the Government from answering request number 29, which was very broadly cast and did in effect call for a list of all potential witnesses. The Government for its part answered all the remaining requests, except number 25. The mandamus petition only placed the latter in issue, but nothing in the record indicates why either the Government or the Court of Appeals might have thought that it was within petitioner’s judicial discretion under Rule 7 (f) to order the disclosure of the names sought by the other requests, but not the revelation of those sought by request number 25.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Asphalt Products Co. (APC) manufactures emulsified asphalt, a paving material containing oil refining residues, principally for sale to Tennessee county governments for use in highway construction. For reasons related to the rise in oil prices attending the 1973 Arab oil embargo, APC’s 1974 year-end inventories and accounts receivable were substantially higher than in prior years. Because APC kept its books, and prepared its 1974 federal tax return, on a cash receipts and disbursements basis, its reported 1974 taxable income did not fully reflect these changes. APC’s 1974 return also claimed a deduction of $1,103.04 for the expense of transporting two trucks from their place of purchase in Seattle to Tennessee. The trucks were driven to Tennessee by way of California, where they picked up two trailer-mounted waste water treatment plants bought by APC’s shareholders in their individual capacities.
The Commissioner of Internal Revenue determined that, because of the increases in APC’s inventories and accounts receivable, the company’s traditional cash-basis bookkeeping did not “clearly reflect income,” 26 U. S. C. § 446(b), for the 1974 tax year, and APC was therefore required to compute its 1974 income on an accrual basis. The Commissioner also disallowed the deduction for the expense of transporting the trucks and trailers, on the ground that it was a personal expense of the shareholders. After several other adjustments, the Commissioner recomputed APC’s taxes to show a deficiency of $154,332.16.
The Commissioner further contended that APC’s use of the wrong accounting method and its deduction of the truck transportation expenses constituted negligence, and it added to the deficiency a penalty under 26 U. S. C. § 6653(a)(1), which then provided: “If any part of any underpayment. . . is due to negligence or intentional disregard of rules or regulations (but without intent to defraud), there shall be added to the tax an amount equal to 5 percent of the underpayment.” (Section 6653 was amended in minor respects by the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-514, § 1503, 100 Stat. 2742; unless otherwise indicated, all further references are to the pre-1986 statute.) The penalty totaled $7,716.61 — 5% of the full alleged underpayment of $154,332.16.
In the Tax Court, APC stipulated that the truck transportation expenses were not properly deductible, unsuccessfully contested the requirement that it use accrual accounting, and successfully contested certain other determinations, resulting in a recalculated deficiency of $133,248.69 — almost all of which was due to the change in accounting methods. The Tax Court concluded that APC’s use of cash-basis accounting was nonnegligent, but affirmed the Commissioner’s finding that APC had negligently deducted the truck transportation expenses. It thus added to APC’s tax a negligence penalty of $6,943.37, computed as before by reference to the full amount of the deficiency (adjusted for carryback credits, see 26 U. S. C. §§6211, 6653(c)(1)).
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, over a dissent, the Tax Court’s determination that APC was required to use accrual accounting, and unanimously (albeit with little enthusiasm) affirmed the finding that the deduction for truck transportation expenses was negligent. 796 F. 2d 843 (1986). APC has petitioned for certiorari on those two issues in No. 86-1054, and we deny that petition. Accordingly, for purposes of this opinion we accept, without approving, the Commissioner’s finding of negligence. The Court of Appeals reversed the Tax Court’s imposition of the negligence penalty on the full amount of the deficiency, concluding that the penalty “should be applied only to that portion of the deficiency attributable to the disallowed deduction.” Id., at 850. The Commissioner has petitioned for certiorari on that issue in No. 86-1058. Because this holding is in apparent conflict with Abrams v. United States, 449 F. 2d 662 (CA2 1971), and is in obvious conflict with the plain language of the statute, we grant certiorari in No. 86-1053 and reverse.
Section 6653(a)(1) could not be clearer. If “any part of any underpayment” is due to negligence, the Commissioner shall add to the tax a penalty of “5 percent of the underpayment.” It is impossible further to explain the statute without merely repeating its language — the penalty is imposed on “the underpayment,” not on the “part of [the] underpayment” attributable to negligence. By contrast (if contrast is thought necessary), the very next paragraph of the statute, § 6653(a)(2) (added in 1981, see Pub. L. 97-34, § 722(b)(1), 95 Stat. 342), limits the 50% penalty on interest due on negligent underpayments to “the portion of the underpayment . . . which is attributable to the [taxpayer’s] negligence.” The section imposing interest penalties on fraudulent underpayments contains the same proviso, § 6653(b)(2)(A), as does (after the 1986 Tax Reform Act) the provision for direct penalties on fraudulent underpayments. See § 1503(b)(1)(A), 100 Stat. 2742 (“If any part of any underpayment... is due to fraud, there shall be added to the tax ... 75 percent of the portion of the underpayment which is attributable to fraud”). As the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in Abrams v. United States: “It is evident that it was intended that the five percent was to be assessed not just against that segment of the deficiency due to negligence but against the entire amount. The language is clear and leads to no other interpretation.” 449 F. 2d, at 664.
The taxpayers in Abrams argued “that a literal application of the statute could lead to absurd results where a comparatively insignificant item of income is negligently omitted,” ibid., and the court in Abrams expressly reserved judgment on that situation. Ibid. (“That case is not before us on this appeal and we therefore express no opinion whatever as to its proper disposition if it should ever arise”). The Court of Appeals in this litigation relied on that reservation, and on the absence of any “egregious attempts [by APC] to avoid the payment of taxes,” 796 F. 2d, at 849, to distinguish Abrams, concluding that the Commissioner’s construction of the statute lets “the tail wag the dog.” 796 F. 2d, at 850; ibid. (Nelson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“Where the taxpayer is subject to a penalty only because of the negligent omission of a comparatively insignificant item of income, and the Commissioner also asserts that there is a large underpayment not claimed to be due to negligence, I agree with the court that it would be absurd to let the Commissioner calculate the negligence penalty by applying the statutory percentage to the sum of the negligent and non-negligent underpayments”). This was error. Judicial perception that a particular result would be unreasonable may enter into the construction of ambiguous provisions, but cannot justify disregard of what Congress has plainly and intentionally provided. Given the Government’s plausible interest in deterring negligent tax preparation and given the statute’s explicit limitation of other penalties to the amount of the negligent or fraudulent underpayment, no conclusion can be drawn from the provision here at issue except that Congress desired to impose a modest penalty (5%) upon underpayments any part of which was attributable to negligence of the taxpayer. It is not our assigned role to alter that disposition.
The decision of the Court of Appeals limiting the amount of the negligence penalty is
Reversed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
John David Moore, Jr., was convicted in a bench trial of possession of heroin with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §841 (a)(1). In an unpublished order, the Court of Appeals summarily affirmed the judgment of conviction.
In early January 1975, police officers received a tip from an informant that Moore and others were in possession of heroin at “Moore’s apartment.” The police obtained a search warrant and entered the apartment, where they found Moore lying face down near a coffee table in the living room. Also present in the apartment was a woman who was sitting on a couch in the same room. Bags containing heroin were found both on top of and beneath the coffee table, and they were seized along with various narcotics paraphernalia.
At a consolidated hearing on Moore’s motion to suppress evidence and on the merits, the prosecution adduced no admissible evidence showing that Moore was in possession of the heroin in the apartment in which he and the woman were found other than his proximity to the narcotics at the time the warrant was executed. Indeed, one police officer testified that he did not find “any indications of ownership of the apartment.” In his closing argument on the merits, however, the prosecutor placed substantial emphasis on the out-of-court declaration of the unidentified informant:
“[A] confidential informant came to Detective Uribe and said, T have information or I have — through personal observation, know that John David Moore resides at a certain apartment here in El Paso, Texas, and he is in possession of a certain amount of heroin.’ ”
In adjudging Moore guilty, the trial court found that he had been in close proximity to the seized heroin, that he was the tenant of the apartment in question, and that he had, therefore, been in possession of the contraband. In making these findings, the court expressly relied on the hearsay declaration of the informant:
“Information revealed by the confidential informant and relied upon in the preparation of the Affidavit disclosed that John David Moore was the occupant of Apartment # 60, Building # 7, Hill Country Apartments, 213 Argonaut, El Paso, Texas.”
Defense counsel objected to the court’s reliance upon hearsay evidence, but the judge refused to amend this finding except to add the phrase “at the time of the seizure” to the end of the sentence.
There can be no doubt that'the informant’s out-of-court declaration that the apartment in question was “Moore’s apartment,” either as related in the search warrant affidavit or as reiterated in live testimony by the police officers, was hearsay and thus inadmissible in evidence on the issue of Moore’s guilt. Introduction of this testimony deprived Moore of the opportunity to cross-examine the informant as to exactly what he meant by “Moore’s apartment,” and what factual basis, if any, there was for believing that Moore was a tenant or regular resident there. Moore was similarly deprived of the chance to show that the witness’ recollection was erroneous or that he was not credible. The informant’s declaration falls within no exception to the hearsay-rule recognized in the Federal Rules of Evidence, and reliance on this hearsay statement in determining petitioner’s guilt or innocence was error.
Although the only competent evidence of Moore’s possession of the narcotics was his proximity to them in an apartment in which another person was also present and of which he was not shown to be the tenant or even a regular resident, the Solicitor General now argues that the error in admitting the hearsay evidence was harmless. That is far from clear. Whether or not the evidence of proximity alone, when viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, could suffice to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Moore was in possession of the heroin, the fact is that the trial court did not find Moore guilty on that evidence alone.
The Government suggests that Moore’s failure to testify or to adduce any evidence showing “that his presence in the apartment was unrelated to the heroin” highlights the alleged harmlessness of the error, but this suggestion can carry no weight in view of the elementary proposition that the prosecution bore the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the charged offense. Equally unpersuasive is the Government’s argument that the error was probably harmless because Moore was convicted in a bench trial; whatever the merits of that argument as a general proposition, it has a hollow ring in a case where the trial judge expressly relied upon the inadmissible evidence in finding the defendant guilty.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court so it may determine whether the wrongful admission of the hearsay evidence was harmless error.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Blackmun, and Mr. Justice Rehnquist dissent from summary reversal and would set the case for oral argument.
Moore moved to require disclosure of the informant’s identity, but the Government opposed the motion and the trial judge denied it.
Although we do not rely on the Government’s confession of error, we note that the Solicitor General concedes that admission of the hearsay evidence on the question of Moore’s guilt or innocence was improper.
The Government also urges that petitioner’s failure to suggest in his closing argument that consideration of the hearsay evidence be restricted to the suppression issue constituted a waiver of any objection to the District Judge’s reliance on that evidence in determining guilt or innocence. The Court of Appeals has not passed on this question, and we leave it for resolution by that court on remand.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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.
Respondent is a producer and distributor of advertising motion pictures which depict and describe commodities offered for sale by commercial establishments. Respondent contracts with theatre owners for the display of these advertising films and ships the films from its place of business in Louisiana to theatres in twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia. These contracts run for terms up to five years, the majority being for one or two years. A substantial number of them contain a provision that the theatre owner will display only advertising films furnished by respondent, with the exception of films for charities or for governmental organizations, or announcements of coming attractions. Respondent and three other companies in the same business (against which proceedings were also brought) together had exclusive arrangements for advertising films with approximately three-fourths of the total number of theatres in the United States which display advertising films for compensation. Respondent had exclusive contracts with almost 40 percent of the theatres in the area where it operates.
The Federal Trade Commission, the petitioner, filed a complaint charging respondent with the use of “unfair methods of competition” in violation of § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 717, 719, 52 Stat. Ill, 15 U. S. C. § 45. The Commission found that respondent was in substantial competition with other companies engaged in the business of distributing advertising films, that its exclusive contracts have limited the outlets for films of competitors and have forced some competitors out of business because of their inability to obtain outlets for their advertising films. It held by a divided vote that the exclusive contracts are unduly restrictive of competition when they extend for periods in excess of one year. It accordingly entered a cease and desist order which prohibits respondent from entering into any such contract that grants an exclusive privilege for more than a year or from continuing in effect any exclusive provision of an existing contract longer than a year after the date of service in the Commission’s order. 47 F. T. C. 378. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the exclusive contracts are not unfair methods of competition and that their prohibition would not be in the public interest. 194 F. 2d 633.
The “unfair methods of competition,” which are condemned by § 5 (a) of the Act, are not confined to those that were illegal at common law or that were condemned by the Sherman Act. Federal Trade Commission v. Keppel & Bro., 291 U. S. 304. Congress advisedly left the concept flexible to be defined with particularity by the myriad of cases from the field of business. Id., pp. 310-312. It is also clear that the Federal Trade Commission Act was designed to supplement and bolster the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act (see Federal Trade Commission v. Beech-Nut Co., 257 U. S. 441, 453) — to stop in their incipiency acts and practices which, when full blown, would violate those Acts (see Fashion Guild v. Federal Trade Commission, 312 U. S. 457, 463, 466), as well as to condemn as “unfair methods of competition” existing violations of them. See Federal Trade Commission v. Cement Institute, 333 U. S. 683, 691.
The Commission found in the present case that respondent’s exclusive contracts unreasonably restrain competition and tend to monopoly. Those findings are supported by substantial evidence. This is not a situation where by the nature of the market there is room for newcomers, irrespective of the existing restrictive practices. The number of outlets for the films is quite limited. And due to the exclusive contracts, respondent and the three other major companies have foreclosed to competitors 75 percent of all available outlets for this business throughout the United States. It is, we think, plain from the Commission’s findings that a device which has sewed up a market so tightly for the benefit of a few falls within the prohibitions of the Sherman Act and is therefore an “unfair method of competition” within the meaning of § 5 (a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
An attack is made on that part of the order which restricts the exclusive contracts to one-year terms. It is argued that one-year contracts will not be practicable. It is said that the expenses of securing these screening contracts do not warrant one-year agreements, that investment of capital in the business would not be justified without assurance of a market for more than one year, that theatres frequently demand guarantees for more than a year or otherwise refuse to exhibit advertising films. These and other business requirements are the basis of the argument that exclusive contracts of a duration in excess of a year are necessary for the conduct of the business of the distributors. The Commission considered this argument and concluded that, although the exclusive contracts were beneficial to the distributor and preferred by the theatre owners, their use should be restricted in the public interest. The Commission found that the term of one year had become a standard practice and that the continuance of exclusive contracts so limited would not be an undue restraint upon competition, in view of the compelling business reasons for some exclusive arrangement. The precise impact of a particular practice on the trade is for the Commission, not the courts, to determine. The point where a method of competition becomes “unfair” within the meaning of the Act will often turn on the exigencies of a particular situation, trade practices, or the practical requirements of the business in question. Certainly we cannot say that exclusive contracts in this field should have been banned in their entirety or not at all, that the Commission exceeded the limits of its allowable judgment (see Siegel Co. v. Federal Trade Commission, 327 U. S. 608, 612; Federal Trade Commission v. Cement Institute, 333 U. S. 683, 726-727) in limiting their term to one year.
The Court of Appeals held that the contracts between respondent and the theatres were contracts of agency and therefore governed by Federal Trade Commission v. Curtis Publishing Co., 260 U. S. 568. This was on the theory that respondent furnishes the films by bailment to the exhibitors in exchange for a contract for personal services which the exhibitors undertake to perform. But the Curtis case would be relevant here only if § 3 of the Clayton Act were involved. The vice of the exclusive contract in this particular field is in its tendency to restrain competition and to develop a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Act. And when the Sherman Act is involved the crucial fact is the impact of the particular practice on competition, not the label that it carries. See United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 280.
Finally, respondent urges that the sole issue raised in the Commission’s complaint had been adjudicated in a former proceeding instituted by the Commission which resulted in a cease and desist order. 36 F. T. C. 957. But that was a proceeding to put an end to a conspiracy between respondent and other distributors involving the use of these exclusive agreements. The present proceeding charges no conspiracy; it is directed against individual acts of respondent. The plea of res judicata is therefore not available since the issues litigated and determined in the present case are not the same as those in the earlier one. Cf. Tait v. Western Maryland R. Co., 289 U. S. 620, 623.
Reversed.
Comparable findings and like orders were entered in each of the three companion cases. In the Matter of Reid H. Ray Film, Industries, 47 F. T. C. 326; In the Matter of Alexander Film Co., 47 F. T. C. 345; In the Matter of United Film Ad Service, Inc., 47 F. T. C. 362.
The Commission said: “Under the general practice the representative of the respondent first contacts the theater to determine if space is available for screen advertising and makes such arrangements as conditions warrant with respect to such space. In this way respondent’s representative is able to show prospective advertisers where space is available. In contacting the theater it is necessary for the respondent to estimate the amount of space it will be able to sell to advertisers. Since film advertising space in theaters is limited to four, five, or six advertisements, it is not unreasonable for respondent to contract for all space available in such theaters, particularly in territories canvassed by its salesmen at regular and frequent intervals.
“It is therefore the conclusion of the Commission in the circumstances here that an exclusive screening agreement for a period of 1 year is not an undue restraint upon competition.” 47 F. T. C., at 389.
A suggestion is made that respondent needs a period longer than one year in view of the fact that the contracts with advertisers are often not coterminous with the exclusive screening agreements, due in large part to the delays in obtaining advertising contracts after the exclusive screening agreements have been executed. The Commission rejected this contention, stating that by custom and by the terms of the exclusive contracts the theatre completes the screening of advertisements as required by the advertising contracts, even though those contracts extend beyond the expiration date of the exclusive screening agreement. We have concluded that the order which the Commission entered in this case is consistent with that construction. It does not prevent the completion of any particular advertising contract after the expiration of the exclusive screening agreement. The order merely prevents respondent from requiring the theatre owner to show only its films after that date. It does not prevent the theatre owner from making an otherwise exclusive agreement with another distributor at that time. No theatre owner is a party to this proceeding. The cease and desist order binds only respondent.
This section makes unlawful a lease, sale, or contract for sale which substantially lessens competition or tends to create a monopoly. 15 U. S. C. § 14.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Mb. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We have here, consolidated for argument, five cases involving an identical question of law. Four are from the Tax Court whose rulings may be found in 24 T. C. 1016 (the Lake case); 24 T. C. 818 (the Fleming case); 24 T. C. 1025 (the Weed case). (Its findings and opinion in the Wrather case are not officially reported.) Those four cases involved income tax deficiencies. The fifth, the O’Connor case, is a suit for a refund originating in the District Court. 143 F. Supp. 240. All five are from the same Court of Appeáls, 241 F. 2d 71, 65, 78, 84, 69. The cases are here on writs of certiorari which we granted because of the public importance of the question presented. 353 U. S. 982.
The facts of the Lake case are closely similar to those in the Wrather and O’Connor cases. Lake is a corporation engaged in the business of producing oil and gas. It has a seven-eighths working interest in two commercial oil and gas leases. In 1950 it was indebted to its president in the sum of $600,000 and in consideration of his cancellation of the debt assigned him an oil payment right in the amount of $600,000, plus an amount equal to interest at 3 percent a year on the unpaid balance remaining from month to month, payable out of 25 percent of the oil attributable to the taxpayer’s working interest in the two leases. At the time of the assignment it could have been estimated with reasonable accuracy that the assigned oil payment right would pay out in three or more years. It did in fact pay out in a little over three years.
In its 1950 tax return Lake reported the oil payment assignment as a sale of property producing a profit of $600,000 and taxable as a long-term capital gain under § 117 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. The Commissioner determined a deficiency, ruling that the purchase price (less deductions not material here) was taxable as ordinary income, subject to depletion. The Wrather case has some variations in its facts. In the O’Connor case the assignors of the oil payments owned royalty interests rather than working interests. But these differences are not material to the question we have for decision.
The Weed case is different only because it involves sulphur rights, rather than oil rights. The taxpayer was the owner of a pooled overriding royalty in a deposit known as Boling Dome. The royalty interest entitled the taxpayer to receive $0.00966133 per long ton of sulphur produced from Boling Dome, irrespective of the market price. Royalty payments were made each month, based on the previous month's production.
In 1947, the taxpayer, in order to obtain a sure source of funds to pay his individual income taxes, agreed with one Munro, his tax advisor, on a sulphur payment assignment. The taxpayer assigned to Munro a sulphur payment totaling $50,000 and consisting of 86.254514 percent of his pooled royalty interest, which represented the royalty interest on 6,000,000 long tons of the estimated remaining 21,000,000 long tons still in place. The purchase price was paid in three installments over a three-year period. Most of the purchase price was borrowed by Munro from a bank with the sulphur payment assignment as security. The assigned sulphur payment right paid out within 28 months. The amounts received by the taxpayer in 1948 and 1949 were returned by him as capital gains. The Commissioner determined that these amounts were taxable as ordinary income, subject to depletion.
The Fleming case is a bit more complicated and presents an additional question not in the other cases. Here oil payment assignments were made, not for cash but for real estate. Two transactions are involved. Fleming and others with whom he was associated made oil payment assignments, the rights and interests involved being held by them for productive use in their respective businesses of producing oil. Each oil payment was assigned for an interest in a ranch. Each was in an amount which represented the uncontested fair value of the undivided interest in the ranch received by the assignor, plus an amount equal to the interest per annum on the balance remaining unpaid from time to time. The other transaction consisted of an oil payment assignment by an owner of oil and gas leases, held for productive use in the assignor’s business, for the fee simple title to business real estate. This oil payment assignment, like the ones mentioned above, was in the amount of the uncontested fair market value of the real estate received, plus interest on the unpaid balance remaining from time to time.
First, as to whether the proceeds were taxable as long-term capital gains under § 117 or as ordinary income subject to depletion. The Court of Appeals started from the premise, laid down in Texas decisions, see especially Tennant v. Dunn, 130 Tex. 285, 110 S. W. 2d 53, that oil payments are interests in land. We too proceed on that basis; and yet we conclude that the consideration received for these oil payment rights (and the sulphur payment right) was taxable as ordinary income, subject to depletion.
“50 per centum if the capital asset has been held for more than 6 months.” 56 Stat. 843.
The purpose of § 117 was “to relieve the taxpayer from . . . excessive tax burdens on gains resulting from a conversion of capital investments, and to remove the deterrent effect of those burdens on such conversions.” See Burnet v. Harmel, 287 U. S. 103, 106. And this exception has always been narrowly construed so as to protect the revenue against artful devices. See Corn Products Refining Co. v. Commissioner, 350 U. S. 46, 52.
We do not see here any conversion of a capital investment. The lump sum consideration seems essentially a substitute for what would otherwise be received at a future time as ordinary income. The pay-out of these particular assigned oil payment rights could be ascertained with considerable accuracy. Such are the stipulations, findings, or clear inferences. In the O’Connor case, the pay-out of the assigned oil payment right was so assured that the purchaser obtained a $9,990,350 purchase money loan at 3% percent interest without any security other than a deed of trust of the $10,000,000 oil payment right, he receiving 4 percent from the taxpayer. Only a fraction of the oil or sulphur rights were transferred, the balance being retained. Except in the Fleming case, which we will discuss later, cash was received which was equal to the amount of the income to accrue during the term of the assignment, the assignee being compensated by interest on his advance. The substance of what was assigned was the right to receive future income. The substance of what was received was the present value of income which the recipient would otherwise obtain in the future. In short, consideration was paid for the right to receive future income, not for an increase in the value of the income-producing property.
“After careful study and considerable experience with the application of G. C. M. 24849, supra, it is now concluded that there is no legal or practical basis for distinguishing between short-lived and long-lived in-oil payment rights. It is, therefore, the present position of the Bureau that the assignment of any in-oil payment right (not pledged for development), which extends over a period less than the life of the depletable property interest from which it is carved, is essentially the assignment of expected income from such property interest. Therefore, the assignment for a consideration of any such in-oil payment right results in the receipt of ordinary income by the assignor which is taxable to him when received or accrued, depending upon the method of accounting employed by him. Where the assignment of the in-oil payment right is donative, the transaction is considered as an assignment of future income which is taxable to the donor at such time as the income from the assigned payment right arises.
“Notwithstanding the foregoing, G. C. M. 24849, supra, and I. T. 3935, supra, do not apply where the assigned in-oil payment right constitutes the entire depletable interest of the assignor in the property or a fraction extending over the entire life of the property.”
The pre-2946 administrative practice was not reflected in any published ruling or regulation. It therefore will not be presumed to have been known to Congress and incorporated into the law by re-enactment. See Helvering v. N. Y. Trust Co., 292 U. S. 455, 467-468. Cf. United States v. Leslie Salt Co., 350 U. S. 383, 389-397. Moreover, prior administrative practice is always subject to change “through exercise by the administrative agency of its continuing rule-making power.” See Helvering v. Reynolds, 313 U. S. 428, 432.
These arrangements seem to us transparent devices. Their forms do not control. Their essence is determined not by subtleties of draftsmanship but by their total effect. See Helvering v. Clifford, 309 U. S. 331; Harrison v. Schaffner, 312 U. S. 579. We have held that if one, entitled to receive at a future date interest on a bond or compensation for services, makes a grant of it by anticipatory assignment, he realizes taxable income as if he had collected the interest or received the salary and then paid it over. That is the teaching of Helvering v. Horst, 311 U. S. 112, and Harrison v. Schaffner, supra; and it is applicable here. As we stated in Helvering v. Horst, supra, at 117, “The taxpayer has equally enjoyed the fruits of his labor or investment and obtained the satisfaction of his desires whether he collects and uses the income to procure those satisfactions, or whether he disposes of his right to collect it as the means of procuring them.” There the taxpayer detached interest coupons from negotiable bonds and presented- them as a gift to his son. The interest when paid was held taxable to the father. Here, even more clearly than there, the taxpayer is converting future income into present income.
Second, as to the Fleming case. The Court of Appeals in the Fleming case held that the transactions were tax-free under § 112 (b)(1) which provides:
“No gain or loss shall be recognized if property held for productive use in trade or business or for investment (not including stock in trade or other property held primarily for sale, nor stocks, bonds, notes, choses in action, certificates of trust or beneficial interest, or other securities or evidences of indebtedness or interest) is exchanged solely for property of a like kind to be held either for productive use in trade or business or-for investment.” 53 Stat. 37.
In the alternative and as a second ground, it held that this case, too, was governed by § 117.
We agree with the Tax Court, 24 T. C. 818, that this is not a tax-free exchange under § 112 (b) (1). Treasury Regulations 111, promulgated under the 1939 Act, provide in § 39.112 (b) (1)-1 as respects the words “like kind,” as used in § 112 (b) (1), that “One kind or class of property may not ... be exchanged for property of a different kind or class.” The exchange cannot satisfy that test where the effect under the tax laws is a transfer of future income from oil leases for real estate. As we have seen, these oil payment assignments were merely arrangements for delayed cash payment of the purchase price of real estate, plus interest. Moreover, § 39.112 (a)-l states that the “underlying assumption of these exceptions is that the new property is substantially a continuation of the old investment still unliquidated.” Yet the oil payment assignments were not conversions of capital investments, as we have seen.
Reversed.
An oil and gas lease ordinarily conveys the entire mineral interest less any royalty interest retained by the lessor. The owner of the lease is said to own the “working interest” because he has the right to develop and produce the minerals.
In Anderson v. Helvering, 310 U. S. 404, we described an oil payment as “the right to a specified sum of money, payable out of a specified percentage of the oil, or the proceeds received from the sale of such oil, if, as and when produced.” Id., at 410. A royalty interest is “a right to receive a specified percentage of all oil and gas produced” but, unlike the oil payment, is not limited to a specified sum of money. The royalty interest lasts during the entire term of the lease. Id., at 409.
See note 1, supra.
Boling Dome is a tract composed of various parcels of land. The owners of the royalty interests in sulphur produced from the separate parcels entered into a pooling agreement by which royalties from sulphur produced anywhere in Boling Dome were distributed pro rata among all the royalty interest holders. In that sense was the interest of each “pooled.”
Section 117 (a)(1) provides in relevant part:
“The term ‘capital assets’ means property held by the taxpayer (whether or not connected with his trade or business), but does not include stock in trade of the taxpayer or other property of a kind which would properly be included in the inventory of the taxpayer if on hand at the close' of the taxable year, or property held by the taxpayer primarily for sale to customers in the ordinary course of his trade or business, or property, used in the trade or business, of a character which is subject to the allowance for depreciation provided in section 23 (1), or real property used in the trade or business of the taxpayer.” 53 Stat. 50, as amended, 56 Stat. 846.
Section 117 (a) (4) provides:
“The term ‘long-term capital gain’ means gain from the sale or exchange of a capital asset held for more than 6 months, if and to the extent such gain is taken into account in computing net income.” 53 Stat. 51, as amended, 56 Stat. 843.
Section 117 (b) provides:
“In the case of a taxpayer, other than a corporation, only the following percentages of the gain or loss recognized upon the sale or exchange of a capital asset shall be taken into account in computing net capital gain, net capital loss, and net income:
“100 per centum if the capital asset has been held for not more than 6 months;
Until 1946 the Commissioner agreed with the contention of the taxpayers in these cases that the assignment of an oil payment right was productive of a long-term capital gain. In 1946 he changed his mind and ruled that “consideration (not pledged for development) received for the assignment of a short-lived in-oil payment right carved out of any type of depletable interest in oil and gas in place (including a larger in-oil payment right) is ordinary income subject to the depletion allowance in the assignor’s hands.” G. C. M. 24849, 1946-1 Cum. Bull. 66, 69. This ruling was made applicable “only to such assignments made on or after April 1, 1946,” I. T. 3895, 1948-1 Cum. Bull. 39. In 1950 a further ruling was made that represents the present view of the Commissioner. I. T. 4003, 1950-1 Cum. Bull. 10, 11, reads in relevant part as follows:
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Suarez is a seaman who was employed on the S. S. Pure Oil, owned and operated by petitioner, Pure Oil Company. Suarez brought this action against the company in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida to recover damages for personal injuries allegedly suffered in the course of his employment. He sued in negligence under the Jones Act, 41 Stat. 1007, 46 U. S. C. § 688 (1964 ed.), and alternatively on the theory that the vessel was unsea-worthy. The Pure Oil Company moved to transfer the case to the Northern District of Illinois on the ground that venue was improper in Florida. The District Court denied the motion, certifying the question of venue for interlocutory appeal to the Court of Appeals under 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b) (1964 ed.). That court affirmed the ruling of the District Court, 346 F. 2d 890. Certiorari was granted, 382 U. S. 972, in order to determine whether the decision below is inconsistent with this Court’s decision in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Prods. Corp., 353 U. S. 222, and to resolve a conflict among the circuits on that score. We do not find the Fourco case controlling, and affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
The Jones Act, which ultimately governs the venue issue before us, contains the following provision:
“Jurisdiction in such actions shall be under the court of the district in which the defendant employer resides or in which his principal office is located.” 46 U. S. C. § 688.
Preliminarily it should be noted that although this provision is framed in jurisdictional terms, the Court has held that it refers only to venue, Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U. S. 375. It is conceded that as enacted and originally interpreted the statute would not authorize Florida venue in this instance, for corporate residence traditionally meant place of incorporation, in this case Ohio, and Pure Oil’s principal office is in Illinois. The Court of Appeals held, however, that residence had been redefined by the expanded general venue statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1391 (c) (1964 ed.), passed in 1948. That statute provides:
“A corporation may be sued in any judicial district in which it is incorporated or licensed to do business or is doing business, and such judicial district shall be regarded as the residence of such corporation for venue purposes.” (Emphasis added.)
If this definition of residence is applicable to the Jones Act venue provision, it is conceded that the action was properly brought in Florida, where Pure Oil has transacted a substantial amount of business. We hold that this definition does so apply and that venue in Florida was proper.
The effect of § 1391 (c) was to broaden the general venue requirements in actions against corporations by providing a forum in any judicial district in which the corporate defendant “is doing business.” See Moore, Commentary on the Judicial Code 193-194 (1949); 1 Barron & Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure § 80, at 386 (Wright rev. 1960). It seems manifest that this change was made in order to bring venue law in tune with modern concepts of corporate operations. The question here involves the reach of these changes. The redefinition of corporate residence clearly touches the general diversity and federal-question venue provisions of §§1391 (a) and (b). Although there is no elucidation from statutory history as to the intended effect of § 1391 (c) on special venue provisions, the liberalizing purpose underlying its enactment and the generality of its language support the view that it applies to all venue statutes using residence as a criterion, at least in the absence of contrary restrictive indications in any such statute.
This view of § 1391 (c) is basically consistent with the purposes and language of the Jones Act, whose thrust was not primarily directed at venue, but rather at giving seamen substantive rights and a federal forum for their vindication. In so doing, it provided a more generous choice of forum than would have been available at that time under the general venue statute. Compare Act of March 3, 1911, c. 231, §§ 50, 51, 36 Stat. 1101. Though one aspect of the special venue provision was phrased in terms of “residence,” which as applied to a corporate employer was then generally understood to mean the place of incorporation, see In re Keasbey & Mattison Co., 160 U. S. 221, 229, the statute also permitted suit in the district where the principal office of the employer was located. See p. 203, supra. Moreover, there is nothing in the legislative history of this provision of the Jones Act to indicate that its framers meant to use “residence” as anything more than a referent to more general doctrines of venue rules, which might alter in the future.
The sole authority that might be thought to stand in the way of reading the Jones Act to embrace the residence definition of § 1391 (c) is Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Prods. Corp., 353 U. S. 222. A consideration of the setting in which that decision was made reveals that it must be taken as limited to the particular question of statutory construction presented there. Fourco concerned the interrelation of § 1391 (c) and the special venue provision governing patent infringement suits, 28 U. S. C. § 1400 (b) (1964 ed.). The Court held that the new definition of residence in § 1391 (c) was not carried over into §1400 (b). This holding, however, was based on factors inapplicable to the case before us today.
First, the patent venue section at issue in Fourco was itself revised in 1948 in the same Act that contained § 1391 (c). Fourco did not directly concern itself with the scope of § 1391 (c). Rather, the Court inquired into the evidence revealing congressional purpose with respect to changes in § 1400 (b), and concluded that Congress wished it to remain in substance precisely as it had been before the revision. This legislative background of § 1400 (b) is of no relevance of course to a determination of the effect of § 1391 (c) on the Jones Act, for the latter’s venue provision was not re-enacted contemporaneously with § 1391 (c). Thus, there is nothing to show a congressional purpose negativing the more natural reading of the two venue sections together.
Second, the decision in Fourco relied heavily on the revisers’ purpose to maintain § 1400 (b) as it had been interpreted in Stonite Prods. Co. v. Melvin Lloyd Co., 315 U. S. 561. In Stonite this Court recognized that there were particular reasons why Congress had passed the predecessor of § 1400 (b). Confusion had been engendered by judicial decisions holding that patent in-fringers could be sued wherever they might be found, even though a newly enacted general venue statute of 1887 provided more limited venue. See 315 U. S., at 563-565. The patent infringement venue statute was enacted in 1897, 29 Stat. 695, specifically to narrow venue in such suits. This Court in Fourco, after determining that the 1948 revision of § 1400 (b) was meant to introduce no substantive change in the provision, was merely following the purpose and letter of the original enactment.
The Jones Act venue provision presents quite a different history. As a minor provision in a major substantive enactment, no particular attention was directed to its terms; indeed, the venue provision was first presented in the report of the House-Senate Conference Committee, see H. R. Rep. No. 1107, 66th Cong., 2d Sess., 19-20 (1920), and was apparently never discussed in committee reports or on the floor of either House. Thus, it is unlikely that the Congress meant to infuse the concept of corporate residence with any special meaning that should remain impervious to changes in standards effected by more general venue statutes. Moreover, it can be said with reasonable certainty that the provision was intended to liberalize venue, see supra, p. 205, unlike the patent infringement rule which was meant to constrict it. We conclude that here, in contrast to the situation dealt with in Fourco, the basic intent of the Congress is best furthered by carrying the broader residence definition of § 1391 (c) into the Jones Act.
Affirmed.
Compare the Third Circuit’s decision in Leith v. Oil Transport Co., 321 F. 2d 591, with the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Fanning v. United Fruit Co., 355 F. 2d 147, which followed the Fifth Circuit’s decision in the present case.
The Court of Appeals stated that the Jones Act venue provision must be met if, as here, an action is based on both unseaworthiness and the Jones Act, 346 F. 2d, at 891. Because of our disposition of the case we find no occasion to pass upon this issue, which was not raised in this Court.
As the Court of Appeals stated in Transmirra Prods. Corp. v. Fourco Glass Co., 233 F. 2d 885, 887, “The rationale of this sharp break with ancient formulae is quite obviously a response to a general conviction that it was ‘intolerable if the traditional concepts of “residence” and “presence” kept a corporation from being sued wherever it was creating liabilities.’ ” Although this Court reversed in Fourco, supra, for reasons discussed later (infra, pp. 206-207), the validity of this general observation was in no way questioned.
Section 688 was enacted as § 33 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1920, 41 Stat. 1007. The Act was primarily concerned with the creation and maintenance of a national merchant marine fleet. The substantive part of § 33, dealing with seamen’s relief, was introduced in the Senate as an amendment to the House bill, and was passed without discussion. 59 Cong. Rec. 7044 (1920). The venue provision was added by the House-Senate Conference Committee, see H. R. Rep. No. 1107, 66th Cong., 2d Sess., 19-20 (1920).
We do not think these conclusions are vitiated by the fact that application of the wider residence definition of § 1391 (c) to the Jones Act makes the alternative “principal office” venue provision of the latter statute superfluous as regards corporate employers. That provision continues to serve its original purpose when the defendant employer is not a corporation. Nor does the § 1391 (c) provision come into conflict with “principal office,” unless that provision is deemed to have been restrictive in its origins, a proposition for which no support can be found.
It reads: “Any civil action for patent infringement may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant resides, or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These two consolidated cases present a question of the power of the Courts of Appeals to issue writs of mandamus to compel a District Judge to vacate his orders entered under Rule 53 (b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure referring antitrust cases for trial before a master. The petitioner, a United States District Judge sitting in the Northern District of Illinois, contends that the Courts of Appeals have no such power and that, even if they did, these cases were not appropriate ones for its exercise. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has decided unanimously that it has such power and, by a divided court, that the circumstances surrounding the references by the petitioner required it to issue the mandamus about which he complains. 226 F. 2d 703. The importance of the question in the administration of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, together with the uncertainty existing on the issue among the Courts of Appeals, led to our grant of a writ of certiorari. 350 U. S. 964. We conclude that the Court of Appeals properly issued the writs of mandamus.
History of the Litigation. — These petitions for mandamus, filed in the Court of Appeals, arose from two antitrust actions instituted in the District Court in 1950. Rohlfing involves 87 plaintiffs, all operators of independent retail shoe repair shops. The claim of these plaintiffs against the six named defendants — manufacturers, wholesalers, and retail mail order houses and chain operators — is identical. The claim asserted in the complaint is a conspiracy between the defendants "to monopolize and to attempt to monopolize” and fix the price of shoe repair supplies sold in interstate commerce in the Chicago area, in violation of the Sherman Act. The allegations also include a price discrimination charge under the Robinson-Patman Act. Shaffer involves six plaintiffs, all wholesalers of shoe repair supplies, and six defendants, including manufacturers and wholesalers of such supplies and a retail shoe shop chain operator. The allegations here also include charges of monopoly and price fixing under the Sherman Act and price discrimination in violation of the Robinson-Patman Act. Both complaints pray for injunctive relief, treble damages, and an accounting with respect to the discriminatory price differentials charged.
The record indicates that the cases had been burdensome to the petitioner. In Roklfing alone, 27 pages of the record are devoted to docket entries reflecting that petitioner had conducted many hearings on preliminary pleas and motions. The original complaint had been twice amended as a result of orders of the court in regard to misjoinders and severance; 14 defendants had been dismissed with prejudice; summary judgment hearings had resulted in a refusal to enter a judgment for some of the defendants on the pleadings; over 50 depositions had been taken; and hearings to compel testimony and require the production and inspection of records were held. It appears that several of the hearings were extended and included not only oral argument but submission of briefs, and resulted in the filing of opinions and memoranda by the petitioner. It is reasonable to conclude that much time would have been saved at the trial had petitioner heard the case because of his familiarity with the litigation.
The References to the Master. — The references to the master were made under the authority of Rule 53 (b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The cases were called on February 23, 1955, on a motion to reset them for trial. Rohlfing was “No. 1 below the black line” on the trial list, which gave it a preferred setting. All parties were anxious for an early trial, but plaintiffs wished an adjournment until May. The petitioner announced that “it has taken a long time to get this case at issue. I remember hearing more motions, I think, in this case than any case I have ever sat on in this court.” The plaintiffs estimated that the trial would take six weeks, whereupon petitioner stated he did not know when he could try the case “if it is going to take this long.” He asked if the parties could agree “to have a Master hear” it. The parties ignored this query and at a conference in chambers the next day petitioner entered the orders of reference sua sponte. The orders declared that the court was “confronted with an extremely congested calendar” and that “exception [sic] conditions exist for this reason” requiring the references. The eases were referred to the master “to take evidence and to report the same to this Court, together with his findings of fact and conclusions of law.” It was further ordered in each case that “the Master shall commence the trial of this cause” on a certain date and continue with diligence, and that the parties supply security for costs. While the parties had deposited some $8,000 costs, the record discloses that all parties objected to the references and filed motions to vacate them. Upon petitioner’s refusal to vacate the references, these mandamus actions were filed in the Court of Appeals seeking the issuance of writs ordering petitioner to do so. These applications were grounded on 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a), the All Writs Act. In his answer to the show cause orders issued by the Court of Appeals, petitioner amplified the reasons for the references, stating “that the cases were very complicated and complex, that they would take considerable time to try,” and that his “calendar was congested.” Declaring that the references amounted to “a refusal on his [petitioner’s] part, as a judge, to try the causes in due course,” the Court of Appeals concluded that “in view of the extraordinary nature of these causes” the references must be vacated “if we find that the orders were beyond the court’s power under the pertinent rule.” 226 F. 2d, at 705, 706. And, it being so found, the writs issued under the authority of the All Writs Act. It is not disputed that the same principles and considerations as to the propriety of the issuance of the writs apply equally to the two cases.
The Power of the Courts of Appeals. — Petitioner contends that the power of the Courts of Appeals does not extend to the issuance of writs of mandamus to review interlocutory orders except in those cases where the review of the case on appeal after final judgment would be frustrated. Asserting that the orders of reference were in exercise of his jurisdiction under Rule 53 (b), petitioner urges that such action can be reviewed only on appeal and not by writ of mandamus, since by congressional enactment appellate review of a District Court’s orders may be had only after a final judgment. The question of naked power has long been settled by this Court. As late as Roche v. Evaporated Milk Association, 319 U. S. 21 (1943), Mr. Chief Justice Stone reviewed the decisions and, in considering the power of Courts of Appeals to issue writs of mandamus, the Court held that “the common law writs, like equitable remedies, may be granted or withheld in the sound discretion of the court.” Id., at 25. The recodification of the All Writs Act in 1948, which consolidated old §§ 342 and 377 into the present § 1651 (a), did not affect the power of the Courts of Appeals to issue writs of mandamus in aid of jurisdiction. See Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Holland, 346 U. S. 379, 382-383 (1953). Since the Court of Appeals could at some stage of the antitrust proceedings entertain appeals in these cases, it has power in proper circumstances, as here, to issue writs of mandamus reaching them. Roche, supra, at 25, and cases there cited. This is not to say that the conclusion we reach on the facts of this case is intended, or can be used, to authorize the indiscriminate use of prerogative writs as a means of reviewing interlocutory orders. We pass on, then, to the only real question involved, i. e., whether the exercise of the power by the Court of Appeals was proper in the cases now before us.
The Discretionary Use of the Writs. — It appears from the docket entries to which we heretofore referred that the petitioner was well informed as to the nature of the antitrust litigation, the pleadings of the parties, and the gist of the plaintiffs’ claims. He was well aware of the theory of the defense and much of the proof which necessarily was outlined in the various requests for discovery, admissions, interrogatories, and depositions. He heard arguments on motions to dismiss, to compel testimony on depositions, and for summary judgment. In fact, petitioner’s knowledge of the cases at the time of the references, together with his long experience in the antitrust field, points to the conclusion that he could, dispose of the litigation with greater dispatch and less effort than anyone else. Nevertheless, he referred both suits to a master on the general issue. Furthermore, neither the existence of the alleged conspiracy nor the question of liability vel non had been determined in either case. These issues, as well as the damages, if any, and the question concerning the issuance of an injunction, were likewise included in the references. Under all of the circumstances, we believe the Court of Appeals was justified in finding the orders of reference were an abuse of the petitioner’s power under Rule 53 (b). They amounted to little less than an abdication of the judicial function depriving the parties of a trial before the court on the basic issues involved in the litigation.
The use of masters is “to aid judges in the performance of specific judicial duties, as they may arise in the progress of a cause,” Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300, 312 (1920), and not to displace the court. The exceptional circumstances here warrant the use of the extraordinary remedy of mandamus. See Maryland v. Soper, 270 U. S. 9, 30 (1926). As this Court pointed out in Los Angeles Brush Corp. v. James, 272 U. S. 701, 706 (1927): “. . . [W]here the subject concerns the enforcement of the . . . [r]ules which by law it is the duty of this Court to formulate and put in force,” mandamus should issue to prevent such action thereunder so palpably improper as to place it beyond the scope of the rule invoked. As was said there at page 707, were the Court “. . . to find that the rules have been practically nullified by a district judge . . . it would not hesitate to restrain [him]. . . .” The Los Angeles Brush Corp. case was cited as authority in 1940 for a per curiam opinion in McCullough v. Cosgrave, 309 U. S. 634, in which the Court summarily ordered vacated the reference of two patent cases to a master. The cases arose from the same District Court in which the Los Angeles Brush Corp. case originated and the grounds for the references largely followed that case. It is to be noted that the grounds there are much more inclusive than those set out here, alleging all of those claimed by the petitioner and, in addition, the prolonged illness of the regular judge and the fact that no other judge was available to try the cases. It appears to us a fortiori that these cases were improperly referred to a master.
It is claimed that recent opinions of this Court are to the contrary. Petitioner cites Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Holland, 346 U. S. 379 (1953), and Parr v. United States, 351 U. S. 513 (1956). The former case did not concern rules promulgated by this Court but, rather, an Act of Congress, the venue statute. Furthermore, there we pointed out that the “. . . All Writs Act is meant to be used only in the exceptional case where there is clear abuse of discretion or ‘usurpation of judicial power’ . . . .” 346 U. S., at 383. Certainly, as the Court of Appeals found here, there was a clear abuse of discretion. In the Parr case, the District Court had not exceeded or refused to exercise its functions. It dismissed an indictment because the Government had elected to prosecute Parr in another district under a new indictment. The effect of the holding was merely that the dismissal of the first indictment was not an abuse of the discretion vested in the trial judge.
It is also contended that the Seventh Circuit has erroneously construed the All Writs Act as “conferring on it a ‘roving commission’ to supervise interlocutory orders of the District Courts in advance of final decision.” Our examination of its opinions in this regard leads us to the conclusion that the Court of Appeals has exercised commendable self-restraint. It is true that mandamus should be resorted to only in extreme cases, since it places trial judges in the anomalous position of being litigants without counsel other than uncompensated volunteers. However, there is an end of patience and it clearly appears that the Court of Appeals has for years admonished the trial judges of the Seventh Circuit that the practice of making references “does not commend itself” and “. . . should seldom be made, and if at all only when unusual circumstances exist.” In re Irving-Austin Building Corp., 100 F. 2d 574, 577 (1938). Again, in 1942, it pointed out that the words “exception” and “exceptional” as used in the reference rule are not elastic terms with the trial court the sole judge of their elasticity. “Litigants are entitled to a trial by the court, in every suit, save where exceptional circumstances are shown.” Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. v. Best Places to Eat, Inc., 131 F. 2d 809, 815. Still the Court of Appeals did not disturb the reference practice by reversal or mandamus until this case was decided in October 1955. Again, Chief Judge Duffy in Krinsley v. United Artists Corp., 235 F. 2d 253, 257 (1956), in which there was an affirmance of a case involving a reference, called attention to the fact that the practice of referring cases to masters was “. . . all too common in the Northern District of Illinois . . . .” The record does not show to what extent references are made by the full bench of the District Court in the Northern District; however, it does reveal that petitioner has referred 11 cases to masters in the past 6 years. But even “a little cloud may bring a flood’s downpour” if we approve the practice here indulged, particularly in the face of presently congested dockets, increased filings, and more extended trials. This is not to say that we are neither aware of nor fully appreciative of the unfortunate congestion of the court calendar in many of our District Courts. The use of procedural devices in the heavily congested districts has proven to be most helpful in reducing docket congestion. Illustrative of such techniques are provision for an assignment commissioner to handle the assignment of all cases; the assignment of judges to handle only motions, pleas, and pretrial proceedings; and separate calendars for civil and criminal trials in cases that have reached issue. We enumerate these merely as an example of the progress made in judicial administration through the use of enlightened procedural techniques. It goes without saying that they can be used effectively only where adaptable to the specific problems of a district. But, be that as it may, congestion in itself is not such an exceptional circumstance as to warrant a reference to a master. If such were the test, present congestion would make references the rule rather than the exception. Petitioner realizes this, for in addition to calendar congestion he alleges that- the cases referred had unusual complexity of issues of both fact and law. But most litigation in the antitrust field is complex. It does not follow that antitrust litigants are not entitled to a trial before a court. On the contrary, we believe that this is an impelling reason for trial before a regular, experienced trial judge rather than before a temporary substitute appointed on an ad hoc basis and ordinarily not experienced in judicial work. Nor does petitioner’s claim of the great length of time these trials will require offer exceptional grounds. The final ground asserted by petitioner was with reference to the voluminous accounting which would be necessary in the event the plaintiffs prevailed. We agree that the detailed accounting required in order to determine the damages suffered by each plaintiff might be referred to a master after the court has determined the over-all liability of defendants, provided the circumstances indicate that the use of the court’s time is not warranted in receiving the proof and making the tabulation.
We believe that supervisory control of the District Courts by the Courts of Appeals is necessary to proper judicial administration in the federal system. The All Writs Act confers on the Courts of Appeals the discretionary power to issue writs of mandamus in the exceptional circumstances existing here. Its judgment is therefore
Affirmed.
Rohlfing v. Cat’s Paw Rubber Co., No. 50 C 229, U. S. D. C. N. D. Ill., and Shaffer v. U. S. Rubber Co., No. 50 C 844, U. S. D. C. N. D. Ill.
The figures indicated refer to the number of parties at the time of the petition for mandamus. When the action was originally filed there were 87 plaintiffs and 25 defendants.
The figures indicated refer to the number of parties at the time of the petition for mandamus. When the action was originally filed there were 10 plaintiffs and 20 defendants.
Rule 53 (b) provides:
“(b) REFERENCE. A reference to a master shall be the exception and not the rule. In actions to be tried by a jury, a reference shall be made only when the issues are complicated; in actions to be tried without a jury, save in matters of account, a reference shall be made only upon a showing that some exceptional condition requires it.”
The fact that the master is an active practitioner would make the comment of Chief Justice Vanderbilt with regard to the effect of references appropriate here. In his work, Cases and Materials on Modern Procedure and Judicial Administration (1952), at pages 1240-1241, he states:
“There is one special cause of delay in getting cases on for trial that must be singled out for particular condemnation, the all-too-prevalent habit of sending matters to a reference. There is no more effective way of putting a case to sleep for an indefinite period than to permit it to go to a reference with a busy lawyer as referee. Only a drastic administrative rule, rigidly enforced, strictly limiting the matters in which a reference may be had and requiring weekly reports as to the progress of each reference will put to rout this inveterate enemy of dispatch in the trial of cases.”
“ (a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 certiorari is granted.
Respondent Hanks is the elected Clerk of the Criminal and Circuit Courts of Raleigh County, West Virginia. He brought this libel action in the West Virginia Circuit Court, Wyoming County, alleging that during his reelection campaign he was libeled by three editorials, highly critical of his official conduct, which appeared in petitioner’s morning newspaper. The jury returned a verdict for respondent and awarded him $5,000 damages. The State Supreme Court of Appeals denied petitioner's application for appellate review.
Although this action was tried subsequent to the decisions of this Court in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964); Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64 (1964); Henry v. Collins, 380 U. S. 356 (1965); and Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75 (1966), and despite the fact that it was recognized at trial that the principles of New York Times were applicable, the case went to the jury on instructions which were clearly impermissible. The jury was instructed in part that it could find for the respondent if it were shown that petitioner had published the editorials “with bad or corrupt motive,” or “from personal spite, ill will or a desire to injure plaintiff.” Because petitioner failed to object to this erroneous interpretation of New York Times at trial, and in fact offered instructions which were themselves inadequate, the issue of these instructions is not before us. However, since it is clear that the jury verdict was rendered upon instructions which misstated the law and since petitioner has properly challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, we have undertaken an independent examination of the record as a whole “so as to assure ourselves that the judgment does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free expression.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, at 285. See Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130, 156-159 (1967) (opinion of Mb. Justice Harlan); id., at 168-170 (opinion of The Chief Justice).
In New York Times we held that the Constitution forbids recovery of damages in a civil libel action by a public official, such as respondent, “for a defamatory falsehood relating to his offioial conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice’ — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” 376 TJ. S., at 279-280. Our examination of the whole record satisfies us that “the proof presented to show actual malice lacks the convincing clarity which the constitutional standard demands . . . .” 376 U. S., at 285-286.
We put aside the question whether the proofs show that the allegedly libelous statements were false. If false, respondent did not and does not contend that petitioner published the statements with knowledge of their falsity. His contention was and is that the proofs were sufficient for the jury to find that petitioner published the statements with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not. However, virtually the only evidence we find bearing on that question relates to one of the editorials critical of the opposition of respondent and another public official, Mrs. Elinor Hurt, president of the county board of health, to fluoridation of the local water supply. That editorial, captioned “The Fluoridation Situation Remains Unchanged,” was directed primarily at Mrs. Hurt’s opposition but also included the following:
“Here, again, [Mrs. Hurt] seems to want to follow in the footsteps of Hanks. For it was Hanks who ordered over the telephone once that he did not want his name to appear in the Beckley Post-Herald again. He backed up this order with an inexplicit threat — one merely intended to frighten those who are easily intimidated.
“The only conclusion to which we can come is that either Hanks and Mrs. Hurt have been in league toward the fanatic end, believing all the wild-eyed ravings against fluoridation despite decades of experience to disprove them, or that perhaps his blustering threats were able to intimidate the lady.” (Emphasis added.)
Respondent’s argument is that since both he and Mrs. Hurt testified and denied any threats or intimidation, the following testimony of petitioner’s president and general manager on cross-examination provides “convincing proof” of the absence of prior investigation which entitled the jury to find that the “offending charges” were published with reckless disregard of whether they were false or true:
“Q. But you can’t tell this jury that any specific investigation was made before this man was attacked in any of these articles, can you?
“A. We watch the activities of the public servant. You don’t have to make an investigation. His whole life is out in front of everybody.
“Q. Those editorials were not written by anybody who wanted to find out whether or not he threatened Mrs. Hurt, were they?
“A. There was cause on their part to feel there was that possibility.
“Q. That possibility?
“A. That’s right. ‘Perhaps,’ they said.
“A. It was our opinion that that was as near the facts and truth as we could get.” (Tr. 121-122.)
We reject respondent’s contention. Neither this passage nor anything else in the record reveals “the high degree of awareness of . . . probable falsity demanded by New York Times . . . .” Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 74; it cannot be said on this record that any failure of petitioner to make a prior investigation constituted proof sufficient to present a jury question whether the statements were published with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not. Cf. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, at 287-288; Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 388-389 (1967). See also Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, supra, at 153-154 (opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan).
The judgment is reversed, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court of West Virginia, Wyoming County, for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
When asked whether she had ever brought suit against petitioner for these or other statements, Mrs. Hurt replied, “No, sir, I have big broad shoulders.” (Tr. 49.)
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
In answering a question on cross-examination at his trial, in the Municipal Court of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for violating a municipal ordinance, petitioner referred to an alleged assailant as “chicken shit.” In consequence he was prosecuted and convicted under an information that charged him with “direct contempt,” in violation of another Tulsa ordinance, “by his insolent behavior during open court and in the presence of [the judge], to wit: by using the language 'chicken-shit’ . . . .” The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, in an unreported order and opinion, affirmed.
This single isolated usage of street vernacular, not directed at the judge or any officer of the court, cannot constitutionally support the conviction of criminal contempt. “The vehemence of the language used is not alone the measure of the power to punish for contempt. The fires which it kindles must constitute an imminent, not merely a likely, threat to the administration of justice.” Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 376 (1947). In using the expletive in answering the question on cross-examination “[i]t is not charged that [petitioner] here disobeyed any valid court order, talked loudly, acted boisterously, or attempted to prevent the judge or any other officer of the court from carrying on his court duties.” Holt v. Virginia, 381 U. S. 131, 136 (1965); see also In re Little, 404 U. S. 553 (1972). In the circumstances, the use of the expletive thus cannot be held to “constitute an imminent . . . threat to the administration of justice.”
In affirming, however, the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected petitioner’s contention that the conviction must be taken as resting solely on the use of the expletive. Rather, that court concluded from its examination of the trial record that, in addition to the use of the expletive, petitioner made “discourteous responses” to the trial judge. The court therefore held that the conviction should be affirmed because “[c]oupling defendant’s expletive with the discourteous responses, it is this Court’s opinion there was sufficient evidence upon which the trial court could find defendant was in direct contempt of court.” (Emphasis supplied.)
However, the question is not upon what evidence the trial judge could find petitioner guilty but upon what evidence the trial judge did find petitioner guilty. There is no transcript of the contempt proceeding since the proceeding was not stenographically recorded. The trial judge did, however, enter a “Judgment and Sentence,” and we read that document clearly to establish that the trial judge rested the -.conviction upon the use of the expletive only. For the single charge of “insolent behavior” specified in the information was “to wit: by using the language 'chicken-shit^ . . . ,” and the Judgment and Sentence, referring expressly to the information, records that petitioner was “duly and legally tried and convicted of said offense” and, further, that “the Court does now hereby adjudge and sentence the said defendant for the said offense by him committed.” (Emphasis supplied.) The Court of Criminal Appeals thus denied petitioner constitutional due process in sustaining the trial court by treating the conviction as a conviction upon a charge not made. Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U. S. 196 (1948).
The motion to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for certiorari are granted, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceeding not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Assuming, arguendo, (1) that the information sufficiently charged petitioner for both use of the expletive and his allegedly “discourteous responses,” and (2) that there was evidence of the latter offense, reversal is still required, since the record fails to “negate the possibility,” Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 588 (1969), that the conviction was based solely or in part on the use of the expletive. “[W]hen a single-count . . . information charges the commission of a crime by virtue of the defendant’s having done both a constitutionally protected act and one which may be unprotected, and a guilty verdict ensues without elucidation, there is an unacceptable danger that the trier of fact will have regarded the two acts as 'intertwined’ and have rested the conviction on both together.” Ibid. Cf. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516 (1945); Bachellar v. Maryland, 397 U. S. 564 (1970). And this principle is not limited, nor should it be, to cases in which the conviction may have been based on protected speech. See Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 291-292 (1942). Here, the “Judgment and Sentence” not only does not dispel the possibility that petitioner’s conviction was based solely or partially on the use of the expletive, but plainly supports the opposite conclusion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is the third case in which the Government has asked us to decide that a shareholder’s receipt of a cash payment in exchange for a portion of his stock was taxable as a dividend. In the two earlier cases, Commissioner v. Estate of Bedford, 325 U. S. 283 (1945), and United States v. Davis, 397 U. S. 301 (1970), we agreed with the Government largely because the transactions involved redemptions of stock by single corporations that did not “result in a meaningful reduction of the shareholder’s proportionate interest in the corporation.” Id., at 313. In the case we decide today, however, the taxpayer in an arm’s-length transaction exchanged his interest in the acquired corporation for less than 1% of the stock of the acquiring corporation and a substantial cash payment. The taxpayer held no interest in the acquiring corporation prior to the reorganization. Viewing the exchange as a whole, we conclude that the cash payment is not appropriately characterized as a dividend. We accordingly agree with the Tax Court and with the Court of Appeals that the taxpayer is entitled to capital gains treatment of the cash payment.
I
In determining tax liability under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, gain resulting from the sale or exchange of property is generally treated as capital gain, whereas the receipt of cash dividends is treated as ordinary income. The Code, however, imposes no current tax on certain stock-for-stock exchanges. In particular, § 354(a)(1) provides, subject to various limitations, for nonrecognition of gain resulting from the exchange of stock or securities solely for other stock or securities, provided that the exchange is pursuant to a plan of corporate reorganization and that the stock or securities are those of a party to the reorganization. 26 U. S. C. § 354(a)(1).
Under § 356(a)(1) of the Code, if such a stock-for-stock exchange is accompanied by additional consideration in the form of a cash payment or other property — something that tax practitioners refer to as “boot” — “then the gain, if any, to the recipient shall be recognized, but in an amount not in excess of the sum of such money and the fair market value of such other property.” 26 u! S. C. §356(a)(1). That is, if the shareholder receives boot, he or she must recognize the gain on the exchange up to the value of the boot. Boot is accordingly generally treated as a gain from the sale or exchange of property and is recognized in the current tax year.
Section 356(a)(2), which controls the decision in this case, creates an exception to that general rule. It provided in 1979:
“If an exchange is described in paragraph (1) but has the effect of the distribution of a dividend, then there shall be treated as a dividend to each distributee such an amount of the gain recognized under paragraph (1) as is not in excess of his ratable share of the undistributed earnings and profits of the corporation accumulated after February 28, 1913. The remainder, if any, of the gain recognized under paragraph (1) shall be treated as gain from the exchange of property.” 26 U. S. C. § 356 (a)(2) (1976 ed.).
Thus, if the “exchange... has the effect of the distribution of a dividend,” the boot must be treated as a dividend and is therefore appropriately taxed as ordinary income to the extent that gain is realized. In contrast, if the exchange does not have “the effect of the distribution of a dividend,” the boot must be treated as a payment in exchange for property and, insofar as gain is realized, accorded capital gains treatment. The question in this case is thus whether the exchange between the taxpayer and the acquiring corporation had “the effect of the distribution of a dividend” within the meaning of § 356(a)(2).
The relevant facts are easily summarized. For approximately 15 years prior to April 1979, the taxpayer was the president of Basin Surveys, Inc. (Basin). In January 1978, he became sole shareholder in Basin, a company in which he had invested approximately $85,000. The corporation operated a successful business providing various technical services to the petroleum industry. In 1978, N. L. Industries, Inc. (NL), a publicly owned corporation engaged in the manufacture and supply of petroleum equipment and services, initiated negotiations with the taxpayer regarding the possible acquisition of Basin. On April 3, 1979, after months of negotiations, the taxpayer and NL entered into a contract.
The agreement provided for a “triangular merger,” whereby Basin was merged into a wholly owned subsidiary of NL. In exchange for transferring all of the outstanding shares in Basin to NL’s subsidiary, the taxpayer elected to receive 300,000 shares of NL common stock and cash boot of $3,250,000, passing up an alternative offer of 425,000 shares of NL common stock. The 300,000 shares of NL issued to the taxpayer amounted to approximately 0.92% of the outstanding common shares of NL. If the taxpayer had instead accepted the pure stock-for-stock offer, he would have held approximately 1.3% of the outstanding common shares. The Commissioner and the taxpayer agree that the merger at issue qualifies as a reorganization under §§ 368(a)(1)(A) and (a)(2)(D).
Respondents filed a joint federal income tax return for 1979. As required by § 356(a)(1), they reported the cash boot as taxable gain. In calculating the tax owed, respondents characterized the payment as long-term capital gain. The Commissioner on audit disagreed with this characterization. In his view, the payment had “the effect of the distribution of a dividend” and was thus taxable as ordinary income up to $2,319,611, the amount of Basin’s accumulated earnings and profits at the time of the merger. The Commissioner assessed a deficiency of $972,504.74.
Respondents petitioned for review in the Tax Court, which, in a reviewed decision, held in their favor. 86 T. C. 138 (1986). The court started from the premise that the question whether the boot payment had “the effect of the distribution of a dividend” turns on the choice between “two judicially articulated tests.” Id., at 140. Under the test advocated by the Commissioner and given voice in Shimberg v. United States, 577 F. 2d 283 (CA5 1978), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1115 (1979), the boot payment is treated as though it were made in a hypothetical redemption by the acquired corporation (Basin) immediately prior to the reorganization. Under this test, the cash payment received by the taxpayer indisputably would have been treated as a dividend. The second test, urged by the taxpayer and finding support in Wright v. United States, 482 F. 2d 600 (CA8 1973), proposes an alternative hypothetical redemption. Rather than concentrating on the taxpayer’s prereorganization interest in the acquired corporation, this test requires that one imagine a pure stock-for-stoek exchange, followed im'mediately by a postreorganization redemption of a portion of the taxpayer’s shares in the acquiring corporation (NL) in return for a payment in an amount equal to the boot. Under §302 of the Code, which defines when a redemption of stock should be treated as a distribution of dividend, NL’s redemption of 125,000 shares of its stock from the taxpayer in exchange for the $3,250,000 boot payment would have been treated as capital gain.
The Tax Court rejected the prereorganization test favored by the Commissioner because it considered it improper “to view the cash payment as an isolated event totally separate from the reorganization.” 86 T. C., at 151. Indeed, it suggested that this test requires that courts make the “determination of dividend equivalency fantasizing that the reorganization does not exist.” Id., at 150 (footnote omitted). The court then acknowledged that a similar criticism could be made of the taxpayer’s contention that the cash payment should be viewed as a postreorganization redemption. It concluded, however, that since it was perfectly clear that the cash payment would not have taken place without the reorganization, it was better to treat the boot “as the equivalent of a redemption in the course of implementing the reorganization,” than “as having occurred prior to and separate from the reorganization” Id., at 152 (emphasis in original).
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. 828 F. 2d 221 (1987). Like the Tax Court, it concluded that although “[s]ection 302 does not explicitly apply in the reorganization context,” id., at 223, and although §302 differs from §356 in important respects, id., at 224, it nonetheless provides “the appropriate test for determining whether boot is ordinary income or a capital gain,” id., at 223. Thus, as explicated in § 302(b)(2), if the taxpayer relinquished more than 20% of his corporate control and retained less than 50% of the voting shares after the distribution, the boot would be treated as capital gain. However, as the Court of Appeals recognized, “[bjecause § 302 was designed to deal with a stock redemption by a single corporation, rather than a reorganization involving two companies, the section does not indicate which corporation [the taxpayer] lost interest in.” Id., at 224. Thus, like the Tax Court, the Court of Appeals was left to consider whether the hypothetical redemption should be treated as a prereorganization distribution coming from the acquired corporation or as a postreorganization distribution coming from the acquiring corporation. It concluded:
“Based on the language and legislative history of § 356, the change-in-ownership principle of § 302, and the need to review the reorganization as an integrated transaction, we conclude that the boot should be characterized as a post-reorganization stock redemption by N. L. that affected [the taxpayer’s] interest in the new corporation. Because this redemption reduced [the taxpayer’s] N. L. holdings by more than 20%, the boot should be taxed as a capital gain.” Id., at 224-225.
This decision by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is in conflict with the decision of the Fifth Circuit in Shimberg v. United States, 577 F. 2d 283 (1978), in two important respects. In Shimberg, the court concluded that it was inappropriate to apply stock redemption principles in reorganization cases “on a wholesale basis.” Id., at 287; see also ibid., n. 13. In addition, the court adopted the pre-reorganization test, holding that “§ 356(a)(2) requires a determination of whether the distribution would have been taxed as a dividend if made prior to the reorganization or if no reorganization had occurred.” Id., at 288.
To resolve this conflict on a question of importance to the administration of the federal tax laws, we granted certiorari. 485 U. S. 933 (1988).
II
We agree with the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that the question under § 356(a)(2) whether an “exchange... has the effect of the distribution of a dividend” should be answered by examining the effect of the exchange as a whole. We think the language and history of the statute, as well as a commonsense understanding of the economic substance of the transaction at issue, support this approach.
The language of § 356(a) strongly supports our understanding that the transaction should be treated as an integrated whole. Section 356(a)(2) asks whether “an exchange is described in paragraph (1)” that “has the effect of the distribution of a dividend.” (Emphasis supplied.) The statute does not provide that boot shall be treated as a dividend if its payment has the effect of the distribution of a dividend. Rather, the inquiry turns on whether the “exchange” has that effect. Moreover, paragraph (1), in turn, looks to whether “the property received in the exchange consists not only of property permitted by section 354 or 355 to be received without the recognition of gain but also of other property or money.” (Emphasis supplied.) Again, the statute plainly refers to one integrated transaction and, again, makes clear that we are to look to the character of the exchange as a whole and not simply its component parts. Finally, it is significant that §356 expressly limits the extent to which boot may be taxed to the amount of gain realized in the reorganization. This limitation suggests that Congress intended that boot not be treated in isolation from the overall reorganization. See Levin, Adess, & McGaffey, Boot Distributions in Corporate Reorganizations — Determination of Dividend Equivalency, 30 Tax Lawyer 287, 303 (1977).
Our reading of the statute as requiring that the transaction be treated as a unified whole is reinforced by the well-established “step-transaction” doctrine, a doctrine that the Government has applied in related contexts, see, e. g., Rev. Rul. 75-447, 1975-2 Cum. Bull. 113, and that we have expressly sanctioned, see Minnesota Tea Co. v. Helvering, 302 U. S. 609, 613 (1938); Commissioner v. Court Holding Co., 324 U. S. 331, 334 (1945). Under this doctrine, interrelated yet formally distinct steps in an integrated transaction may not be considered independently of the overall transaction. By thus “linking together all interdependent steps with legal or business significance, rather than taking them in isolation,” federal tax liability may be based “on a realistic view of the entire transaction.” 1 B. Bittker, Federal Taxation of Income, Estates and Gifts ¶4.3.5, p. 4-52 (1981).
Viewing the exchange in this case as an integrated whole, we are unable to accept the Commissioner’s prereorganization analogy. The analogy severs the payment of boot from the context of the reorganization. Indeed, only by straining to abstract the payment of boot from the context of the overall exchange, and thus imagining that Basin made a distribution to the taxpayer independently of NL’s planned acquisition, can we reach the rather counterintuitive conclusion urged by the Commissioner — that the taxpayer suffered no meaningful reduction in his ownership interest as a result of the cash payment. We conclude that such a limited view of the transaction is plainly inconsistent with the statute’s direction that we look to the effect of the entire exchange.
The prereorganization analogy is further flawed in that it adopts an overly expansive reading of § 356(a)(2). As the Court of Appeals recognized, adoption of the prereorganization approach would “result in ordinary income treatment in most reorganizations because corporate boot is usually distributed pro rata to the shareholders of the target corporation.” 828 F. 2d, at 227; see also Golub, “Boot” in Reorganizations — The Dividend Equivalency Test of Section 356(a) (2), 58 Taxes 904, 911 (1980); Note, 20 Boston College L. Rev. 601, 612 (1979). Such a reading of the statute would not simply constitute a return to the widely criticized “automatic dividend rule” (at least as to cases involving a pro rata payment to the shareholders of the acquired corporation), see n. 8, supra, but also would be contrary to our standard approach to construing such provisions. The requirement of § 356(a)(2) that boot be treated as dividend in some circumstances is an exception from the general rule authorizing capital gains treatment for boot. In construing provisions such as § 356, in which a general statement of policy is qualified by an exception, we usually read the exception narrowly in order to preserve the primary operation of the provision. See Phillips, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U. S. 490, 493 (1945) (“To extend an exemption to other than those plainly and unmistakably within its terms and spirit is to abuse the interpretative process and to frustrate the announced will of the people”). Given that Congress has enacted a general rule that treats boot as capital gain, we should not eviscerate that legislative judgment through an expansive reading of a somewhat ambiguous exception.
The postreorganization approach adopted by the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals is, in our view, preferable to the Commissioner’s approach. Most significantly, this approach does a far better job of treating the payment of boot as a component of the overall exchange. Unlike the prereorganization view, this approach acknowledges that there would have been no cash payment absent the exchange and also that, by accepting the cash payment, the taxpayer experienced a meaningful reduction in his potential ownership interest.
Once the postreorganization approach is adopted, the result in this case is pellucidly clear. Section 302(a) of the Code provides that if a redemption fits within any one of the four categories set out in § 302(b), the redemption “shall be treated as a distribution in part or full payment in exchange for the stock,” and thus not regarded as a dividend. As the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals correctly determined, the hypothetical postreorganization redemption by NL of a portion of the taxpayer’s shares satisfies at least one of the subsections of § 302(b). In particular, the safe harbor provisions of subsection (b)(2) provide that redemptions in which the taxpayer relinquishes more than 20% of his or her share of the corporation’s voting stock and retains less than 50% of the voting stock after the redemption shall not be treated as distributions of a dividend. See n. 6, supra. Here, we treat the transaction as though NL redeemed 125,000 shares of its common stock (i. e., the number of shares of NL common stock forgone in favor of the boot) in return for a cash payment to the taxpayer of $3,250,000 (i. e., the amount of the boot). As a result of this redemption, the taxpayer’s interest in NL was reduced from 1.3% of the outstanding common stock to 0.9%. See 86 T. C., at 153. Thus, the taxpayer relinquished approximately 29% of his interest in NL and retained less than a 1% voting interest in the corporation after the transaction, easily satisfying the “substantially disproportionate” standards of § 302(b)(2). We accordingly conclude that the boot payment did not have the effect of a dividend and that the payment was properly treated as capital gain.
Ill
The Commissioner objects to this “recasting [of] the merger transaction into a form different from that entered into by the parties,” Brief for Petitioner 11, and argues that the Court of Appeals’ formal adherence to the principles embodied in §302 forced the court to stretch to “find a redemption to which to apply them, since the merger transaction entered into by the parties did not involve a redemption,” id., at 28. There are a number of sufficient responses to this argument. We think it first worth emphasizing that the Commissioner overstates the extent to which the redemption is imagined. As the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit noted in Shimberg, “[t]he theory behind tax-free corporate reorganizations is that the transaction is merely ‘a continuance of the proprietary interests in the continuing enterprise under modified corporate form.’ Lewis v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 176 F. 2d 646, 648 (CA1 1949); Treas. Reg. § 1.368-l(b). See generally Cohen, Conglomerate Mergers and Taxation, 55 A. B. A. J. 40 (1969).” 577 F. 2d, at 288. As a result, the boot-for-stock transaction can be viewed as a partial repurchase of stock by the continuing corporate enterprise — i. e., as a redemption. It is, of course, true that both the prereorganization and postreorganization analogies are somewhat artificial in that they imagine that the redemption occurred outside the confines of the actual reorganization. However, if forced to choose between the two analogies, the postreorganization view is the less artificial. Although both analogies “recast the merger transaction,” the postreorganization view recognizes that a reorganization has taken place, while the prereorganization approach recasts the transaction to the exclusion of the overall exchange.
Moreover, we doubt that abandoning the prereorganization and postreorganization analogies and the principles of § 302 in favor of a less artificial understanding of the transaction would lead to a result different from that reached by the Court of Appeals. Although the statute is admittedly ambiguous and the legislative history sparse, we are persuaded — even without relying on §302 — that Congress did not intend to except reorganizations such as that at issue here from the general rule allowing capital gains treatment for cash boot. 26 U. S. C. § 356(a)(1). The legislative history of § 356(a)(2), although perhaps generally “not illuminating,” Estate of Bedford, 325 U. S., at 290, suggests that Congress was primarily concerned with preventing corporations from “siphon[ing] off” accumulated earnings and profits at a capital gains rate through the ruse of a reorganization. See Golub, 58 Taxes, at 905. This purpose is not served by denying capital gains treatment in a case such as this in which the taxpayer entered into an arm’s-length transaction with a corporation in which he had no prior interest, exchanging his stock in the acquired corporation for less than a 1% interest in the acquiring corporation and a substantial cash boot.
Section 356(a)(2) finds its genesis in § 203(d)(2) of the Revenue Act of 1924. See 43 Stat. 257. Although modified slightly over the years, the provisions are in relevant substance identical. The accompanying House Report asserts that §203(d)(2) was designed to “preven[t] evasion.” H. R. Rep. No. 179, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 15 (1924). Without further explication, both the House and Senate Reports simply rely on an example to explain, in the words of both Reports, “[t]he necessity for this provision.” Ibid.; S. Rep. No. 398, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1924). Significantly, the example describes a situation in which there was no change in the stockholders’ relative ownership interests, but merely the creation of a wholly owned subsidiary as a mechanism for making a cash distribution to the shareholders:
“Corporation A has capital stock of $100,000, and earnings and profits accumulated since March 1, 1913, of $50,000. If it distributes the $50,000 as a dividend to its stockholders, the amount distributed will be taxed at the full surtax rates.
“On the other hand, Corporation A may organize Corporation B, to which it transfers all its assets, the consideration for the transfer being the issuance by B of all its stock and $50,000 in cash to the stockholders of Corporation A in exchange for their stock in Corporation A. Under the existing law, the $50,000 distributed with the stock of Corporation B would be taxed, not as a dividend, but as a capital gain, subject only to the 1214 per cent rate. The effect of such a distribution is obviously the same as if the corporation had declared out as a dividend its $50,000 earnings and profits. If dividends are to be subject to the full surtax rates, then such an amount so distributed should also be subject to the surtax rates and not to the 1214 per cent rate on capital gain.” Ibid.; H. R. Rep. No. 179, at 15.
The “effect” of the transaction in this example is to transfer accumulated earnings and profits to the shareholders without altering their respective ownership interests in the continuing enterprise.
Of course, this example should not be understood as exhaustive of the proper applications of § 356(a)(2). It is nonetheless noteworthy that neither the example, nor any other legislative source, evinces a congressional intent to tax boot accompanying a transaction that involves a bona fide exchange between unrelated parties in the context of a reorganization as though the payment was in fact a dividend. To the contrary, the purpose of avoiding tax evasion suggests that Congress did not intend to impose an ordinary income tax in such cases. Moreover, the legislative history of § 302 supports this reading of § 356(a)(2) as well. In explaining the “essentially equivalent to a dividend” language of §302 (b)(1) — language that is certainly similar to the “has the effect... of a dividend” language of § 356(a)(2) — the Senate Finance Committee made clear that the relevant inquiry is “whether or not the transaction by its nature may properly be characterized as a sale of stock....” S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 234 (1954); cf. United States v. Davis, 397 U. S., at 311.
Examining the instant transaction in light of the purpose of § 356(a)(2), the boot-for-stock exchange in this case “may properly be characterized as a sale of stock.” Significantly, unlike traditional single corporation redemptions and unlike reorganizations involving commonly owned corporations, there is little risk that the reorganization at issue was used as a ruse to distribute a dividend. Rather, the transaction appears in all respects relevant to the narrow issue before us to have been comparable to an arm’s-length sale by the taxpayer to NL. This conclusion, moreover, is supported by the findings of the Tax Court. The court found that “[t]here is not the slightest evidence that the cash payment was a concealed distribution from BASIN.” 86 T. C., at 155. As the Tax Court further noted, Basin lacked the funds to make such a distribution:
“Indeed, it is hard to conceive that such a possibility could even have been considered, for a distribution of that amount was not only far in excess of the accumulated earnings and profits ($2,319,611), but also of the total assets of BASIN ($2,758,069). In fact, only if one takes into account unrealized appreciation in the value of BASIN’s assets, including good will and/or going-concern value, can one possibly arrive at $3,250,000. Such a distribution could only be considered as the equivalent of a complete liquidation of BASIN....” Ibid,
In this context, even without relying on § 302 and the post-reorganization analogy, we conclude that the boot is better characterized as a part of the proceeds of a sale of stock than as a proxy for a dividend. As such, the payment qualifies for capital gains treatment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Affirmed.
Justice Scalia joins all but Part III of this opinion.
Respondent Peggy S. Clark is a party to this action solely because she filed a joint federal income tax return for the year in question with her husband, Donald E. Clark. References to “taxpayer” are to Donald E. Clark.
In 1979, the tax year in question, the distinction between long-term capital gain and ordinary income was of considerable importance. Most significantly, § 1202(a) of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 1202(a) (1976 ed., Supp. Ill), allowed individual taxpayers to deduct 609h of their net capital gain from gross income. Although the importance of the distinction declined dramatically in 1986 with the repeal of § 1202(a), see Tax Reform Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-514, § 301(a), 100 Stat. 2216, the distinction is still significant in a number of respects. For example, 26 U. S. C. § 1211(b) (1982 ed., Supp. IV) allows individual taxpayers to deduct capital losses to the full extent of their capital gains, but only allows them to offset up to $3,000 of ordinary income insofar as their capital losses exceed their capital gains.
Title 26 U. S. C. § 368(a)(1) defines several basic types of corporate reorganizations. They include, in part:
“(A) a statutory merger or consolidation;
“(D) a transfer by a corporation of all or a part of its assets to another corporation if immediately after the transfer the transferor, or one or more of its shareholders (including persons who were shareholders immediately before the transfer), or any combination thereof, is in control of the corporation to which the assets are transferred; but only if, in pursuance of the plan, stock or securities of the corporation to which the assets are transferred are distributed in a transaction which qualifies under section 354, 355, or 356;
“(E) a recapitalization;
“(F) a mere change in identity, form, or place of organization of one corporation, however effected....”
Section 368(a)(2)(D) provided in 1979:
“The acquisition by one corporation, in exchange for stock of a corporation (referred to in this subparagraph as ‘controlling corporation’) which is in control of the acquiring corporation, of substantially all of the properties of another corporation which in the transaction is merged into the acquiring corporation shall not disqualify a transaction under paragraph (1)(A) if (1) such transaction would have qualified under paragraph (1)(A) if the merger had been into the controlling corporation, and (ii) no stock of the acquiring corporation is used in the transaction.” 26 U. S. C. §368(a) (2)(D) (1976 ed.).
The parties do not agree as to whether dividend equivalence for the purposes of § 356(a)(2) should be determined with reference to § 302 of the Code, which concerns dividend treatment of redemptions of stock by a single corporation outside the context of a reorganization. Compare Brief for Petitioner 28-30 with Brief for Respondents 18-24. They are in essential agreement, however, about the characteristics of a dividend. Thus, the Commissioner correctly argues that the “basic attribute of a dividend, derived from Sections 301 and 316 of the Code, is a pro rata distribution to shareholders out of corporate earnings and profits. When a distribution is made that is not a formal dividend, ‘the fundamental test of dividend equivalency’ is whether the distribution is proportionate to the shareholders’ stock interests (United States v. Davis, 397 U. S. 301, 306 (1970)).” Brief for Petitioner 7. Citing the same authority, but with different emphasis, the taxpayer argues that “the hallmark of a non-dividend distribution is a ‘meaningful reduction of the shareholder’s proportionate interest in the corporation.’ United States v. Davis, 397 U. S. 301, 313 (1970).’’ Brief for Respondents 5.
Under either test, a prereorganization distribution by Basin to the taxpayer would have qualified as a dividend. Because the taxpayer was Basin’s sole shareholder, any distribution necessarily would have been pro rata and would not have resulted in a “meaningful reduction of the [taxpayer’s] proportionate interest in [Basin].”
Section 302 provides in relevant part:
“(a) General rule
“If a corporation redeems its stock (within the meaning of section 317 (b)), and if paragraph (1), (2), (3), or (4) of subsection (b) applies, such redemption shall be treated as a distribution in part or full payment in exchange for the stock.
“(b) Redemptions treated as exchanges
“(2) Substantially disproportionate redemption of stock
“(A) In general
“Subsection (a) shall apply if the distribution is substantially disproportionate with respect to the shareholder.
“(B) Limitation
“This paragraph shall not apply unless immediately after the redemption the shareholder owns less than 50 percent of the total combined voting power of all classes of stock entitled to vote.
“(C) Definitions
“For purposes of this paragraph, the distribution is substantially disproportionate if—
“(i) the ratio which the voting stock of the corporation owned by the shareholder immediately after the redemption bears to all of the voting stock of the corporation at such time,
“is less than 80 percent of—
“(ii) the ratio which the voting stock of the corporation owned by the shareholder immediately before the redemption bears to all of the voting stock of the corporation at such time.
“For purposes of this paragraph, no distribution shall be treated as substantially disproportionate unless the shareholder’s ownership of the common stock of the corporation (whether voting or nonvoting) after and before redemption also meets the 80 percent requirement of the preceding sentence....”
As the Tax Court explained, receipt of the cash boot reduced the taxpayer’s potential holdings in NL from 1.3% to 0.92%. 86 T. C. 138, 153 (1986). The taxpayer’s holdings were thus approximately 71% of what they would have been absent the payment. Ibid. This fact, combined with the fact that the taxpayer held less than 50% of the voting stock of NL after the hypothetical redemption, would have qualified the “distribution” as “substantially disproportionate” under § 302(b)(2).
The Tax Court stressed that to adopt the prereorganization view “would in effect resurrect the now discredited ‘automatic dividend rule’..., at least with respect to pro rata distributions made to an acquired corporation’s shareholders pursuant to a plan of reorganization.” 86 T. C., at 152. On appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed. 828 F. 2d 221, 226-227 (CA4 1987).
The “automatic dividend rule” developed as a result of some imprecise language in our decision in Commissioner v. Estate of Bedford, 325 U. S. 283 (1945). Although Estate of Bedford involved the recapitalization of a single corporation, the opinion employed broad language, asserting that “a distribution, pursuant to a reorganization, of earnings and profits ‘has the effect of a distribution of a taxable dividend’ within [§ 356(a)(2)].” Id., at 292. The Commissioner read this language as establishing as a matter of law that all payments of boot are to be treated as dividends to the extent of undistributed earnings and profits. See Rev. Rui. 56-220, 1956-1 Cum. Bull. 191. Commentators, see, e. g., Darrel, The Scope of Commissioner v. Bedford Estate, 24 Taxes 266 (1946); Shoulson, Boot Taxation: The Blunt Toe of the Automatic Rule, 20 Tax L. Rev. 573 (1965), and courts, see, e. g., Hawkinson v. Commissioner, 235 F. 2d 747 (CA2 1956), however, soon came to criticize this rule. The courts have long since retreated from the “automatic dividend rule,” see, e. g., Idaho Power Co. v. United States, 161 F. Supp. 807 (Ct. Cl.), cert. denied, 358 U. S. 832 (1958), and the Commissioner has followed suit, see Rev. Rui. 74-515, 1974-2 Cum. Bull. 1'18. As our decision in this case makes plain, we agree that Estate of Bedford should not be read to require that all payments of boot be treated as dividends.
Because the mechanical requirements of subsection (b)(2) are met, we need not decide whether the hypothetical redemption might also qualify for capital gains treatment under the general “not essentially equivalent to a dividend” language of subsection (b)(1). Subsections (b)(3) and (b)(4), which deal with redemptions of all of the shareholder’s stock and with partial liquidations, respectively, are not at issue in this case.
The Commissioner maintains that Basin “could have distributed a dividend in the form of its own obligation (see, e. g., I. R. C. § 312(a)(2)) or it could have borrowed funds to distribute a dividend. ” Reply Brief
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Eortas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is here on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The facts and the contentions of counsel raise a number of disturbing questions concerning the administration by the police and the Juvenile Court authorities of the District of Columbia laws relating to juveniles. Apart from raising questions as to the adequacy of custodial and treatment facilities and policies, some of which are not within judicial competence, the case presents important challenges to the procedure of the police and Juvenile Court officials upon apprehension of a juvenile suspected of serious offenses. Because we conclude that the Juvenile Court’s order waiving jurisdiction of petitioner was entered without compliance with required procedures, we remand the case to the trial court.
Morris A. Kent, Jr., first came under the authority of the Juvenile Court of the District of Columbia in 1959. He was then aged 14. He was apprehended as a result of several housebreakings and an attempted purse snatching. He was placed on probation, in the custody of his mother who had been separated from her husband since Kent was two years old. Juvenile Court officials interviewed Kent from time to time during the probation period and accumulated a “Social Service” file.
On September 2, 1961, an intruder entered the apartment of a woman in the District of Columbia. He took her wallet. He raped her. The police found in the apartment latent fingerprints. They were developed and processed. They matched the fingerprints of Morris Kent, taken when he was 14 years old and under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court. At about 3 p. m. on September 5, 1961, Kent was taken into custody by the police. Kent was then 16 and therefore subject to the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the Juvenile Court. D. C. Code § 11-907 (1961), now § 11-1551 (Supp. IV, 1965). He was still on probation to that court as a result of the 1959 proceedings.
Upon being apprehended, Kent was taken to police headquarters where he was interrogated by police officers. It appears that he admitted his involvement in the offense which led to his apprehension and volunteered information as to similar offenses involving housebreaking, robbery, and rape. His interrogation proceeded from about 3 p. m. to 10 p. m. the same evening.
Some time after 10 p. m. petitioner was taken to the Receiving Home for Children. The next morning he was released to the police for further interrogation at police headquarters, which lasted until 5 p. m.
The record does not show when his mother became aware that the boy was in custody, but shortly after 2 p. m. on September 6, 1961, the day following petitioner’s apprehension, she retained counsel.
Counsel, together with petitioner’s mother, promptly conferred with the Social Service Director of the Juvenile Court. In a brief interview, they discussed the possibility that the Juvenile Court might waive jurisdiction under D. C. Code § 11-914 (1961), now § 11-1553 (Supp. IV, 1965) and remit Kent to trial by the District Court. Counsel made known his intention to oppose waiver.
Petitioner was detained at the Receiving Home for almost a week. There was no arraignment during this time, no determination by a judicial officer of probable cause for petitioner’s apprehension.
During this period of detention and interrogation, petitioner’s counsel arranged for examination of petitioner by two psychiatrists and a psychologist. He thereafter filed with the Juvenile Court a motion for a hearing on the question of waiver of Juvenile Court jurisdiction, together with an affidavit of a psychiatrist certifying that petitioner “is a victim of severe psychopathology” and recommending hospitalization for psychiatric observation. Petitioner’s counsel, in support of his motion to the effect that the Juvenile Court should retain jurisdiction of petitioner, offered to prove that if petitioner were given adequate treatment in a hospital under the aegis of the Juvenile Court, he would be a suitable subject for rehabilitation.
At the same time, petitioner’s counsel moved that the Juvenile Court should give him access to the Social Service file relating to petitioner which had been accumulated by the staff of the Juvenile Court during petitioner’s probation period, and which would be available to the Juvenile Court judge in considering the question whether it should retain or waive jurisdiction. Petitioner’s counsel represented that access to this file was essential to his providing petitioner with effective assistance of counsel.
The Juvenile Court judge did not rule on these motions. He held no hearing. He did not confer with petitioner or petitioner’s parents or petitioner’s counsel. He entered an order reciting that after “full investigation, I do hereby waive” jurisdiction of petitioner and directing that he be “held for trial for [the alleged] offenses under the regular procedure of the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia.” He made no findings. He did not recite any reason for the waiver. He made no reference to the motions filed by petitioner’s counsel. We must assume that he denied, sub silentio, the motions for a hearing, the recommendation for hospitalization for psychiatric observation, the request for access to the Social Service file, and the offer to prove that petitioner was a fit subject for rehabilitation under the Juvenile Court’s jurisdiction.
Presumably, prior to entry of his order, the Juvenile Court judge received and considered recommendations of the Juvenile Court staff, the Social Service file relating to petitioner, and a report dated September 8, 1961 (three days following petitioner’s apprehension), submitted to him by the Juvenile Probation Section. The Social Service file and the September 8 report were later sent to the District Court and it appears that both of them referred to petitioner’s mental condition. The September 8 report spoke of “a rapid deterioration of [petitioner’s] personality structure and the possibility of mental illness.” As stated, neither this report nor the Social Service file was made available to petitioner’s counsel.
The provision of the Juvenile Court Act governing waiver expressly provides only for “full investigation.” It states the circumstances in which jurisdiction may be waived and the child held for trial under adult procedures, but it does not state standards to govern the Juvenile Court’s decision as to waiver. The provision reads as follows:
“If a child sixteen years of age or older is charged with an offense which would amount to a felony in the case of an adult, or any child charged with an offense which if committed by an adult is punishable by death or life imprisonment, the judge may, after full investigation, waive jurisdiction and. order such child held for trial under the regular procedure of the court which would have jurisdiction of such offense if committed by an adult; or such other court may exercise the powers conferred upon the juvenile court in this subchapter in conducting and disposing of such cases.”
Petitioner appealed from the Juvenile Court’s waiver order to the Municipal Court of Appeals, which affirmed, and also applied to the United States District Court for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied. On appeal from these judgments, the United States Court of Appeals held on January 22, 1963, that neither appeal to the Municipal Court of Appeals nor habeas corpus was available. In the Court of Appeals’ view, the exclusive method of reviewing the Juvenile Court’s waiver order was a motion to dismiss the indictment in the District Court. Kent v. Reid, 114 U. S. App. D. C. 330, 316 F. 2d 331 (1963).
Meanwhile, on September 25, 1961, shortly after the Juvenile Court order waiving its jurisdiction, petitioner was indicted by a grand jury of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The indictment contained eight counts alleging two instances of housebreaking, robbery, and rape, and one of housebreaking and robbery. On November 16, 1961, petitioner moved the District Court to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the waiver was invalid. He also moved the District Court to constitute itself a Juvenile Court as authorized by D. C. Code § 11-914 (1961), now § 11-1553 (Supp. IV, 1965). After substantial delay occasioned by petitioner’s appeal and habeas corpus proceedings, the District Court addressed itself to the motion to dismiss on February 8, 1963.
The District Court denied the motion to dismiss the indictment. The District Court ruled that it would not “go behind” the Juvenile Court judge’s recital that his order was entered “after full investigation.” It held that “The only matter before me is as to whether or not the statutory provisions were complied with and the Courts have held... with reference to full investigation, that that does not mean a quasi judicial or judicial hearing. No hearing is required.”
On March 7, 1963, the District Court held a hearing on petitioner’s motion to determine his competency to stand trial. The court determined that petitioner was competent.
At trial, petitioner’s defense was wholly directed toward proving that he was not criminally responsible because “his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect.” Durham v. United States, 94 U. S. App. D. C. 228, 241, 214 F. 2d 862, 875 (1954). Extensive evidence, including expert testimony, was presented to support this defense. The jury found as to the counts alleging rape that petitioner was “not guilty by reason of insanity.” Under District of Columbia law, this made it mandatory that petitioner be transferred to St. Elizabeths Hospital, a mental institution, until his sanity is restored. On the six counts of housebreaking and robbery, the jury found that petitioner was guilty.
Kent was sentenced to serve five to 15 years on each count as to which he was found guilty, or a total of 30 to 90 years in prison. The District Court ordered that the time to be spent at St. Elizabeths on the mandatory commitment after the insanity acquittal be counted as part of the 30- to 90-year sentence. Petitioner appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court affirmed. 119 U. S. App. D. C. 378, 343 F. 2d 247 (1964).
Before the Court of Appeals and in this Court, petitioner’s counsel has urged a number of grounds for reversal. He argues that petitioner’s detention and interrogation, described above, were unlawful. He contends that the police failed to follow the procedure prescribed by the Juvenile Court Act in that they failed to notify the parents of the child and the Juvenile Court itself, note 1, supra; that petitioner was deprived of his liberty for about a week without a determination of probable cause which would have been required in the case of an adult, see note 3, supra; that he was interrogated by the police in the absence of counsel or a parent, cf. Harling v. United States, 111 U. S. App. D. C. 174, 176, 295 F. 2d 161, 163, n. 12 (1961), without warning of his right to remain silent or advice as to his right to counsel, in asserted violation of the Juvenile Court Act and in violation of rights that he would have if he were an adult; and that petitioner was fingerprinted in violation of the asserted intent of the Juvenile Court Act and while unlawfully detained and that the fingerprints were unlawfully used in the District Court proceeding.
These contentions raise problems of substantial concern as to the construction of and compliance with the Juvenile Court Act. They also suggest basic issues as to the justifiability of affording a juvenile less protection than is accorded to adults suspected of criminal offenses, particularly where, as here, there is an absence of any indication that the denial of rights available to adults was offset, mitigated or explained by action of the Government, as parens patriae, evidencing the special solicitude for juveniles commanded by the Juvenile Court Act. However, because we remand the case on account of the procedural error with respect to waiver of jurisdiction, we do not pass upon these questions.
It is to petitioner’s arguments as to the infirmity of the proceedings by which the Juvenile Court waived its otherwise exclusive jurisdiction that we address our attention. Petitioner attacks the waiver of jurisdiction on a number of statutory and constitutional grounds. He contends that the waiver is defective because no hearing was held; because no findings were made by the Juvenile Court; because the Juvenile Court stated no reasons for waiver; and because counsel was denied access to the Social Service file which presumably was considered by the Juvenile Court in determining to waive jurisdiction.
We agree that the order of the Juvenile Court waiving its jurisdiction and transferring petitioner for trial in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia was invalid. There is no question that the order is reviewable on motion to dismiss the indictment in the District Court, as specified by the Court of Appeals in this case. Kent v. Reid, supra. The issue is the standards to be applied upon such review.
We agree with the Court of Appeals that the statute contemplates that the Juvenile Court should have considerable latitude within which to determine whether it should retain jurisdiction over a child or — subject to the statutory delimitation — should waive jurisdiction. But this latitude is not complete. At the outset, it assumes procedural regularity sufficient in the particular circumstances to satisfy the basic requirements of due process and fairness, as well as compliance with the statutory requirement of a “full investigation.” Green v. United States, 113 U. S. App. D. C. 348, 308 F. 2d 303 (1962). The statute gives the Juvenile Court a substantial degree of discretion as to the factual considerations to be evaluated, the weight to be given them and the conclusion to be reached. It does not confer upon the Juvenile Court a license for arbitrary procedure. The statute does not permit the Juvenile Court to determine in isolation and without the participation or any representation of the child the “critically important” question whether a child will be deprived of the special protections and provisions of the Juvenile Court Act. It does not authorize the Juvenile Court, in total disregard of a motion for hearing filed by counsel, and without any hearing or statement or reasons, to decide — as in this case — that the child will be taken from the Receiving Home for Children and transferred to jail along with adults, and that he will be exposed to the possibility of a death sentence instead of treatment for a maximum, in Kent’s case, of five years, until he is 21.
We do not consider whether, on the merits, Kent should have been transferred; but there is no place in our system of law for reaching a result of such tremendous consequences without ceremony — without hearing, without effective assistance of counsel, without a statement of reasons. It is inconceivable that a court of justice dealing with adults, with respect to a similar issue, would proceed in this manner. It would be extraordinary if society’s special concern for children, as reflected in the District of Columbia’s Juvenile Court Act, permitted this procedure. We hold that it does not.
1. The theory of the District’s Juvenile Court Act, like that of other jurisdictions, is rooted in social welfare philosophy rather than in the corpus juris. Its proceedings are designated as civil rather than criminal. The Juvenile Court is theoretically engaged in determining the needs of the child and of society rather than adjudicating criminal conduct. The objectives are to provide measures of guidance and rehabilitation for the child and protection for society, not to fix criminal responsibility, guilt and punishment. The State is parens patriae rather than prosecuting attorney and judge. But the admonition to function in a “parental” relationship is not an invitation to procedural arbitrariness.
2. Because the State is supposed to proceed in respect of the child as parens patriae and not as adversary, courts have relied on the premise that the proceedings are “civil” in nature and not criminal, and have asserted that the child cannot complain of the deprivation of important rights available in criminal cases. It has been asserted that he can claim only the fundamental due process right to fair treatment. For example, it has been held that he is not entitled to bail; to indictment by grand jury; to a speedy and public trial; to trial by jury; to immunity against self-incrimination; to confrontation of his accusers; and in some jurisdictions (but not in the District of Columbia, see Shioutakon v. District of Columbia, 98 U. S. App. D. C. 371, 236 F. 2d 666 (1956), and Black v. United States, supra) that he is not entitled to counsel.
While there can be no doubt of the original laudable purpose of juvenile courts, studies and critiques in recent years raise serious questions as to whether actual performance measures well enough against theoretical purpose to make tolerable the immunity of the process from the reach of constitutional guaranties applicable to adults. There is much evidence that some juvenile courts, including that of the District of Columbia, lack the personnel, facilities and techniques to perform adequately as representatives of the State in a parens patriae capacity, at least with respect to children charged with law violation. There is evidence, in fact, that there may be grounds for concern that the child receives the worst of both worlds: that he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children.
This concern, however, does not induce us in this case to accept the invitation to rule that constitutional guaranties which would be applicable to adults charged with the serious offenses for which Kent was tried must be applied in juvenile court proceedings concerned with allegations of law violation. The Juvenile Court Act and the decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit provide an adequate basis for decision of this case, and we go no further.
3. It is clear beyond dispute that the waiver of jurisdiction is a “critically important” action determining vitally important statutory rights of the juvenile. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has so held. See Black v. United States, supra; Watkins v. United States, 119 U. S. App. D. C. 409, 343 F. 2d 278 (1964). The statutory scheme makes this plain. The Juvenile Court is vested with “original and exclusive jurisdiction” of the child. This jurisdiction confers special rights and immunities. He is, as specified by the statute, shielded from publicity. He may be confined, but with rare exceptions he may not be jailed along with adults. He may be detained, but only until he is 21 years of age. The court is admonished by the statute to give preference to retaining the child in the custody of his parents “unless his welfare and the safety and protection of the public can not be adequately safeguarded without... removal.” The child is protected against consequences of adult conviction such as the loss of civil rights, the use of adjudication against him in subsequent proceedings, and disqualification for public employment. D. C. Code §§ 11-907, 11-915, 11-927, 11-929 (1961).
The net, therefore, is that petitioner — then a boy of 16 — was by statute entitled to certain' procedures and benefits as a consequence of his statutory right to the “exclusive” jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court. In these circumstances, considering particularly that decision as to waiver of jurisdiction and transfer of the matter to the District Court was potentially as important to petitioner as the difference between five years’ confinement and a death sentence, we conclude that, as a condition to a valid waiver order, petitioner was entitled to a hearing, including access by his counsel to the social records and probation or similar reports which presumably are considered by the court, and to a statement of reasons for the Juvenile Court’s decision. We believe that this result is required by the statute read in the context of constitutional principles relating to due process and the assistance of counsel.
The Court of Appeals in this case relied upon Wilhite v. United States, 108 U. S. App. D. C. 279, 281 F. 2d 642 (1960). In that case, the Court of Appeals held, for purposes of a determination as to waiver of jurisdiction, that no formal hearing is required and that the “full investigation” required of the Juvenile Court need only be such “as is needed to satisfy that court... on the question of waiver.” (Emphasis supplied.) The authority of Wilhite, however, is substantially undermined by other, more recent, decisions of the Court of Appeals.
In Black v. United States, decided by the Court of Appeals on December 8, 1965, the court held that assistance of counsel in the “critically important” determination of- waiver is essential to the proper administration of juvenile proceedings. Because the juvenile was not advised of his right to retained or appointed counsel, the judgment of the District Court, following waiver of jurisdiction by the Juvenile Court, was reversed. The court relied upon its decision in Shioutakon v. District of Columbia, 98 U. S. App. D. C. 371, 236 F. 2d 666 (1956), in which it had held that effective assistance of counsel in juvenile court proceedings is essential. See also McDaniel v. Shea, 108 U. S. App. D. C. 15, 278 F. 2d 460 (1960). In Black, the court referred to the Criminal Justice Act, enacted four years after Shioutakon, in which Congress provided for the assistance of counsel “in proceedings before the juvenile court of the District of Columbia.” D. C. Code § 2-2202 (1961). The court held that “The need is even greater in the adjudication of waiver [than in a case like Shioutakon] since it contemplates the imposition of criminal sanctions.” 122 U. S. App. D. C., at 395, 355 F. 2d, at 106.
In Watkins v. United States, 119 U. S. App. D. C. 409, 343 F. 2d 278 (1964), decided in November 1964, the Juvenile Court had waived jurisdiction of appellant who was charged with housebreaking and larceny. In the District Court, appellant sought disclosure of the social record in order to attack the validity of the waiver. The Court of Appeals held that in a waiver proceeding a juvenile’s attorney is entitled to access to such records. The court observed that
“All of the social records concerning the child are. usually relevant to waiver since the Juvenile Court must be deemed to consider the entire history of the child in determining waiver. The relevance of particular items must be construed generously. Since an attorney has no certain knowledge of what the social records contain, he cannot be expected to demonstrate the relevance of particular items in his request.
“The child’s attorney must be advised of the information upon which the Juvenile Court relied in order to assist effectively in the determination of the waiver question, by insisting upon the statutory command that waiver can be ordered only after ‘full investigation,’ and by guarding against action of the Juvenile Court beyond its discretionary authority.” 119 U. S. App. D. C., at 413, 343 F. 2d, at 282.
The court remanded the record to the District Court for a determination of the extent to which the records should be disclosed.
The Court of Appeals’ decision in the present case was handed down on October 26, 1964, prior to its decisions in Black and Watkins. The Court of Appeals assumed that since petitioner had been a probationer of the Juvenile Court for two years, that court had before it sufficient evidence to make an informed judgment. It therefore concluded that the statutory requirement of a “full investigation” had been met. It noted the absence of “a specification by the Juvenile Court Judge of precisely why he concluded to waive jurisdiction.” 119 U. S. App. D. C., at 384, 343 F. 2d, at 253. While it indicated that “in some cases at least” a useful purpose might be served “by a discussion of the reasons motivating the determination,” id., at 384, 343 F. 2d, at 253, n. 6, it did not conclude that the absence thereof invalidated the waiver.
As to the denial of access to the social records, the Court of Appeals stated that “the statute is ambiguous.” It said that petitioner’s claim, in essence, is “that counsel should have the opportunity to challenge them, presumably in a manner akin to cross-examination.” Id., at 389, 343 F. 2d, at 258. It held, however, that this is “the kind of adversarial tactics which the system is designed to avoid.” It characterized counsel’s proper function as being merely that of bringing forward affirmative information which might help the court. His function, the Court of Appeals said, “is not to denigrate the staff’s submissions and recommendations.” Ibid. Accordingly, it held that the Juvenile Court had not abused its discretion in denying access to the social records.
We are of the opinion that the Court of Appeals misconceived the basic issue and the underlying values in this case. It did note, as another panel of the same court did a few months later in Black and Watkins, that the determination of whether to transfer a child from the statutory structure of the Juvenile Court to the criminal processes of the District Court is “critically important.” We hold that it is, indeed, a “critically important” proceeding. The Juvenile Court Act confers upon the child a right to avail himself of that court’s “exclusive” jurisdiction. As the Court of Appeals has said, “[I]t is implicit in [the Juvenile Court] scheme that non-criminal treatment is to be the rule — and the adult criminal treatment, the exception which must be governed by the particular factors of individual cases.” Harling v. United States, 111 U. S. App. D. C. 174, 177-178, 295 F. 2d 161, 164-165 (1961).
Meaningful review requires that the reviewing court should review. It should not be remitted to assumptions. It must have before it a statement of the reasons motivating the waiver including, of course, a statement of the relevant facts. It may not “assume” that there are adequate reasons, nor may it merely assume that “full investigation” has been made. Accordingly, we hold that it is incumbent upon the Juvenile Court to accompany its waiver order with a statement of the reasons or considerations therefor. We do not read the statute as requiring that this statement must be formal or that it should necessarily include conventional findings of fact. But the statement should be sufficient to demonstrate that the statutory requirement of “full investigation” has been met; and that the question has received the careful consideration of the Juvenile Court; and it must set forth the basis for the order with sufficient specificity to permit meaningful review.
Correspondingly, we conclude that an opportunity for a hearing which may be informal, must be given the child prior to entry of a waiver order. Under Black, the child is entitled to counsel in connection with a waiver proceeding, and under Watkins, counsel is entitled to see the child’s social records. These rights are meaningless — an illusion, a mockery — unless counsel is given an opportunity to function.
The right to representation by counsel is not a formality. It is not a grudging gesture to a ritualistic requirement. It is of the essence of justice. Appointment of counsel without affording an opportunity for hearing on a “critically important” decision is tantamount to denial of counsel. There is no justification for the failure of the Juvenile Court to rule on the motion for hearing filed by petitioner’s counsel, and it was error to fail to grant a hearing.
We do not mean by this to indicate that the hearing to be held must conform with all of the requirements of a criminal trial or even of the usual administrative hearing; but we do hold that the hearing must measure up to the essentials of due process and fair treatment. Pee v. United States, 107 U. S. App. D. C. 47, 50, 274 F. 2d 556, 559 (1959).
With respect to access by the child’s counsel to the social records of the child, we deem it obvious that since these are to be considered by the Juvenile Court in making its decision to waive, they must be made available to the child’s counsel. This is what the Court of Appeals itself held in Watkins. There is no doubt as to the statutory basis for this conclusion, as the Court of Appeals pointed out in Watkins. We cannot agree with the Court of Appeals in the present case that the statute is “ambiguous.” The statute expressly provides that the record shall be withheld from “indiscriminate” public inspection, “except that such records or parts thereof shall be made available by rule of court or special order of court to such persons... as have a legitimate interest in the protection... of the child....” D. C. Code § 11-929 (b) (1961), now § 11-1586 (b) (Supp. IV, 1965). (Emphasis supplied.) The Court of Appeals has held in Black, and we agree, that counsel must be afforded to the child in waiver proceedings. Counsel, therefore, have a “legitimate interest” in the protection of the child, and must be afforded access to these records.
We do not agree with the Court of Appeals’ statement, attempting to justify denial of access to these records, that counsel’s role is limited to presenting “to the court anything on behalf of the child which might help the court in arriving at a decision; it is not to denigrate the staff’s submissions and recommendations.” On the contrary, if the staff’s submissions include materials which are susceptible to challenge or impeachment, it is precisely the role of counsel to “denigrate” such matter. There is no irrebuttable presumption of accuracy attached to staff reports. If a decision on waiver is “critically important” it is equally of “critical importance” that the material submitted to the judge — which is protected by the statute only against “indiscriminate” inspection — be subjected, within reasonable limits having regard to the theory of the Juvenile Court Act, to examination, criticism and refutation. While the Juvenile Court judge may, of course, receive ex parte analyses and recommendations from his staff, he may not, for purposes of a decision on waiver, receive and rely upon secret information, whether emanating from his staff or otherwise. The Juvenile Court is governed in this respect by the established principles which control courts and quasi-judicial agencies of the Government.
For the reasons stated, we conclude that the Court of Appeals and the District Court erred in sustaining the validity of the waiver by the Juvenile Court. The Government urges that any error committed by the Juvenile Court was cured by the proceedings before the District Court. It is true that the District Court considered and denied a motion to dismiss on the grounds of the invalidity of the waiver order of the Juvenile Court, and that it considered and denied a motion that it should itself, as authorized by statute, proceed in this case to “exercise the powers conferred upon the juvenile court.” D. C. Code § 11-914 (1961), now § 11-1553 (Supp. IV, 1965). But we agree with the Court of Appeals in Black, that “the waiver question was primarily and initially one for the Juvenile Court to decide and its failure to do so in a valid manner cannot be said to be harmless error. It is the Juvenile Court, not the District Court, which has the facilities, personnel and expertise for a proper determination of the waiver issue.” 122 U. S. App. D. C., at 396, 355 F. 2d, at 107.
Ordinarily we would reverse the Court of Appeals and direct the District Court to remand the case to the Juvenile Court for a new determination of waiver. If on remand the decision were against waiver, the indictment in the District Court would be dismissed. See Black v. United States, supra. However, petitioner has now passed the age of 21 and the Juvenile Court can no longer exercise jurisdiction over him. In view of the unavailability of a redetermination of the waiver question by the Juvenile Court, it is urged by petitioner that the conviction should be vacated and the indictment dismissed. In the circumstances of this case, and in light of the remedy which the Court of Appeals fashioned in Black, supra, we do not consider it appropriate to grant this drastic relief. Accordingly, we vacate the order of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the District Court and remand the case to the District Court for a hearing de novo on waiver, consistent with this opinion. If that court finds that waiver was inappropriate, petitioner’s conviction must be vacated. If, however, it finds that the waiver order was proper when originally made, the District Court may proceed, after consideration of such motions as counsel may make and such further proceedings, if any, as may be warranted, to enter an appropriate judgment. Cf. Black v. United States, supra.
Reversed and remanded.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
Policy Memorandum No. 7, November 30,1959.
The authority of the Judge of the Juvenile Court of the District of Columbia to waive or transfer jurisdiction to the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia is contained in the Juvenile Court Act (§ 11-914 D. C. Code, 1951 Ed.). This section permits the Judge to waive jurisdiction “after full investigation” in the case of any child “sixteen years of age or older [who is] charged with an offense which would amount to a felony in the case of an adult, or any child charged with an offense which if committed by an adult is punishable by death or life imprisonment.”
The statute sets forth no specific standards for the exercise of this important discretionary act, but leaves the formulation of such criteria to the Judge. A knowledge of the Judge’s criteria is important to the child, his parents, his attorney, to the judges of the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to the United States Attorney and his assistants, and to the Metropolitan Police Department, as well as to the staff of this court, especially the Juvenile Intake Section.
Therefore, the Judge has consulted with the Chief Judge and other judges of the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, with the United States Attorney, with representatives of the Bar, and with other groups concerned and has formulated the following criteria and principles concerning waiver of jurisdiction which are consistent with the basic aims and purpose of the Juvenile Court Act.
An offense falling within the statutory limitations (set forth above) will be waived if it has prosecutive merit and if it is heinous or of an aggravated character, or— even though less serious — if it represents a pattern of repeated offenses which indicate that the juvenile may be beyond rehabilitation under Juvenile Court procedures, or if the public needs the protection afforded by such action.
The determinative factors which will be considered by the Judge in deciding whether the Juvenile Court’s jurisdiction over such offenses will be waived are the following:
1. The seriousness of the alleged offense to the community and whether the protection of the community requires waiver.
2. Whether the alleged offense was committed in an aggressive, violent, premeditated or willful manner.
3. Whether the alleged offense was against persons or against property, greater weight being given to offenses against persons especially if personal injury resulted.
4. The prosecutive merit of the complaint, i. e., whether there is evidence upon which a Grand Jury may be expected to return an indictment (to be determined by consultation with the United States Attorney).
5. The desirability of trial and disposition of the entire offense in one court when the juvenile’s associates in the alleged offense are adults who will be charged with a crime in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
6. The sophistication and maturity of the juvenile as determined by consideration of his home, environmental
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner Thomas sued the respondent Hempt Brothers in a Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas to recover overtime wages, liquidated damages, and counsel fees under the provisions of §§ 6, 7 and 16 (b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The complaint alleged these facts: Hempt Brothers operate a stone quarry in Pennsylvania, use the stone in manufacturing cement mixtures, and then haul these mixtures in trucks to customers. Their customers were the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, an airport, an army depot, and a navy depot, all located within the state of Pennsylvania. The concrete was processed for use by these customers on Pennsylvania projects. The Railroad used its concrete for repair and maintenance of its roadbeds over which were operated interstate passenger and freight trains. The Turnpike used its concrete for laying and building “a highway which handles the flow of commerce between the states.” The airport used concrete to build and erect landing fields to accommodate the flow of airplanes in interstate commerce. Other purchasers used their concrete on “projects which aided the flow of commerce, as will be proven by Plaintiff when he has his day in Court.” Thomas was employed in producing and handling the quarry and concrete products.
On these allegations the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania sustained the trial court’s judgment for Hempt Brothers entered on the ground that the complaint failed to show a recoverable cause of action under the Fair Labor Standards Act. 371 Pa. 383, 89 A. 2d 776. And see 62 Pa. D. & C. 618, 626 (1948); and 74 Pa. D. & C. 213, 218 (1950). In sustaining dismissal of the complaint the State Supreme Court recognized that its holding was in conflict with that of the Third Circuit in Tobin v. Alstate Construction Co., 195 F. 2d 577. We granted certiorari because of this conflict. 344 U. S. 895.
We have today affirmed the Court of Appeals’ judgment in the Alstate case, ante, p. 13. The reasons we gave for affirming that case require that this case be reversed because the state courts erred in holding that the complaint failed to set out a good cause of action under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Accordingly the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is reversed and the cause remanded to that court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Douglas dissent for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion in No. 296, Alstate Construction Co. v. Durkin, ante, p. 17.
52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 63 Stat. 910, 29 U. S. C. §§ 206, 207, 216 (b).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice White, and Mr. Justice Marshall join.
The question before us concerns the right of a female member of the uniformed services to claim her spouse as a “dependent” for the purposes of obtaining increased quarters allowances and medical and dental benefits under 37 U. S. C. §§ 401, 403, and 10 U. S. C. §§ 1072, 1076, on an equal footing with male members. Under these statutes, a serviceman may claim his wife as a “dependent” without regard to whether she is in fact dependent upon him for any part of her support. 37 U. S. C. § 401 (1); 10 U. S. C. § 1072 (2) (A). A servicewoman, on the other hand, may not claim her husband as a “dependent” under these programs unless he is in fact dependent upon her for over one-half of his support. 37 TJ. S. C. §401; 10 U. S. C. § 1072 (2) (C). Thus, the question for decision is whether this difference in treatment constitutes an unconstitutional discrimination against servicewomen in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. A three-judge District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, one judge dissenting, rejected this contention and sustained the constitutionality of the provisions of the statutes making this distinction. 341 F. Supp. 201 (1972). We noted probable jurisdiction. 409 U. S. 840 (1972). We reverse.
I
In an effort to attract career personnel through reenlistment, Congress established, in 37 U. S. C. § 401 et seq., and 10 U. S. C. § 1071 et seq., a scheme for the provision of fringe benefits to members of the uniformed services on a competitive basis with business and industry. Thus, under 37 U. S. C. §403, a member of the uniformed services with dependents is entitled to an increased “basic allowance for quarters” and, under 10 U. S. C. § 1076, a member’s dependents are provided comprehensive medical and dental care.
Appellant Sharron Frontiero, a lieutenant in the United States Air Force, sought increased quarters allowances, and housing and medical benefits for her husband, appellant Joseph Frontiero, on the ground that he was her “dependent.” Although such benefits would automatically have been granted with respect to the wife of a male member of the uniformed services, appellant’s application was denied because she failed to demonstrate that her husband was dependent on her for more than one-half of his support. Appellants then commenced this suit, contending that, by making this distinction, the statutes unreasonably discriminate on the basis of sex in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In essence, appellants asserted that the discriminatory impact of the statutes is twofold: first, as a procedural matter, a female member is required to demonstrate her spouse’s dependency, while no such burden is imposed upon male members; and, second, as a substantive matter, a male member who does not provide more than one-half of his wife’s support receives benefits, while a similarly situated female member is denied such benefits. Appellants therefore sought a permanent injunction against the continued enforcement of these statutes and an order directing the appellees to provide Lieutenant Frontiero with the same housing and medical benefits that a similarly situated male member would receive.
Although the legislative history of these statutes sheds virtually no light on the purposes underlying the differential treatment accorded male and female members, a majority of the three-judge District Court surmised that Congress might reasonably have concluded that, since the husband in our society is generally the “breadwinner” in the family — and the wife typically the “dependent” partner — “it would be more economical to require married female members claiming husbands to prove actual dependency than to extend the presumption of dependency to such members.” 341 F. Supp., at 207. Indeed, given the fact that_ approximately 99% of all members of the uniformed services are male, the District Court speculated that such differential treatment might conceivably lead to a “considerable saving of administrative expense and manpower.” Ibid.
II
At the outset, appellants contend that classifications based upon sex, like classifications based upon race, alienage, and national origin, are inherently suspect and must therefore be subjected to close judicial scrutiny. We agree and, indeed, find at least implicit support for such an approach in our unanimous decision only last Term in Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71 (1971).
In Reed, the Court considered the constitutionality of an Idaho statute providing that, when two individuals are otherwise equally entitled to appointment as administrator of an estate, the male applicant must be preferred to the female. Appellant, the mother of the deceased, and appellee, the father, filed competing petitions for appointment as administrator of their son’s estate. Since the parties, as parents of the deceased, were members of the same entitlement class, the statutory preference was invoked and the father’s petition was therefore granted. Appellant claimed that this statute, by giving a mandatory preference to males over females without regard to their individual qualifications, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court noted that the Idaho statute “provides that different treatment be accorded to the applicants on the basis of their sex; it thus establishes a classification subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.” 404 U. S., at 75. Under “traditional” equal protection analysis, a legislative classification must be sustained unless it is “patently arbitrary” and bears no rational relationship to a legitimate governmental interest. See Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U. S. 535, 546 (1972); Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78, 81 (1971); Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 611 (1960); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 426 (1961); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 485 (1970).
In an effort to meet this standard, appellee contended that the statutory scheme was a reasonable measure designed to reduce the workload on probate courts by eliminating one class of contests. Moreover, appellee argued that the mandatory preference for male applicants was in itself reasonable since “men [are] as a rule more conversant with business affairs than . . . women.” Indeed, appellee maintained that “it is a matter of common knowledge, that women still are not engaged in politics, the professions, business or industry to the extent that men are.” And the Idaho Supreme Court, in upholding the constitutionality of this statute, suggested that the Idaho Legislature might reasonably have “concluded that in general men are better qualified to act as an administrator than are women.”
Despite these contentions, however, the Court held the statutory preference for male applicants unconstitutional. In reaching this result, the Court implicitly rejected appellee’s apparently rational explanation of the statutory scheme, and concluded that, by ignoring the individual qualifications of particular applicants, the challenged statute provided “dissimilar treatment for men and women who are . . . similarly situated.” 404 U. S., at 77. The Court therefore held that, even though the State’s interest in achieving administrative efficiency “is not without some legitimacy,” “[t]o give a mandatory preference to members of either sex over members of the other, merely to accomplish the elimination of hearings on the merits, is to make the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the [Constitution] . . . .” Id., at 76. This departure from “traditional” rational-basis analysis with respect to sex-based classifications is clearly justified.
There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of “romantic paternalism” which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage. Indeed, this paternalistic attitude became so firmly rooted in our national consciousness that, 100 years ago, a distinguished Member of this Court was able to proclaim:
“Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband. . . .
“. . . The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.” Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall. 130, 141 (1873) (Bradley, J., concurring).
As a result of notions such as these, our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of women in our society was, in many respects, comparable to that of blacks under the pre-Civil War slave codes. Neither slaves nor women could hold office, serve on juries, or bring suit in their own names, and married women traditionally were denied the legal capacity to hold or convey property or to serve as legal guardians of their own children. See generally L. Kanowitz, Women and the Law: The Unfinished Revolution 5-6 (1969); G. Myrdal, An American Dilemma 1073 (20th anniversary ed. 1962). And although blacks were guaranteed the right to vote in 1870, women were denied even that right — which is itself “preservative of other basic civil and political rights” — until adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment half a century later.
It is true, of course, that the position of women in America has improved markedly in recent decades. Nevertheless, it can hardly be doubted that, in part because of the high visibility of the sex characteristic, women still face pervasive, although at times more subtle, discrimination in our educational institutions, in the job market and, perhaps most conspicuously, in the political arena. See generally K. Amundsen, The Silenced Majority: Women and American Democracy (1971); The President’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities, A Matter of Simple Justice (1970).
Moreover, since sex, like race and national origin, is an immutable characteristic determined solely by the accident of birth, the imposition of special disabilities upon the members of a particular sex because of their sex would seem to violate “the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility . . . .” Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164, 175 (1972). And what differentiates sex from such nonsuspect statuses as intelligence or physical disability, and aligns it with the recognized suspect criteria, is that the sex characteristic frequently bears no relation to ability to perform or contribute to society. As a result, statutory distinctions between the sexes often have the effect of invidiously-relegating the entire class of females to inferior legal status without regard to the actual capabilities of its individual members.
We might also note that, over the past decade, Congress has itself manifested an increasing sensitivity to sex-based classifications. In Tit. VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, Congress expressly declared that no employer, labor union, or other organization subject to the provisions of the Act shall discriminate against any individual on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Similarly, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 provides that no employer covered by the Act “shall discriminate . . . between employees on the basis of sex.” And § 1 of the Equal Rights Amendment, passed by Congress on March 22, 1972, and submitted to the legislatures of the States for ratification, declares that “[e] quality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Thus, Congress itself has concluded that classifications based upon sex are inherently invidious, and this conclusion of a coequal branch of Government is not without significance to the question presently under consideration.' Cf. Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112, 240, 248-249 (1970) (opinion of Brennan, White, and Marshall, JJ.); Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 648-649 (1966).
With these considerations in mind, we can only conclude that classifications based upon sex, like classifications based upon race, alienage, or national origin, are inherently suspect, and must therefore be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny. Applying the analysis mandated by that stricter standard of review, it is clear that the statutory scheme now before us is constitutionally invalid.
III
The sole basis of the classification established in the challenged statutes is the sex of the individuals involved. Thus, under 37 U. S. C. §§ 401, 403, and 10 U. S. C. §§ 1072, 1076, a female member of the uniformed services seeking to obtain housing and medical benefits for her spouse must prove his dependency in fact, whereas no such burden is imposed upon male members. In addition, the statutes operate so as to deny benefits to a female member, such as appellant Sharron Frontiero, who provides less than one-half of her spouse’s support, while at the same time granting such benefits to a male member who likewise provides less than one-half of his spouse’s support. Thus, to this extent at least, it may fairly be said that these statutes command “dissimilar treatment for men and women who are . . . similarly situated.” Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S., at 77.
Moreover, the Government concedes that the differential treatment accorded men and women under these statutes serves no purpose other than mere “administrative convenience.” In essence, the Government maintains that, as an empirical matter, wives in our society frequently are dependent upon their husbands, while husbands rarely are dependent upon their wives. Thus, the Government argues that Congress might reasonably have concluded that it would be both cheaper and easier simply conclusively to presume that wives of male members are financially dependent upon their husbands, while burdening female members with the task of establishing dependency in fact.
The Government offers no concrete evidence, however, tending to support its view that such differential treatment in fact saves the Government any money. In order to satisfy the demands of strict judicial scrutiny, the Government must demonstrate, for example, that it is actually cheaper to grant increased benefits with respect to all male members, than it is to determine which male members are in fact entitled to such benefits and to grant increased benefits only to those members whose wives actually meet the dependency requirement. Here, however, there is substantial evidence that, if put to the test, many of the wives of male members would fail to qualify for benefits. And in light of the fact that the dependency determination with respect to the husbands of female members is presently made solely on the basis of affidavits, rather than through the more costly hearing process, the Government’s explanation of the statutory scheme is, to say the least, questionable.
In any case, our prior decisions make clear that, although efficacious administration of governmental programs is not without some importance, “the Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency.” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 656 (1972). And when we enter the realm of “strict judicial scrutiny,” there can be no doubt that “administrative convenience” is not a shibboleth, the mere recitation of which dictates constitutionality. See Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969); Carrington v. Bash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965). On the contrary, any statutory scheme which draws a sharp line between the sexes, solely for the purpose of achieving administrative convenience, necessarily commands “dissimilar treatment for men and women who are . . . similarly situated,” and therefore involves the “very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the [Constitution] . . . .” Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S., at 77, 76. We therefore conclude that, by according differential treatment to male and female members of the uniformed services for the sole purpose of achieving administrative convenience, the challenged statutes violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment insofar as they require a female member to prove the dependency of her husband.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Stewart concurs in the judgment, agreeing that the statutes before us work an invidious discrimination in violation of the Constitution. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist dissents for the reasons stated by Judge Rives in his opinion for the District Court, Frontiero v. Laird, 341 F. Supp. 201 (1972).
The “uniformed services” include the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Environmental Science Services Administration, and Public Health Service. 37 U. S. C. § 101 (3) ; 10 U. S. C. §1072 (1).
Title 37 U. S. C. § 401 provides in pertinent part:
“In this chapter, 'dependent/ with respect to a member of a uniformed service, means—
“(1) his spouse;
“However, a person is not a dependent of a female member unless he is in fact dependent on her for over one-half of his support. . . .”
Title 10 U. S. C. § 1072 (2) provides in pertinent part:
“ 'Dependent/ with respect to a member ... of a uniformed service, means—
“(A) the wife;
“(C) the husband, if he is in fact dependent on the member . . . for over one-half of his support. . .’’
See 102 Cong. Rec. 3849-3850 (Cong. Kilday), 8043 (Sen. Saltonstall); 95 Cong. Rec. 7662 (Cong. Kilday), 7664 (Cong. Short), 7666 (Cong. Havenner), 7667 (Cong. Bates), 7671 (Cong. Price). See also 10 U. S. C. § 1071.
Appellant Joseph Frontiero is a full-time student at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. According to the agreed stipulation of facts, his living expenses, including his share of the household expenses, total approximately $354 per month. Since he receives $205 per month in veterans’ benefits, it is clear that he is not dependent upon appellant Sharron Frontiero for more than one-half of his support.
“[W]hile the Fifth Amendment contains no equal protection clause, it does forbid discrimination that is ‘so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.’ ” Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U. S. 163, 168 (1964); see Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 641-642 (1969); Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954).
The housing provisions, set forth in 37 U. S. C. § 401 et seq., were enacted as part of the Career Compensation Act of 1949, which established a uniform pattern of military pay and allowances, consolidating and revising the piecemeal legislation that had been developed over the previous 40 years. See H. R. Rep. No. 779, 81st Cong., 1st Sess.; S. Rep. No. 733, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. The Act apparently retained in substance the dependency definitions of §4 of the Pay Readjustment Act of 1942 (56 Stat. 361), as amended by § 6 of the Act of September 7, 1944 (58 Stat. 730), which required a female member of the service to demonstrate her spouse’s dependency. It appears that this provision was itself derived from unspecified earlier enactments. See S. Rep. No. 917, 78th Cong., 2d Sess., 4.
The medical benefits legislation, 10 U. S. C. § 1071 et seq., was enacted as the Dependents’ Medical Care Act of 1956. As such, it was designed to revise and make uniform the existing law relating to medical services for military personnel. It, too, appears to have carried forward, without explanation, the dependency provisions found in other military pay and allowance legislation. See H. R. Rep. No. 1805, 84th Cong., 2d Sess.; S. Rep. No. 1878, 84th Cong., 2d Sess.
See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 11 (1967); McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 191-192 (1964); Bolling v. Sharpe, supra, at 499.
See Graham v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 365, 372 (1971).
See Oyama v. California, 332 U. S. 633, 644-646 (1948); Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 216 (1944); Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943).
Brief for Appellee in No. 70-4, O. T. 1971, Reed v. Reed, p. 12.
Id., at 12-13.
Reed v. Reed, 93 Idaho 511, 514, 465 P. 2d 635, 638 (1970).
Indeed, the position of women in this country at its inception is reflected in the view expressed by Thomas Jefferson that women should be neither seen nor heard in society’s decisionmaking councils. See M. Gruberg, Women in American Politics 4 (1968). See also 2 A. de Toequeville, Democracy in America (Reeves trans. 1948).
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 562 (1964); see Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 336 (1972); Kramer v. Union Free School District, 395 U. S. 621, 626 (1969); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 370 (1886).
See generally The President’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities, A Matter of Simple Justice (1970); L. Kanowitz, Women and the Law: The Unfinished Revolution (1969) ; A. Montagu, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth (4th ed. 1964); The President’s Commission on the Status of Women, American Women (1963).
See, e. g., Note, Sex Discrimination and Equal Protection: Do We Need a Constitutional Amendment?, 84 Harv. L. Rev. 1499, 1507 (1971).
It is true, of course, that when viewed in the abstract, women do not constitute a small and powerless minority. Nevertheless, in part because of past discrimination, women are vastly underrepresented in this Nation’s decisionmaking councils. There has never been a female President, nor a female member of this Court. Not a single woman presently sits in the United States Senate, and only 14 women hold seats in the House of Representatives. And, as appellants point out, this underrepresentation is present throughout all levels of our State and Federal Government. See Joint Reply Brief of Appellants and American Civil Liberties Union (Amicus Curiae) 9.
See, e. g., Developments in the Law — Equal Protection, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1065, 1173-1174 (1969).
42 U. S. C. §§2000e-2 (a), (b), (c) (emphasis added). See generally, Sape & Hart, Title VII Reconsidered: The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 40 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 824 (1972); Developments in the Law — Employment Discrimination and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 84 Harv. L. Rev. 1109 (1971).
29 U. S. C. § 206 (d) (emphasis added). See generally Murphy, Female Wage Discrimination: A Study of the Equal Pay Act 1963— 1970, 39 U. Cin. L. Rev. 615 (1970).
H. R. J. Res. No. 208, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. (1972). In conformity with these principles, Congress in recent years has amended various statutory schemes similar to those presently under consideration so as to eliminate the differential treatment of men and women. See 5 U. S. C. §2108, as amended, 85 Stat. 644; 5 U. S. C. § 7152, as amended, 85 Stat. 644; 5 U. S. C. § 8341, as amended, 84 Stat. 1961; 38 U. S. C. § 102 (b), as amended, 86 Stat. 1092.
It should be noted that these statutes are not in any sense designed to rectify the effects of past discrimination against women. See Gruenwald v. Gardner, 390 F. 2d 591 (CA2), cert, denied, 393 U. S. 982 (1968); cf. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301 (1966). On the contrary, these statutes seize upon a group — women—who have historically suffered discrimination in employment, and rely on the effects of this past discrimination as a justification for heaping on additional economic disadvantages. Cf. Gaston County v. United States, 395 U. S. 285, 296-297 (1969).
In 1971, 43% of all women over the age of 16 were in the labor force, and 18% of all women worked full time 12 months per year. See U. S. Women’s Bureau, Dept, of Labor, Highlights of Women’s Employment & Education 1 (W. B. Pub. No. 72-191, Mar. 1972). Moreover, 41.5% of all married women are employed. See U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Dept, of Labor, Work Experience of the Population in 1971, p. 4 (Summary Special Labor Force Report, Aug. 1972). It is also noteworthy that, while the median income of a male member of the armed forces is approximately $3,686, see The Report of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force 51, 181 (1970), the median income for all women over the age of 14, including those who are not employed, is approximately $2,237. See Statistical Abstract of the United States Table No. 535 (1972), Source: U. S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 80. Applying the statutory definition of “dependency” to these statistics, it appears that, in the “median” family, the wife of a male member must have personal expenses of approximately $4,474, or about 75% of the total family income, in order to qualify as a “dependent.”
Tr. of Oral Arg. 27-28.
As noted earlier, the basic purpose of these statutes was to provide fringe benefits to members of the uniformed services in order to establish a compensation pattern which would attract career personnel through re-enlistment. See n. 3, supra, and accompanying text. Our conclusion in no wise invalidates the statutory schemes except insofar as they require a female member to prove the dependency of her spouse. See Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164 (1972); Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968); Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 469 F. 2d 466 (CA10 1972). See also 1 U. S. C. § 1.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This suit arose out of a proceeding before the National Railroad Adjustment Board. A dispute had arisen between the Order of Railroad Telegraphers (Telegraphers) and the Illinois Central Railroad Co. (Railroad) regarding the latter’s employment of a member of the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employees (Clerks) in a position which Telegraphers claimed should, under its collective bargaining agreement with Railroad, be assigned to a member of Telegraphers. After attempted settlement by negotiation had failed, Telegraphers submitted the dispute, in accordance with the Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, as amended, 48 Stat. 926, 45 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., to the Third Division of the National Railroad Adjustment Board. Notice of the proceeding was served by the Board on Telegraphers and Railroad. Railroad was then advised by letter that Clerks would prosecute a claim in the event that the rights of Clerks under their agreement with Railroad were adversely affected by the disposition of Telegraphers’ claim. Railroad filed a “submission” with the Board asserting that the disputed position involved clerical work of the type customarily performed by clerical forces in the industry and was in fact occupied by a member of Clerks, one Shears. Accordingly, Railroad contended, Telegraphers’ claim should be denied, but in any event notice and opportunity to be heard should be afforded Clerks and Shears.
The ten members of the Board, five representing labor and five representing the carriers, deadlocked on the merits and a Referee was appointed as a member of the Board, agreeably to § 3 First (1) of the Railway Labor Act. When Telegraphers’ claim came on for hearing on May 13, 1953, a carrier member of the Board objected that no notice had been served on Clerks pursuant to the requirement of § 3 First (j) of the Act:
“Parties may be heard either in person, by counsel, or by other representatives, as they may respectively elect, and the several divisions of the Adjustment Board shall give due notice of all hearings to the employee or employees and the carrier or carriers involved in any disputes submitted to them.”
This objection was considered in camera by the regular members of the Board, the Referee having been excluded, as the District Court found, “in accordance with the custom and practice of the Third Division.” An even division resulted and the objection did not carry. After the Board reconvened in public, and in the presence of the Referee, who was not requested to and did not vote on this issue, the carrier member recited that the motion had lost and reiterated his objection, but the hearing resumed.
On May 22, apparently after the hearing had ended but prior to any announcement of a decision, Railroad filed the present action against the Board as such, its individual members, and the Referee. Railroad alleged that the failure to give notice violated the Act and that an award to Telegraphers would not prevent Clerks from prosecuting a similar claim successfully. The complaint sought temporary and permanent injunctions directing the Board to issue notice to Clerks and Shears, and restraining it from proceeding with any disposition of the claim until such notice had been given. Telegraphers, on intervention, contended, inter alia, that the means of review prescribed by the Railway Labor Act was exclusive and deprived the District Court of jurisdiction, that Railroad had failed to exhaust its administrative remedies, that Railroad showed no injury, and that, in any event, under the Act the Board was not required to notify Shears and Clerks. The Board moved to dismiss on the ground that the action was premature, that other adequate administrative and judicial remedies existed and that Railroad was not threatened with irreparable injury.
The District Court held that Shears and Clerks were “employees involved” within § 3 First (j), that it was the “custom and practice” of the Third Division of the Board to deny notice and right to be heard to others than the parties to the specific claim before the Board, and that failure to do so was a denial of due process to the other interested persons and deprived the Board of jurisdiction. It issued a preliminary injunction restraining the Board from proceeding further in the matter unless formal notice was given to Shears and Clerks. On appeal by Telegraphers and the labor members of the Board, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that there could be “hardly any doubt” that Clerks and Shears were “involved” and that any award rendered without notice to them would be void and unenforceable. It rejected the contention that this action was premature because the award might be in favor of Railroad or the proceeding might be dismissed upon the deciding vote of the Referee based on failure to give notice. The court found that the Board had already refused to give notice and held that the Referee had no authority to cast a vote on a “procedural” matter. Since no administrative channel was found available for review of the failure to give notice, the court held that there was no need to await the conclusion of proceedings before the Board. Irreparable injury was found in the fact that Railroad would be required to devote time and money to what it deemed an invalid proceeding and was faced with the threat of a conflicting proceeding by Clerks. Emphasizing that this judicial proceeding did not constitute review of an award, but was “in the nature of mandamus” to compel the Board to perform its duty, the Court of Appeals affirmed, one judge dissenting. 212 F. 2d 22. We granted certiorari because serious questions concerning the administration of the Railway Labor Act are in issue. 348 U. S. 809.
We have been urged to resolve the present dispute regarding the requirement of notice to persons not formal parties to a submission to the Board, a dispute which has resulted in numerous conflicting decisions by the Board. This remains a perplexing problem despite the substantial agreement among Courts of Appeals which have considered the question in holding that notice is required to other persons in varying situations. The wording of the notice provision of § 3 First (j) does not give a clear answer. In the context of other related provisions it is certainly not obvious that in a situation like that now before us notice need be given beyond the parties to the submission. See § 3 First (i), (1), (m). Analogy to the law of parties as developed for judicial proceedings is not compelling and in any event does not approach constitutional magnitude. Both its history and the interests it governs show the Railway Labor Act to be unique. “The railroad world is like a state within a state. Its population of some three million, if we include the families of workers, has its own customs and its own vocabulary, and lives according to rules of its own making.” Garrison, The National Railroad Adjustment Board: A Unique Administrative Agency, 46 Yale L. J. 567, 568-569.
We have also been urged to reverse the holding of the lower court that a Referee may neither be appointed to resolve a deadlock on the question of notice nor, having been appointed to break a deadlock on the merits, vote to dismiss the proceeding because of failure to give the required notice. Again, we have been asked to judge Railroad’s present claim to relief on the basis of irreparable injuries which are alleged to flow from the dilemma in which Railroad will find itself if confronted either by an invalid award or a situation in which no valid award may be obtained. Railroad asserts that this dilemma is inevitable and will entail continuing industrial friction, the possibility of conflicting awards to both unions, and accumulating claims to back pay or damages which might have been avoided had notice been given and a valid award been rendered. If the award is against it, Railroad claims that it is at a loss to know whether to comply and be subjected both to suits to enjoin compliance and further Board proceedings by the third-party, or to refuse to comply and attempt to defend an enforcement proceeding brought under § 3 First (p).
At the lowest it is doubtful whether these hypothetical injuries are fairly to be deemed irreparable and without other adequate administrative or j udicial remedy. Assuming that the Act permits the Board to consider the claim of one union in the light of competing agreements between Railroad and other unions, see Order of Railway Conductors v. Pitney, 326 U. S. 561, does it permit “final and binding” awards to be rendered interpreting both contracts and resolving the independent claims of both unions in a single proceeding? See § 3 First (m). What, beyond proceedings under the Act, may third parties do to challenge an award in which they were improperly not permitted to participate? Compare Elgin, Joliet & Eastern R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711, with General Committee v. Missouri-K.-T. R. Co., 320 U. S. 323. To what extent may defects in an award be cured in an enforcement action under § 3 First (p), and are the detriments which are asserted to flow from refusal to comply and reliance upon an enforcement action sufficient to justify judicial intervention? Cf. Federal Trade Commission v. Claire Furnace Co., 274 U. S. 160. One thing is unquestioned. Were notice given to Clerks they could be indifferent to it; they would be within their legal rights to refuse to participate in the present proceeding. Clerks here have not attempted to intervene. They have merely stated an intention to bring a separate proceeding in case they are affected by an award in this case. Indeed Railroad refers to an understanding between Clerks and Telegraphers whereby the one will not intervene in proceedings initiated before the Board by the other, but will press its claims independently. And Clerks have joined in a brief of amicus curiae which asserts that third parties are not entitled to notice. We would thus have to consider whether those potential injuries alleged to flow solely from failure of Clerks to participate may be the basis for judicial intervention where there is neither a legal right of the complaining party to be free from such injuries nor any assurance that judicial action will afford relief.
These are perplexing questions. Their difficulty admonishes us to observe the wise limitations on our function and to confine ourselves to deciding only what is necessary to the disposition of the immediate case. Here relief is sought prior to any decision on the merits by the Board. Apart from some lower court’s dicta, there is no reason for holding, in the abstract, that any possible award would be rendered void by failure to give notice to an outside even if related interest that cannot be compulsorily joined as a party to the proceeding. The Board has jurisdiction over the only necessary parties to the proceeding and over the subject matter. If failure to give notice be treated as an error, in an award in favor of Railroad it would constitute at best harmless error which could not be made the basis of challenge by Railroad, Telegraphers or Clerks. Railroad’s resort to the courts has preceded any award, and one may be rendered which could occasion no possible injury to it. The inevitable result is to disrupt the proceedings of the Board. Its decision has already been delayed for more than two years.
It may be true, as the Court of Appeals observed, that this action must be viewed as “in the nature of mandamus” because mere injunctive relief would not prevent most of the injuries which Railroad seeks to avoid. But mandamus is itself governed by equitable considerations and is to be granted only in the exercise of sound discretion. We hold, in conformity with past decisions, that the injuries are too speculative to warrant resort to extraordinary remedies. See Eccles v. People’s Bank, 333 U. S. 426; Public Service Comm’n v. Wycoff Co., 344 U. S. 237; United States ex rel. Chicago G. W. R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 294 U. S. 50. Moreover, among the injuries asserted by Railroad, only the possibility that it is being put to needless expense incident to the pending Board proceeding will necessarily be involved if judicial relief is denied at this stage of the administrative process. Such expense is inadequate basis for intervention whether by mandamus or injunction. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41; Utah Fuel Co. v. Coal Comm’n, 306 U. S. 56.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Reed, Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Minton dissent.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The individual members of the Board also filed two diametrically opposite answers to the complaint. The five labor members objected to the grant of a preliminary injunction on grounds similar to those put forth by Telegraphers; the five carrier members generally agreed with the position of Railroad and supported the request for relief.
E. g., compare Award No. 2253 (3d Div., Aug. 10, 1943, H. Nathan Swaim, Referee) with Award No. 5432 (3d Div., Sept. 6, 1951, Jay S. Parker, Referee).
See, e. g., Nord v. Griffin, 86 F. 2d 481 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1936); Estes v. Union Terminal Co., 89 F. 2d 768 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1937); Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Templeton, 181 F. 2d 527 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1950); Kirby v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 188 F. 2d 793 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1951); but cf. Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. New Orleans, T. & M. R. Co., 156 F. 2d 1 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1946).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case deals with the question whether § 67c of the Bankruptcy Act, in determining priorities in the payment of claims, speaks as of the time of filing the petition in bankruptcy. The precise issue presented is whether a tax claim of the United States, secured by a lien perfected before the bankruptcy of the taxpayer and accompanied, at the time of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy, by the Collector of Internal Revenue’s actual possession of the bankrupt’s personal property, is required by § 67c of the Bankruptcy Act to be postponed in payment to debts owed by the bankrupt for wages to claimants specified in clause (2) of § 64a of that Act,* because the Collector later relinquished possession of such property to the trustee of the bankrupt’s estate for sale by him. We hold that the lien was valid and entitled to priority of payment as against the wage claims at the date of bankruptcy and that the Collector’s relinquishment of possession of the bankrupt’s property did not change the result.
The facts are undisputed. Before March 26, 1946, a Collector of Internal Revenue of the United States perfected a statutory lien upon the personal property of the Kessco Engineering Corporation, a California corporation, and took actual possession of such property pursuant to that lien. He attempted to sell such assets and received bids for them but did not complete the sale because the price obtainable was unsatisfactory to him. He instituted a second sale but abandoned it when he relinquished possession of the property to the trustee of the bankrupt’s estate. On March 26, 1946, the corporation filed its voluntary petition in bankruptcy in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, was adjudicated a bankrupt and George T. Goggin (who later became the trustee of the bankrupt’s estate and is the petitioner herein) was appointed receiver. Having qualified as receiver on March 28, 1946, he communicated with counsel for the Collector as to the Collector’s turning over to him the bankrupt’s personal property. In this connection, the referee in bankruptcy later made a finding of fact which was adopted by the District Court and is as follows:
“. . . the personal property of the bankrupt in the hands of the Collector of Internal Revenue, . . . was turned over to the said George T. Goggin, who accepted the terms and conditions of a telegram from J. P. Wenchel, Chief Counsel of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, reading as follows:
“ ‘Reference to telephone conversation today with Mr. Webb [member of the Los Angeles office of Internal Revenue] relative to Kessco Engineering Corporation, Bankrupt, no objection by this office to Collector relinquishing personal property to Trustee for sale. Government’s lien to attach to proceeds from sale subject to Trustee’s expenses including costs of sale.
J. P. Wenchel, Chief Counsel.’ ”
Goggin, in his final capacity as trustee for the bankrupt, caused these assets to be sold at public auction, pursuant to order of court. Having liquidated all assets which had come into his possession, he had on hand, on December 12, 1946, about $31,206.20, which the referee certified was insufficient to pay in full the expenses of administration, the lien claims, the prior labor claims and prior tax claims in the case. The gross amount of the amended claim of the Collector for taxes, penalties and interest was $78,865.03. The prior wage claims totaled $3,424.87. The Department of Employment of the State of California also filed a tax claim for $15,135, which was recorded as a lien on or about December 24, 1945. Neither the validity nor the amount of any of these claims is in issue here.
The present proceeding originated in a petition filed with the referee in bankruptcy by the trustee, seeking an order to show cause why the order of priority of the payment of the tax and prior wage claims and the expenses of administration should not be determined by the District Court. The referee made findings of fact and reached conclusions of law upon the basis of which he ordered that, from the monies in the possession of the trustee, there first be paid the expenses of administration and that the balance of such funds then in the hands of the trustee be paid to the Collector of Internal Revenue in partial payment of the Government’s tax claims and the interest thereon as prescribed by law. The .District Court adopted the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the referee and entered judgment thereon. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that judgment and held that, by virtue of the Collector’s relinquishment of his possession of the personal property of the bankrupt, the taxes due to the United States must be postponed, in payment, to the debts of the bankrupt for certain wage claims, pursuant to § 67c of the Bankruptcy Act. 165 F. 2d 155. Because of the importance of the issue in the administration of the Bankruptcy Act, we granted certiorari. 333 U. S. 860.
The bankrupt filed its petition and was adjudicated a bankrupt on March 26, 1946. The personal property of the bankrupt was then subject to the perfected statutory lien of the United States for taxes and that lien was accompanied by the actual physical possession of the property by a Collector of Internal Revenue on behalf of the United States. Those facts completely satisfy § 67c of the Bankruptcy Act. Subsequent events, such as the relinquishment of his possession by the Collector in favor of the trustee of the bankrupt’s estate for the purpose of facilitating a sale of the property by the trustee, are not material to the determination of the issue before us. The terms under which the Collector’s possession was relinquished are consistent with and support this result but the Government’s right to payment ahead of the wage claims was determined at the time of bankruptcy and did not arise out of the arrangement under which possession was relinquished to the trustee.
This general point of view in interpreting the Bankruptcy Act is one of long standing. In Everett v. Judson, 228 U. S. 474, 479, this Court said:
“We think that the purpose of the law was to fix the line of cleavage with reference to the condition of the bankrupt estate as of the time at which the petitioi t was filed and that the property which vests in the trustee at the time of adjudication is that which the bankrupt owned at the time of the filing of the petition.”
See also, Myers v. Matley, 318 U. S. 622, 626; United States v. Marxen, 307 U. S. 200, 207-208; Acme Harvester Co. v. Beekman Lumber Co., 222 U. S. 300, 307.
While § 67c was added to the Bankruptcy Act by the Chandler Act in 1938, we find nothing in it or in its legislative history to suggest an abandonment of the underlying point of view as to the time as of which it speaks and the general purpose of Congress to continue to safeguard interests under liens perfected before bankruptcy. City of Richmond v. Bird, 249 U. S. 174; In re Knox-Powell-Stockton Co., 100 F. 2d 979; In re Van Winkle, 49 F. Supp. 711. While § 64, as amended, somewhat readjusts priorities among unsecured claims, § 67 continues to recognize the validity of liens perfected before bankruptcy as against unsecured claims. Section 67b has clarified the validity of statutory liens, including those for taxes, even though arising or perfected while the debtor is insolvent and within four months of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy. It expressly recognizes that the validity of liens existing at the time of filing a petition in bankruptcy may be perfected under some circumstances after bankruptcy. Section 67c, as amended in 1938, does, however, introduce a new postponement in the payment of certain claims secured by liens to the payment of other claims specified in clauses (1) (for certain administrative expenses, etc.) and (2) (for certain wages) of § 64a. This subordination is, however, sharply limited. For example, it does not apply to statutory liens on real property, or to those actually enforced by sale before bankruptcy, or, in general, to liens on personal property when accompanied by actual possession of such property. The background of § 67c suggests a conscious purpose to give a narrowly limited priority to administrative expenses and to certain wage claims, at least in instances disclosing accumulations of unpaid taxes the priority of which wage earners had no good reason to suspect, and which might absorb the entire estate of the bankrupt unless postponed by these provisions. The purpose of § 67 in requiring a public warning of the existence of an enforceable statutory lien for taxes was served in the instant case not only by the steps taken to perfect the Government’s lien but by the Collector’s seizure and actual possession of the personal property of the taxpayer before the filing of the taxpayer’s petition in bankruptcy.
The validity of the lien for taxes as against the wage claimants was thus established at the time of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy and the Collector’s possession of the personal property of the bankrupt excluded the application of § 67c which otherwise would have postponed the payment of the tax claims to the payment of the claims for administrative expenses and wages specified in clauses (1) and (2) of § 64a. By his subsequent arrangement with the trustee for the sale of the bankrupt’s property, the Collector did not lose the right to priority of payment accorded to the perfected tax liens, at the time of bankruptcy, as against the wage claims.
The arrangement between the Collector and the trustee was a natural and proper one. While the amended claim for taxes, penalties and interest, dated August 28, 1946, amounted to $78,865.03, the original claim, filed with the notices of lien prior to March 26, 1946, amounted to only $40,921.94 (even including the interest and costs later computed to August 21, 1946). Of this sum the taxes themselves amounted only to $34,848.04. To meet this, the trustee of the bankrupt’s estate, on December 12, 1946, had on hand $31,206.20, evidently derived from the sale of the property originally held by the Collector. These figures, accordingly, suggest the possibility that, in March, 1946, it reasonably may have been supposed that a surplus above the amount of the Government’s tax claim might be realized from the sale of the assets then in the possession of the Collector. In that event, it would have been the obviously appropriate procedure for the trustee to sell that property free and clear of liens and encumbrances and then distribute the proceeds to the rightful claimants. Even though there was little or no prospect of realizing such a surplus, it was reasonable and appropriate for the trustee, with the consent of the lien holder, thus to sell the property and distribute its proceeds. See Van Huffel v. Harkelrode, 284 U. S. 225; 6 Remington on Bankruptcy §§ 2577-2578 (4th ed. 1937). The propriety of the present conclusion is emphasized by the fact that the opposite conclusion would, in many other cases, operate to the detriment both of unsecured creditors and of the statutory lien holders. It would compel a lien holder to retain his actual possession of the property in order to be sure of his full priority in the payment of his tax claim. He would be compelled to do this, even though by doing so the bankrupt’s property probably would yield a smaller sales price than if sold by the trustee. Furthermore, the lien holder would be brought into sharp conflict with the trustee whenever there was reason to suppose that the proceeds of the sale might equal or exceed the tax claims secured by the lien. Under such circumstances the bankruptcy court generally may order the sale of the bankrupt’s property by the trustee, free and clear of liens and encumbrances. See 4 Collier on Bankruptcy § § 70.97, 70.99 (14th ed. 1942); 6 Remington on Bankruptcy § 2583 (4th ed. 1937). Accordingly, we find no substantial support for the argument that the lien holder’s voluntary relinquishment of his possession of the bankrupt’s property, in favor of the bankrupt’s trustee, for the purpose of permitting the trustee to sell the property in this case, must carry with it, as a matter of law, a postponement of the payment of the lien holder’s tax claim to that of the claims for wages here presented.
For these reasons the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
As § 67b is referred to in § 67e and is material to its interpretation, both subdivisions of § 67 are quoted below:
“Sec. 67. Liens and Fraudulent Transfers.— . . .
“b. The provisions of section 60 of this Act to the contrary notwithstanding, statutory liens in favor of employees, contractors, mechanics, landlords, or other classes of persons, and statutory liens for taxes and debts owing to the United States or any State or subdivision thereof, created or recognized by the laws of the United States or of any State, may be valid against the trustee, even though arising or perfected while the debtor is insolvent and within four months prior to the filing of the petition in bankruptcy or of the original petition under chapter X, XI, XII, or XIII of this Act, by or against him. Where by such laws such liens are required to be perfected and arise but are not perfected before bankruptcy, they may nevertheless be valid, if perfected within the time permitted by and in accordance with the requirements of such laws, except that if such laws require the liens to be perfected by the seizure of property, they shall instead be perfected by filing notice thereof with the court.
“a. Where not enforced by sale before the filing of a petition in bankruptcy or of an original petition under chapter X, XI, XII, or XIII of this Act, though valid under subdivision b of this section, statutory liens, including liens for taxes or debts owing to the United States or to any State or subdivision thereof, on personal property not accompanied by possession of such property, and liens whether statutory or not, of distress for rent shall be postponed in payment to the debts specified in clauses (1) and (2) of subdivision a of section 64 of this Act, and, except as against other liens, such liens for wages or for rent shall be restricted in the amount of their payment to the same extent as provided for wages and rent respectively in subdivision a of section 64 of this Act.” (Italics supplied.)
Bankruptcy Act of 1898, c. 541, 30 Stat. 544, 564, as amended by the Chandler Act of June 22, 1938, c. 575, 52 Stat. 840, 875-877, 11 U. S. C. § 107 (b) and (c).
Not only the portions of § 64a specifying the wages here in controversy but those otherwise related to the issues of this case are quoted below:
“Sec. 64. Debts Which Have Priority. — a. The debts to have priority, in advance of the payment of dividends to creditors, and to be paid in full out of bankrupt estates, and the order of payment, shall be (1) the actual and necessary costs and expenses of preserving the estate subsequent to filing the petition; the fees for the referees’ salary fund and for the referees’ expense fund; the filing fees paid by creditors in involuntary cases; where property of the bankrupt, transferred or concealed by him either before or after the filing of the petition, shall have been recovered for the benefit of the estate of the bankrupt by the efforts and at the cost and expense of one or more creditors, the reasonable costs and expenses of such recovery; the costs and expenses of administration, including the trustee’s expenses in opposing the bankrupt’s discharge, the fees and mileage payable to witnesses as now or hereafter provided by the laws of the United States, and one reasonable attorney’s fee, for the professional services actually rendered, irrespective of the number of attorneys employed, to the petitioning creditors in involuntary cases and to the bankrupt in voluntary and involuntary cases, as the court may allow; (2) wages, not to exceed $600 to each claimant, which have been earned within three months before the date of the commencement of the proceeding, due to workmen, servants, clerks, or traveling or city salesmen on salary or commission basis, whole or part time, whether or not selling exclusively for the bankrupt; . . . (4) taxes legally due and owing by the bankrupt to the United States or any State or any subdivision thereof: Provided, That no order shall be made for the payment of a tax assessed against any property of the bankrupt in excess of the value of the interest of the bankrupt estate therein as determined by the court: And provided further, That, in case any question arises as to the amount or legality of any taxes, such question shall be heard and determined by the court; and (5) debts owing to any person, including the United States, who by the laws of the United States in [is] entitled to priority, and rent owing to a landlord who is entitled to priority by applicable State law: Provided, however, That such priority for rent to a landlord shall be restricted to the rent which is legally due and owing for the actual use and occupancy of the premises affected, and which accrued within three months before the date of bankruptcy.” (Italics supplied.)
Bankruptcy Act of 1898, c. 541, 30 Stat. 544, 563, as amended by the Chandler Act of June 22, 1938, c. 575, 52 Stat. 840, 874, and 60 Stat. 323,330,11 U. S. C. § 104 (a).
There is no issue here as to the amount of penalties or interest included in the Collector’s claim .for taxes or as to the date to which interest on such claim shall be computed. There is no issue here as to any difference between statutory liens which were perfected more than four months before the filing of the petition in bankruptcy or those perfected within less than that time. As the lien claimed by the United States exceeds the funds available, it has filed its brief in this Court as the sole real party in interest and in opposition to the wage claims. The respondent, Division of Labor Law Enforcement of the State of California, appears on behalf of all of the labor claimants. There also is no issue here as to the amount to be paid for the expenses of administration or the items which such expenses may include in addition to the costs of the sale made by the trustee.
Provision, not material here, was made that, if additional money came into the possession of the trustee, the court, upon notice to all necessary and proper parties, should determine the respective liens or priorities, if any there be, of the Collector of Internal Revenue, the prior labor claimants, the Department of Employment of the State of California and other tax claimants entitled to be heard.
See note 1, supra.
See Davis v. City of New York, 119 F. 2d 559. In that case the City perfected its lien for retail sales taxes by seizure of assets of the taxpayer, May 16, 1939. An involuntary petition in bankruptcy was filed, June 7, 1939, against the taxpayer and it was adjudicated a bankrupt, June 17,1939. The assets were thereafter sold in execution of the warrant issued by the city treasurer. The levy was held to be a valid statutory levy as against the trustee of the bankrupt’s estate and the City was allowed to retain the proceeds of the sale, under §§ 67b and 67c of the Bankruptcy Act, as amended in 1938. For a converse situation see City of New York v. Hall, 139 F. 2d 935. In that case the City perfected its lien on personal property of the taxpayer, arising out of long delinquent business and sales taxes, by the delivery of warrants on January 14, 1943, at 10:15 a. m., to the city’s warrant agent for execution and levy on the property. The actual levy on, and inventory of, the property and the posting of notices of sale were not effected until shortly after 4:30 p. m. In the meantime, at 4:22 p. m., an involuntary petition in bankruptcy was filed against the taxpayer and upon this he was adjudicated a bankrupt. Pursuant to an order of the bankruptcy court, a receiver sold the property and the court declined to order the net proceeds to be turned over to the City. The City was the holder of a statutory lien but, at the time of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy, the lien was not accompanied by actual possession of the personal property to which it attached. It, therefore, was subordinated, under § 67c of the Bankruptcy Act, to the administration expenses and wages covered by clauses (1) and (2) of § 64a. “Notwithstanding the admonition of Section 67, sub. c, the City chose to slumber on its rights. Congress intended to penalize such somnolence.” Id. at p. 936.
“Section 1. Meaning op Words and Phrases. — -The words and phrases used in this Act and in proceedings pursuant hereto shall, unless the same be inconsistent with the context, be construed as follows:
“(13) ‘Date of bankruptcy’, ‘time of bankruptcy’, ‘commencement of proceedings’, or ‘bankruptcy’, with reference to time, shall mean the date when the petition was filed; . . . .” 30 Stat. 544, as amended by 52 Stat. 840-841.
“. . . the rights of creditors are fixed by the Bankruptcy Act as of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy. This is true both as to the bankrupt and among themselves. The assets at that time are segregated for the benefit of creditors. The transfer of the assets to someone for application to ‘the debts of the insolvent, as the rights and priorities of creditors may be made to appear’ [citing Bramwell v. U. S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 269 U. S. 483, 490], takes place as of that time.” United States v. Marxen, 307 U. S. 200, 207-208.
“The general rule in bankruptcy is that the filing of the petition freezes the rights of all parties interested in the bankrupt estate. Exceptions only emphasize the rule. Whatever disagreement in opinion there may have been on the matter prior to the Act of 1938, it is now clear that statutory liens may be valid if they arise before bankruptcy although they are perfected after bankruptcy, if the perfection is within the time permitted by and in accordance with the requirements of applicable law.” 4 Collier on Bankruptcy 228-229 (14th ed. 1942).
These provisions apparently originated in Amendments proposed by the National Bankruptcy Conference which were before Congress in a Committee Report Analysis of H. R. 12889, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. (1936). This report states that the bill was introduced by Mr. Chandler, May 28, 1936, containing Amendments proposed by the National Bankruptcy Conference, and the several Sections are accompanied by explanatory notes. Section 67c, as there proposed, resembles substantially the Section as finally enacted. The note explanatory of it, attributed to Jacob I. Weinstein, a member of the Conference, includes the following statement:
“Section 64 [of the Bankruptcy Act before amendment by the Chandler Act] is declaratory of a policy that the costs and expenses in connection with a bankruptcy proceeding and its administration shall be first paid in distribution. It is a sound policy and is in accordance with the general principles well established in liquidation proceedings. But Section 67 of the Act does not apply the same limitation with respect to valid liens. The Supreme Court, in the case of City of Richmond v. Bird, [249 U. S. 174,] 43 A. B. R. 260 (1919), resolved the conflict in the lower court decisions by holding that the priority provisions of Section 64 do not apply to liens valid under Section 67. . . .
"It is significant that in recent years state legislatures have been enacting special legislation in favor of tax claims, public debts, and a variety of private claims. Statistics in the bankruptcy cases show that the effective administration of the bankruptcy law has seriously suffered therefrom. Such claims, particularly tax liens, often consume the entire estate, leaving nothing for the payment of the costs and expenses of administration incurred in reducing the assets to cash. In many such cases the tax liens represent an accumulation of delinquent items covering a long period of time, without any attempt on the part of tax collectors to enforce payment prior to the bankruptcy proceeding.
“There is therefore need for a provision to protect the administration costs and expenses; and similar considerations apply to wage claims. Accordingly we have selected, from among the priorities fixed by Section 64 (as revised), these particular items for protection. However, by reason of the historical development and the inherent differences existing in the incidents attaching to real and personal property, it would seem advisable to restrict the remedy thus provided to liens on personal property, where such liens have not been enforced by sale prior to bankruptcy.” (Italics supplied.) Id. at p. 212 n. 1.
At that time the bill did not also except from subordination statutory tax liens on personal property “accompanied by possession of such property.” The addition of that clause gives it special emphasis and suggests its appropriate effect as a warning to other claimants that the property, so possessed, will not be available in the first instance for the administrative expenses and wage claims specified in clauses (1) and (2) of § 64a.
The report filed by Mr. Chandler for the Committee on the Judiciary, July 29, 1937, to accompany the bill then known as H. It. 8046 merely stated: “In subdivisions b and c statutory liens are protected and permitted to be perfected if the time allowed by law for perfecting them has not expired.” H. R. Rep. No. 1409, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 34 (1937), and see references to §§64 and 67c on pp. 9, 15-16.
See also, Weinstein, The Bankruptcy Law of 1938 (1938):
“This subdivision is new and is designed to correct an inequitable condition which existed under the old Act, particularly with respect to tax liens allowed, through the inaction of tax authorities, to be accumulated over a long period of time. Frequently, such liens consumed the entire estate, even to the exclusion of the costs and expenses incurred in the proceeding. While subd. a of sec. 64 provides for priority of payment of such costs and expenses, such payment is prior only to the other unsecured debts and does not affect or impair valid liens, whether statutory or otherwise. But tax claims may take the form of unsecured debts due to the sovereign, and thus payable by way of priority in the order as provided in sec. 64, or the form of liens created by local statutes. As indicated, if the tax claim takes the form of a lien, or is reduced to the form of a lien, it is not affected by the provisions of sec. 64. In view of the inequitable condition above referred to, there was need for a provision to protect the administration costs and expenses, and like considerations of public policy required a similar protection for wage claimants. However, the historical development, and the inherent differences in the incidents attaching to real and personal property, made it advisable to restrict the remedy provided by this paragraph to liens on personal property; but, in respect even to personal property, the provisions are applicable only where the property has not been reduced to possession or where the liens have not been enforced by sale prior to bankruptcy." (Italics supplied in the second instance.) (At pp. 144r-145.)
The only question then arising would be as to the extent to which the trustee might deduct from those proceeds his general expenses of administration, as well as the costs of the sale itself. This question was touched upon in the agreement with the trustee but no issue is presented here as to it.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 ROBERTSdelivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal law makes it a crime to transmit in interstate commerce "any communication containing any threat ... to injure the person of another." 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). Petitioner was convicted of violating this provision under instructions that required the jury to find that he communicated what a reasonable person would regard as a threat. The question is whether the statute also requires that the defendant be aware of the threatening nature of the communication, and-if not-whether the First Amendment requires such a showing.
I
A
Anthony Douglas Elonis was an active user of the social networking Web site Facebook. Users of that Web site may post items on their Facebook page that are accessible to other users, including Facebook "friends" who are notified when new content is posted. In May 2010, Elonis's wife of nearly seven years left him, taking with her their two young children. Elonis began "listening to more violent music" and posting self-styled "rap" lyrics inspired by the music. App. 204, 226.
Eventually, Elonis changed the user name on his Facebook page from his actual name to a rap-style nom de plume, "Tone Dougie," to distinguish himself from his "on-line persona." Id., at 249, 265. The lyrics Elonis posted as "Tone Dougie" included graphically violent language and imagery. This material was often interspersed with disclaimers that the lyrics were "fictitious," with no intentional "resemblance to real persons." Id.,at 331, 329. Elonis posted an explanation to another Facebook user that "I'm doing this for me. My writing is therapeutic." Id.,at 329; see also id., at 205 (testifying that it "helps me to deal with the pain").
Elonis's co-workers and friends viewed the posts in a different light. Around Halloween of 2010, Elonis posted a photograph of himself and a co-worker at a "Halloween Haunt" event at the amusement park where they worked. In the photograph, Elonis was holding a toy knife against his co-worker's neck, and in the caption Elonis wrote, "I wish." Id.,at 340. Elonis was not Facebook friends with the co-worker and did not "tag" her, a Facebook feature that would have alerted her to the posting. Id.,at 175; Brief for Petitioner 6, 9. But the chief of park security was a Facebook "friend" of Elonis, saw the photograph, and fired him. App. 114-116; Brief for Petitioner 9.
In response, Elonis posted a new entry on his Facebook page:
"Moles! Didn't I tell y'all I had several? Y'all sayin' I had access to keys for all the f***in' gates. That I have sinister plans for all my friends and must have taken home a couple. Y'all think it's too dark and foggy to secure your facility from a man as mad as me? You see, even without a paycheck, I'm still the main attraction. Whoever thought the Halloween Haunt could be so f***in' scary?" App. 332.
This post became the basis for Count One of Elonis's subsequent indictment, threatening park patrons and employees.
Elonis's posts frequently included crude, degrading, and violent material about his soon-to-be ex-wife. Shortly after he was fired, Elonis posted an adaptation of a satirical sketch that he and his wife had watched together. Id.,at 164-165, 207. In the actual sketch, called "It's Illegal to Say ...," a comedian explains that it is illegal for a person to say he wishes to kill the President, but not illegal to explain that it is illegal for him to say that. When Elonis posted the script of the sketch, however, he substituted his wife for the President. The posting was part of the basis for Count Two of the indictment, threatening his wife:
"Hi, I'm Tone Elonis.
Did you know that it's illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife? ...
It's one of the only sentences that I'm not allowed to say....
Now it was okay for me to say it right then because I was just telling you that it's illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife....
Um, but what's interesting is that it's very illegal to say I really, really think someone out there should kill my wife....
But not illegal to say with a mortar launcher.
Because that's its own sentence....
I also found out that it's incredibly illegal, extremely illegal to go on Facebook and say something like the best place to fire a mortar launcher at her house would be from the cornfield behind it because of easy access to a getaway road and you'd have a clear line of sight through the sun room....
Yet even more illegal to show an illustrated diagram. [diagram of the house]...." Id.,at 333.
The details about the home were accurate. Id.,at 154. At the bottom of the post, Elonis included a link to the video of the original skit, and wrote, "Art is about pushing limits. I'm willing to go to jail for my Constitutional rights. Are you?" Id.,at 333.
After viewing some of Elonis's posts, his wife felt "extremely afraid for [her] life." Id.,at 156. A state court granted her a three-year protection-from-abuse order against Elonis (essentially, a restraining order). Id.,at 148-150. Elonis referred to the order in another post on his "Tone Dougie" page, also included in Count Two of the indictment:
"Fold up your [protection-from-abuse order] and put it in your pocket
Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?
Try to enforce an Order
that was improperly granted in the first place
Me thinks the Judge needs an education
on true threat jurisprudence
And prison time'll add zeros to my settlement ...
And if worse comes to worse
I've got enough explosives
to take care of the State Police and the Sheriff's Department." Id.,at 334.
At the bottom of this post was a link to the Wikipedia article on "Freedom of speech." Ibid.Elonis's reference to the police was the basis for Count Three of his indictment, threatening law enforcement officers.
That same month, interspersed with posts about a movie Elonis liked and observations on a comedian's social commentary, id.,at 356-358, Elonis posted an entry that gave rise to Count Four of his indictment:
"That's it, I've had about enough
I'm checking out and making a name for myself
Enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined
And hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a Kindergarten class
The only question is ... which one?" Id.,at 335.
Meanwhile, park security had informed both local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation about Elonis's posts, and FBI Agent Denise Stevens had created a Facebook account to monitor his online activity. Id.,at 49-51, 125. After the post about a school shooting, Agent Stevens and her partner visited Elonis at his house. Id.,at 65-66. Following their visit, during which Elonis was polite but uncooperative, Elonis posted another entry on his Facebook page, called "Little Agent Lady," which led to Count Five:
"You know your s***'s ridiculous
when you have the FBI knockin' at yo' door
Little Agent lady stood so close
Took all the strength I had not to turn the b**** ghost
Pull my knife, flick my wrist, and slit her throat
Leave her bleedin' from her jugular in the arms of her partner
[laughter]
So the next time you knock, you best be serving a warrant
And bring yo' SWAT and an explosives expert while you're at it
Cause little did y'all know, I was strapped wit' a bomb
Why do you think it took me so long to get dressed with no shoes on?
I was jus' waitin' for y'all to handcuff me and pat me down
Touch the detonator in my pocket and we're all goin'
[BOOM!]
Are all the pieces comin' together?
S***, I'm just a crazy sociopath
that gets off playin' you stupid f***s like a fiddle
And if y'all didn't hear, I'm gonna be famous
Cause I'm just an aspiring rapper who likes the attention
who happens to be under investigation for terrorism
cause y'all think I'm ready to turn the Valley into Fallujah
But I ain't gonna tell you which bridge is gonna fall
into which river or road
And if you really believe this s***
I'll have some bridge rubble to sell you tomorrow
[BOOM!][BOOM!][BOOM!]" Id.,at 336.
B
A grand jury indicted Elonis for making threats to injure patrons and employees of the park, his estranged wife, police officers, a kindergarten class, and an FBI agent, all in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). App. 14-17. In the District Court, Elonis moved to dismiss the indictment for failing to allege that he had intended to threaten anyone. The District Court denied the motion, holding that Third Circuit precedent required only that Elonis "intentionally made the communication, not that he intended to make a threat." App. to Pet. for Cert. 51a. At trial, Elonis testified that his posts emulated the rap lyrics of the well-known performer Eminem, some of which involve fantasies about killing his ex-wife. App. 225. In Elonis's view, he had posted "nothing ... that hasn't been said already." Id.,at 205. The Government presented as witnesses Elonis's wife and co-workers, all of whom said they felt afraid and viewed Elonis's posts as serious threats. See, e.g., id.,at 153, 158.
Elonis requested a jury instruction that "the government must prove that he intended to communicate a true threat." Id.,at 21. See also id.,at 267-269, 303. The District Court denied that request. The jury instructions instead informed the jury that
"A statement is a true threat when a defendant intentionally makes a statement in a context or under such circumstances wherein a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by those to whom the maker communicates the statement as a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily injury or take the life of an individual." Id.,at 301.
The Government's closing argument emphasized that it was irrelevant whether Elonis intended the postings to be threats-"it doesn't matter what he thinks." Id.,at 286. A jury convicted Elonis on four of the five counts against him, acquitting only on the charge of threatening park patrons and employees. Id.,at 309. Elonis was sentenced to three years, eight months' imprisonment and three years' supervised release.
Elonis renewed his challenge to the jury instructions in the Court of Appeals, contending that the jury should have been required to find that he intended his posts to be threats. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that the intent required by Section 875(c)is only the intent to communicate words that the defendant understands, and that a reasonable person would view as a threat. 730 F.3d 321, 332 (C.A.3 2013).
We granted certiorari. 573 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 2819, 189 L.Ed.2d 784 (2014).
II
A
An individual who "transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another" is guilty of a felony and faces up to five years' imprisonment. 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). This statute requires that a communication be transmitted and that the communication contain a threat. It does not specify that the defendant must have any mental state with respect to these elements. In particular, it does not indicate whether the defendant must intend that his communication contain a threat.
Elonis argues that the word "threat" itself in Section 875(c)imposes such a requirement. According to Elonis, every definition of "threat" or "threaten" conveys the notion of an intent to inflict harm. Brief for Petitioner 23. See United States v. Jeffries,692 F.3d 473, 483 (C.A.6 2012)(Sutton, J., dubitante). E.g.,11 Oxford English Dictionary 353 (1933) ("to declare (usually conditionally) one's intention of inflicting injury upon"); Webster's New International Dictionary 2633 (2d ed. 1954) ("Law,specif., an expression of an intention to inflict loss or harm on another by illegal means"); Black's Law Dictionary 1519 (8th ed. 2004) ("A communicated intent to inflict harm or loss on another").
These definitions, however, speak to what the statement conveys-not to the mental state of the author. For example, an anonymous letter that says "I'm going to kill you" is "an expression of an intention to inflict loss or harm" regardless of the author's intent. A victim who receives that letter in the mail has received a threat, even if the author believes (wrongly) that his message will be taken as a joke.
For its part, the Government argues that Section 875(c)should be read in light of its neighboring provisions, Sections 875(b)and 875(d). Those provisions also prohibit certain types of threats, but expressly include a mental state requirement of an "intent to extort." See 18 U.S.C. § 875(b)(proscribing threats to injure or kidnap made "with intent to extort"); § 875(d)(proscribing threats to property or reputation made "with intent to extort"). According to the Government, the express "intent to extort" requirements in Sections 875(b)and (d)should preclude courts from implying an unexpressed "intent to threaten" requirement in Section 875(c). See Russello v. United States,464 U.S. 16, 23, 104 S.Ct. 296, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983)("[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.").
The Government takes this expressio unius est exclusio alteriuscanon too far. The fact that Congress excluded the requirement of an "intent to extort" from Section 875(c)is strong evidence that Congress did not mean to confine Section 875(c)to crimes of extortion. But that does not suggest that Congress, at the same time, also meant to exclude a requirement that a defendant act with a certain mental state in communicating a threat. The most we can conclude from the language of Section 875(c)and its neighboring provisions is that Congress meant to proscribe a broad class of threats in Section 875(c), but did not identify what mental state, if any, a defendant must have to be convicted.
In sum, neither Elonis nor the Government has identified any indication of a particular mental state requirement in the text of Section 875(c).
B
The fact that the statute does not specify any required mental state, however, does not mean that none exists. We have repeatedly held that "mere omission from a criminal enactment of any mention of criminal intent" should not be read "as dispensing with it." Morissette v. United States,342 U.S. 246, 250, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952). This rule of construction reflects the basic principle that "wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal." Id.,at 252, 72 S.Ct. 240.As Justice Jackson explained, this principle is "as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil." Id.,at 250, 72 S.Ct. 240. The "central thought" is that a defendant must be "blameworthy in mind" before he can be found guilty, a concept courts have expressed over time through various terms such as mens rea,scienter, malice aforethought, guilty knowledge, and the like. Id., at 252, 72 S.Ct. 240; 1 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 5.1, pp. 332-333 (2d ed. 2003). Although there are exceptions, the "general rule" is that a guilty mind is "a necessary element in the indictment and proof of every crime." United States v. Balint,258 U.S. 250, 251, 42 S.Ct. 301, 66 L.Ed. 604 (1922). We therefore generally "interpret [ ] criminal statutes to include broadly applicable scienter requirements, even where the statute by its terms does not contain them." United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc.,513 U.S. 64, 70, 115 S.Ct. 464, 130 L.Ed.2d 372 (1994).
This is not to say that a defendant must know that his conduct is illegal before he may be found guilty. The familiar maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse" typically holds true. Instead, our cases have explained that a defendant generally must "know the facts that make his conduct fit the definition of the offense," Staples v. United States,511 U.S. 600, 608, n. 3, 114 S.Ct. 1793, 128 L.Ed.2d 608 (1994), even if he does not know that those facts give rise to a crime.
Morissette,for example, involved an individual who had taken spent shell casings from a Government bombing range, believing them to have been abandoned. During his trial for "knowingly convert[ing]" property of the United States, the judge instructed the jury that the only question was whether the defendant had knowingly taken the property without authorization. 342 U.S., at 248-249, 72 S.Ct. 240. This Court reversed the defendant's conviction, ruling that he had to know not only that he was taking the casings, but also that someone else still had property rights in them. He could not be found liable "if he truly believed [the casings] to be abandoned." Id.,at 271, 72 S.Ct. 240; see id.,at 276, 72 S.Ct. 240.
By the same token, in Liparota v. United States,we considered a statute making it a crime to knowingly possess or use food stamps in an unauthorized manner. 471 U.S. 419, 420, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 85 L.Ed.2d 434 (1985). The Government's argument, similar to its position in this case, was that a defendant's conviction could be upheld if he knowingly possessed or used the food stamps, and in fact his possession or use was unauthorized. Id.,at 423, 105 S.Ct. 2084. But this Court rejected that interpretation of the statute, because it would have criminalized "a broad range of apparently innocent conduct" and swept in individuals who had no knowledge of the facts that made their conduct blameworthy. Id.,at 426, 105 S.Ct. 2084. For example, the statute made it illegal to use food stamps at a store that charged higher prices to food stamp customers. Without a mental state requirement in the statute, an individual who unwittingly paid higher prices would be guilty under the Government's interpretation. Ibid. The Court noted that Congress couldhave intended to cover such a "broad range of conduct," but declined "to adopt such a sweeping interpretation" in the absence of a clear indication that Congress intended that result. Id.,at 427, 105 S.Ct. 2084. The Court instead construed the statute to require knowledge of the facts that made the use of the food stamps unauthorized. Id.,at 425, 105 S.Ct. 2084.
To take another example, in Posters 'N' Things, Ltd. v. United States,this Court interpreted a federal statute prohibiting the sale of drug paraphernalia. 511 U.S. 513, 114 S.Ct. 1747, 128 L.Ed.2d 539 (1994). Whether the items in question qualified as drug paraphernalia was an objective question that did not depend on the defendant's state of mind. Id.,at 517-522, 114 S.Ct. 1747. But, we held, an individual could not be convicted of selling such paraphernalia unless he "knew that the items at issue [were] likely to be used with illegal drugs." Id.,at 524, 114 S.Ct. 1747. Such a showing was necessary to establish the defendant's culpable state of mind.
And again, in X-Citement Video,we considered a statute criminalizing the distribution of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. 513 U.S., at 68, 115 S.Ct. 464. We rejected a reading of the statute which would have required only that a defendant knowingly send the prohibited materials, regardless of whether he knew the age of the performers. Id.,at 68-69, 115 S.Ct. 464. We held instead that a defendant must also know that those depicted were minors, because that was "the crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful conduct." Id.,at 73, 115 S.Ct. 464. See also Staples, 511 U.S., at 619, 114 S.Ct. 1793(defendant must know that his weapon had automatic firing capability to be convicted of possession of such a weapon).
When interpreting federal criminal statutes that are silent on the required mental state, we read into the statute "only that mens reawhich is necessary to separate wrongful conduct from 'otherwise innocent conduct.' " Carter v. United States,530 U.S. 255, 269, 120 S.Ct. 2159, 147 L.Ed.2d 203 (2000)(quoting X-Citement Video, 513 U.S., at 72, 115 S.Ct. 464). In some cases, a general requirement that a defendant actknowingly is itself an adequate safeguard. For example, in Carter,we considered whether a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), for taking "by force and violence" items of value belonging to or in the care of a bank, requires that a defendant have the intent to steal. 530 U.S., at 261, 120 S.Ct. 2159. We held that once the Government proves the defendant forcibly took the money, "the concerns underlying the presumption in favor of scienter are fully satisfied, for a forceful taking-even by a defendant who takes under a good-faith claim of right-falls outside the realm of ... 'otherwise innocent' " conduct. Id.,at 269-270, 120 S.Ct. 2159. In other instances, however, requiring only that the defendant act knowingly "would fail to protect the innocent actor." Id.,at 269, 120 S.Ct. 2159. A statute similar to Section 2113(a)that did not require a forcible taking or the intent to steal "would run the risk of punishing seemingly innocent conduct in the case of a defendant who peaceably takes money believing it to be his." Ibid.In such a case, the Court explained, the statute "would need to be read to require ... that the defendant take the money with 'intent to steal or purloin.' " Ibid.
C
Section 875(c), as noted, requires proof that a communication was transmitted and that it contained a threat. The "presumption in favor of a scienter requirement should apply to eachof the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct." X-Citement Video,513 U.S., at 72, 115 S.Ct. 464(emphasis added). The parties agree that a defendant under Section 875(c)must know that he is transmitting a communication. But communicating something is not what makes the conduct "wrongful." Here "the crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful conduct" is the threatening nature of the communication. Id.,at 73, 115 S.Ct. 464. The mental state requirement must therefore apply to the fact that the communication contains a threat.
Elonis's conviction, however, was premised solely on how his posts would be understood by a reasonable person. Such a "reasonable person" standard is a familiar feature of civil liability in tort law, but is inconsistent with "the conventional requirement for criminal conduct-awarenessof some wrongdoing." Staples,511 U.S., at 606-607, 114 S.Ct. 1793(quoting United States v. Dotterweich,320 U.S. 277, 281, 64 S.Ct. 134, 88 L.Ed. 48 (1943); emphasis added). Having liability turn on whether a "reasonable person" regards the communication as a threat-regardless of what the defendant thinks-"reduces culpability on the all-important element of the crime to negligence," Jeffries,692 F.3d, at 484(Sutton, J., dubitante), and we "have long been reluctant to infer that a negligence standard was intended in criminal statutes," Rogers v. United States,422 U.S. 35, 47, 95 S.Ct. 2091, 45 L.Ed.2d 1 (1975)(Marshall, J., concurring) (citing Morissette,342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288). See 1 C. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 27, pp. 171-172 (15th ed. 1993); Cochran v. United States,157 U.S. 286, 294, 15 S.Ct. 628, 39 L.Ed. 704 (1895)(defendant could face "liability in a civil action for negligence, but he could only be held criminally for an evil intent actually existing in his mind"). Under these principles, "what [Elonis] thinks" does matter. App. 286.
The Government is at pains to characterize its position as something other than a negligence standard, emphasizing that its approach would require proof that a defendant "comprehended [the] contents and context" of the communication. Brief for United States 29. The Government gives two examples of individuals who, in its view, would lack this necessary mental state-a "foreigner, ignorant of the English language," who would not know the meaning of the words at issue, or an individual mailing a sealed envelope without knowing its contents. Ibid. But the fact that the Government would require a defendant to actually know the words of and circumstances surrounding a communication does not amount to a rejection of negligence. Criminal negligence standards often incorporate "the circumstances known" to a defendant. ALI, Model Penal Code § 2.02(2)(d)(1985). See id.,Comment 4, at 241; 1 LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 5.4, at 372-373. Courts then ask, however, whether a reasonable person equipped with that knowledge, not the actual defendant, would have recognized the harmfulness of his conduct. That is precisely the Government's position here: Elonis can be convicted, the Government contends, if he himself knew the contents and context of his posts, and a reasonable person would have recognized that the posts would be read as genuine threats. That is a negligence standard.
In support of its position the Government relies most heavily on Hamling v. United States,418 U.S. 87, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974). In that case, the Court rejected the argument that individuals could be convicted of mailing obscene material only if they knew the "legal status of the materials" distributed. Id.,at 121, 94 S.Ct. 2887. Absolving a defendant of liability because he lacked the knowledge that the materials were legally obscene "would permit the defendant to avoid prosecution by simply claiming that he had not brushed up on the law." Id.,at 123, 94 S.Ct. 2887. It was instead enough for liability that "a defendant had knowledge of the contents of the materials he distributed, and that he knew the character and nature of the materials." Ibid.
This holding does not help the Government. In fact, the Court in Hamlingapproved a state court's conclusion that requiring a defendant to know the character of the material incorporated a "vital element of scienter" so that "not innocent but calculated purveyance of filth ... is exorcised." Id.,at 122, 94 S.Ct. 2887(quoting Mishkin v. New York,383 U.S. 502, 510, 86 S.Ct. 958, 16 L.Ed.2d 56 (1966); internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, "calculated purveyance" of a threat would require that Elonis know the threatening nature of his communication. Put simply, the mental state requirement the Court approved in Hamlingturns on whether a defendant knew the character of what was sent, not simply its contents and context.
Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, see post,at 2019 - 2020, 2022 - 2023 (opinion of THOMAS, J.), nothing in Rosen v. United States,161 U.S. 29, 16 S.Ct. 434, 40 L.Ed. 606 (1896), undermines this reading. The defendant's contention in Rosenwas that his indictment for mailing obscene material was invalid because it did not allege that he was aware of the contents of the mailing. Id.,at 31-33, 16 S.Ct. 434. That is not at issue here; there is no dispute that Elonis knew the words he communicated. The defendant also argued that he could not be convicted of mailing obscene material if he did not know that the material "could be properly or justly characterized as obscene." Id.,at 41, 16 S.Ct. 434. The Court correctly rejected this "ignorance of the law" defense; no such contention is at issue here. See supra,at 2009.
* * *
In light of the foregoing, Elonis's conviction cannot stand. The jury was instructed that the Government need prove only that a reasonable person would regard Elonis's communications as threats, and that was error. Federal criminal liability generally does not turn solely on the results of an act without considering the defendant's mental state. That understanding "took deep and early root in American soil" and Congress left it intact here: Under Section 875(c), "wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal." Morissette,342 U.S., at 252, 72 S.Ct. 240.
There is no dispute that the mental state requirement in Section 875(c)is satisfied if the defendant transmits a communication for the purpose of issuing a threat, or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 25, 56. In response to a question at oral argument, Elonis stated that a finding of recklessness would not be sufficient. See id.,at 8-9. Neither Elonis nor the Government has briefed or argued that point, and we accordingly decline to address it. See Department of Treasury, IRS v. FLRA,494 U.S. 922, 933, 110 S.Ct. 1623, 108 L.Ed.2d 914 (1990)(this Court is "poorly situated" to address an argument the Court of Appeals did not consider, the parties did not brief, and counsel addressed in "only the most cursory fashion at oral argument"). Given our disposition, it is not necessary to consider any First Amendment issues.
Both Justice ALITO and Justice THOMAS complain about our not deciding whether recklessness suffices for liability under Section 875(c). Post,at 2013 - 2014 (ALITO, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); post, at 2018 - 2019 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). Justice ALITO contends that each party "argued" this issue, post, at 2014, but they did not address it at all until oral argument, and even then only briefly. See Tr. of Oral Arg. at 8, 38-39.
Justice ALITO also suggests that we have not clarified confusion in the lower courts. That is wrong. Our holding makes clear that negligence is not sufficient to support a conviction under Section 875(c), contrary to the view of nine Courts of Appeals. Pet. for Cert. 17. There was and is no circuit conflict over the question Justice ALITO and Justice THOMAS would have us decide-whether recklessness suffices for liability under Section 875(c). No Court of Appeals has even addressed that question. We think that is more than sufficient "justification," post, at 2014 (opinion of ALITO, J.), for us to decline to be the first appellate tribunal to do so.
Such prudence is nothing new. See United States v. Bailey,444 U.S. 394, 407, 100 S.Ct. 624, 62 L.Ed.2d 575 (1980)(declining to decide whether mental state of recklessness or negligence could suffice for criminal liability under 18 U.S.C. § 751, even though a "court may someday confront a case" presenting issue); Ginsberg v. New York,390 U.S. 629, 644-645, 88 S.Ct. 1274, 20 L.Ed.2d 195 (1968)(rejecting defendant's challenge to obscenity law "makes it unnecessary for us to define further today 'what sort of mental element is requisite to a constitutionally permissible prosecution' "); Smith v. California,361 U.S. 147, 154, 80 S.Ct. 215, 4 L.Ed.2d 205 (1959)(overturning conviction because lower court did not require any mental element under statute, but noting that "[w]e need not and most definitely do not pass today on what sort of mental element is requisite to a constitutionally permissible prosecution"); cf. Gulf Oil Co. v. Bernard,452 U.S. 89, 103-104, 101 S.Ct. 2193, 68 L.Ed.2d 693 (1981)(finding a lower court's order impermissible under the First Amendment but not deciding "what standards are mandated by the First Amendment in this kind of case").
We may be "capable of deciding the recklessness issue," post, at 2014 (opinion of ALITO, J.), but following our usual practice of awaiting a decision below and hearing from the parties would help ensure that we decide it correctly.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third 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: | 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 Court granted certiorari, 368 U. S. 966, to review the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, holding that in a diversity action in the Federal District Court, state law, here that of Oklahoma, governs in determining whether an action is “legal” or “equitable” for the purpose of deciding whether a claimant has a right to a jury trial. Applying Oklahoma law, the Court of Appeals decided that a jury trial, although asked for by petitioner, was not here appropriate. 295 F. 2d 534.
In this Court respondent frankly concedes that, contrary to the Court of Appeals holding, federal law governs in determining the right to a jury trial in the federal courts. Respondent seeks to sustain the result reached by the Court of Appeals, however, on the twin grounds that, applying federal law, no jury was required in this case because (1) the District Court properly granted summary judgment for.respondent under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and (2) the present action is “equitable” and not “legal” in character.
We agree with respondent that the right to a jury trial in the federal courts is to be determined as a matter of federal law in diversity as well as other actions. The federal policy favoring jury trials is of historic and continuing strength. Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 446-449; Scott v. Neely, 140 U. S. 106; Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., 356 U. S. 525, 537-539; Beacon Theatres, Inc., v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500; Dairy Queen, Inc., v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469. Only through a holding that the jury-trial right is to be determined according to federal law can the uniformity in its exercise which is demanded by the Seventh Amendment be achieved. In diversity cases, of course, the substantive dimension of the claim asserted finds its source in state law, Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64; see Cities Service Oil Co. v. Dunlap, 308 U. S. 208; Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U. S. 109, but the characterization of that state-created claim as legal or equitable for purposes of whether a right to jury trial is indicated must be made by recourse to federal law.
However, we do not agree with respondent that in this case a summary judgment was warranted or that this is an “equitable” action not requiring a jury trial.
In two appeals in this case, the Court of Appeals has ruled that in view of conflicting facts presented by affidavits and depositions to the District Court, summary judgment was not warranted. We accept and do not disturb the ruling of the Court of Appeals on this phase of the case since it has ample support in the record.
On the question whether, as a matter of federal law, the instant action is legal or equitable, we conclude that it is “legal” in character. The record discloses that the controversy between petitioner and respondent in substance involves the amount of fees petitioner, a client, is obligated to pay respondent, his lawyer. Petitioner admits his obligation to pay a “reasonable” fee under a contingent fee retainer contract stipulating that reasonableness may be set in a court trial. Respondent relies on a subsequent contract specifying 50% of the recovery, under certain circumstances, as the amount of the fee. Petitioner counters that the latter contract is the product of fraud and overreaching by the lawyer.
The case was in its basic character a suit to determine and adjudicate the amount of fees owing to a lawyer by a client under a contingent fee retainer contract, a traditionally “legal” action. See Trist v. Child, 21 Wall. 441, 447; Stanton v. Embrey, 93 U. S. 548. The fact that the action is in form a declaratory judgment case should not obscure the essentially legal nature of the action. The questions involved are traditional common-law issues which can be and should have been submitted to a jury under appropriate instructions as petitioner requested.
Accordingly, the courts below erred in denying petitioner the jury trial guaranteed him by the Seventh Amendment and the judgment is reversed.
Reversed.
“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” U. S. Const., Amend. VII.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is before us to determine the constitutionality of a Florida statute entitled “Uniform Law to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses from Within or Without a State in Criminal Proceedings.” Fla. Stat., 1957, §§ 942.01-942.06. Respondent, a citizen of Illinois, had traveled to Florida to attend a convention. . In accordance with the Florida statute, the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida, responded to. a certificate executed by a judge of the Court of General Sessions, New York County (under N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 618-a), by summoning' respondent before it to determine whether he was to be given into the custody of New York authorities to be transported to New York to. testify in a grand jury proceeding in that State. The Circuit Court, ruling that the Florida statute violated the Florida and the United States Constitutions, refused to grant New York’s request. 9 Fla. Supp. 153. The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed this decision on the ground that the statute violated the United States Constitution. 100 So. 2d 149. We granted certiorari, 356 U. S. 972, inasmuch as this holding brings into question the constitutionality of a statute now in force in forty-two States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. (Thirty-mne States and Puerto Rico joined in an amici brief in support of thé Uniform Act.) The certificate filed with the Circuit Court of Dade' County recites that respondent’s testimony is desired by a New York County grand jury. That certificate is, under the terms of the statute, “prima facie evidence of all the facts stated therein.” Fla. Stat., 1957, §942.02 (2). Therefore, on the face of the record, respondent’s attendance at a grand jury investigation in New York is required by the certificate filed with the Florida court and not withdrawn from it. Neither party has suggested that this is not a live litigation nor do we find any ground for deeming the case to be moot.
The Uniform Act as enacted by the Florida Legislature in 1941 was formulated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in its present form in 1936. See Handbook of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws 333 (1936); 9 U. L. A; 91 (1957). The Uniform Act is reciprocal. It is operative only bétween States which have enacted it or similar legislation for compelling of witnesses to travel to, and testify in, sister States.
The terms of the statute make quite clear the procedures to be followed. The judge of the court of the requesting State files in any court of record in the State in which the witness may be found a certificate stating the necessity of the appearance of such witness in a criminal prosecution or grand jury investigation in the requesting State. The certificate must also state the number of days the witness would be required to attend. Upon receipt of such a certificate , a hearing is held by the court in which it is filed. In the hearing, at which under the Florida Act the witness.is entitled to counsel, the court which received this certificate is obliged to determine whether, an order to attend the prosecution or grand jury investigation in the requesting State would comply with conditions.set forth in the statute: that the witness is material and necessary; that the trip to the requesting State would not involve undue hardship to the witness; that the laws of the requesting State and States through which the witness must travel grant him immunity from arrest and the service of civil and criminal process. Furthermore, the statute provides that the witness must be tendered ten cents a mile for each mile to and from the requesting State and five dollars for each day that he is required to travel and attend as a witness. Under the statute the order of the forwarding State to the witness may take two forms: first, the court may .issue a summons directing the witness to attend and testify in the requesting State; second, if the certificate of the requesting State so recommends, and if the recommendation is found to be desirable by the court of the forwarding State, the court may immediately deliver the witness, to an officer of the requesting State. Furthermore,. if such a recommendation is made by the requesting State, instead of the initial notification of hearing the court of the forwarding State may take the witness into immediate custody. Whether the procedure be by notification and then summons or by apprehension and then delivery, the hearing and the issues to be determined therein are the' same.
In Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66, Mr. Chief Justice Taney, speaking of the Obligation imposed by the Constitution upon the Governor of Ohio to deliver to Kentucky one accused of violátion of the criminal laws of Kentucky, called attention “to the obvious policy and necessity of this provision to preserve harmony between States, and order and law within their respective borders . . . .” 24 How., at 103. The samé “policy and necessity” underlie the measure adopted by Florida and forty-two other jurisdictions. Unless there is some provision in the United States Constitution which clearly prevents States from accomplishing this end by the means chosen, this Court must sustain the Uniform Act. The absence of a provision in the United States Constitution specifically granting power to the States to legislate respecting interstate rendition of witnesses presents no bar. To argue from the declaratory incorporation in the Constitution, Art. IV, § 2, of the ancient political policy among the Colonies of delivering up fugitives from justice an implied denial of the right to fashion other cooperative arrangements for the effective administration of justice, is to reduce the Constitution to a rigid, detailed and niggardly, code. In adjudging the validity of a statute effecting a new form of relationship between States, the search is not for a specific constitutional authorization for it. Rather, according the statute the full benefit of the presumption of constitutionality'which is the postulate of constitutional adjudication, wé must find clear incompatibility with the United States Constitution. The range of state power is not defined and delimited by an enumeration of legislative subject-matter. The Constitution did not purport to exhaust imagination and resourcefulness in devising fruitful interstate relationships. It is not tó be construed to limit the variety of arrangements which are possible through the voluntary and cooperative actions of individual States with a view to increasing harmony within the federalism created by the Constitution. Far from being divisive, this legislation is a catalyst of cohesion. It is within the unrestricted area of action left to the States by the .Constitution.
The Supreme Court of Florida found that the statute violated the Privileges and Immunities Clauses found in' Art. IV, § 2, and in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art.' IV, § 2; proscribes discrimination by a State against a citizen • of another State. Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 77. There is no such discrimination here. The Florida statute applies to all persons within the boundaries, and therefore subject to the jurisdiction, of Florida. The finding of the Florida Supreme Court that the right to ingress.and egress is a privilege of national citizenship protected by the Fourteenth Ametidment raises an issue that has more than ■ once been stirred in opinions of this Court. See concurring opinions in Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, 178 and 184, in connection with Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35. However, even if broad scope be given to such a privilege, there is no violation of that privilege by the Florida statute. Florida undoubtedly could have held respondent within Florida if he had been a material witness in a criminal proceeding within that State. And yet this would not have been less of a limitation on his claim of the right of ingress and egress than is an order to attend and testify in New York. There are restrictions on the exercise of the claimed constitutional right. One such restriction derives from the obligation to give testimony. This obligation has been sustained where it necessitated travel across the Atlantic Ocean. Blackmer v. United States, 284 U. S. 421.
•More fundamentally, this case does not involve freedom of travel in its essential sense. At most it represents a temporary interference with voluntary travel. Partic-' ularly is this so in an era of jet transportation when vast distances can be traversed in a matter of hours. Respondent was perfectly free to return to Florida after testifying in New York. Indeed, New York was obligated to pay his way back to Florida. Or, after testifying, he could return to Illinois or remain in New York. The privilege of ingress and egress among the States which has been urged in opinions is of hardier stuff. The privilege was to prevent the walling off of States, what has been called the Balkanization of the Nation. The requirement which respondent resists conduces, it merits repetition, toward a free-willed collaboration of independent States.
The more relevant challenge to the statute invalidated by the Supreme Court of Florida is that it denies due process' of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because of the generous protections to be accorded a person brought or summoned before the court of the forwarding State, procedural due process in the hearing itself must be accorded and this, is firmly established. The Circuit Court of Dade County ruled that the absence of any provision for bail in the procedure of apprehension and delivery violated due process of lavy. Since the Supreme Court of Florida expressly refrained from ruling whether the failure of the statute to provide for bail for persons attached and delivered violated either the Florida Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment, and since silence on bail is not tantamount to proscription of bail, the claim that this silence of the statute is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment is a hypothetical question which need not now be considered. We may add that the sole claim before us, as it was the sole claim dealt with by the Supreme Court of Florida, is that, the statute i&> unconstitutional on its face. No claim is before us that the administration of the statute in the particular circumstances of this case violates due process.
The Supreme Court of Florida held that inasmuch as what was ordered was to be carried on in a foreign jurisdiction, the Florida courts could not constitutionally be given jurisdiction to order it (citing Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714). However, the Florida courts had immediate personal jurisdiction over respondent by virtue of his presence within that State. Insofar as the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, this gave the Florida courts constitutional jurisdiction to order an act even though that act is to be performed outside of the State. See Steele v. Bulova Watch Co., 344 U. S. 280; Restatement, Conflict of Laws, § 94.
The primary purpose of -this Act is not eleemosynary. It serves a self-protective function for each of the enacting States. By enacting this law the Florida Legislature authorized and enabled Florida courts to employ the procedures of other jurisdictions for the obtaining of witnesses needed in criminal proceedings in Florida. Today forty-two States and Puerto Rico may facilitate criminal proceedings, otherwise impeded by the unavailability of material witnesses,-by utilizing the machinery of this reciprocal legislation to obtain such witnesses from with-, out their boundaries. This is not a merely altruistic, disinterested enactment.
In any event, to yield to an argument that benefiting other States is beyond the power of a State would completely disregard the inherent implications of bur federalism within whose framework our organic society lives and moves and has its being — the abundant and complicated interrelationship between national authority and the States, see Hopkins Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Cleary, 296 U. S. 315, and between the States inter sese. To yield to this argument would foreclose to the States virtually all arrangements which increase comity among the States. These extra-constitutional arrangements are designed to solve “problems created by a constitutional division of powers without disturbance of the federal nature of our government.” Clark, Joint Activity Between Federal and State Officials, 51 Pol. Sci. Q. 230, 269. Reciprocal legislation,, such as the Uniform Law to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses from Within or Without a State in Criminal Proceedings and the Acts providing reciprocal periods of grace in the registration of out-of-state automobiles, see Kane v. New Jersey, 242 U. S. 160, is one such arrangement. The ■uniform laws proposed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and adopted by individual States have (among other benefits) increased ease of interstate commercial relationships by providing uniformity in commercial laws through uniform Acts governing sales and negotiable instruments. Uniform laws have frequently been concerned with enforcement of criminal laws. Thus, the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, 9 U. L. A. 263 (1957), provides for rendition of alleged criminals whose conduct does not bring them within the constitutional extradition provision. U. S. Const., Art. IV, § 2; Hyatt v. People ex rel. Corkran, 188 U. S. 691. There are numerous cooperative undertakings among States by the formation of agencies which study joint problems and make suggestions ■ for internal management within individual States calculated to increase comity among the several States. Interstate preserves are regulated through the device of fusion of distinct state administrative agencies by means of joint sessions and joint action. The Federal Government has also acted in aid of States in matters of local concern through auxiliary legislation (in game statutes, for example), through grarits-in-a’d, and through legislation calling for cooperation be ween particular state , administrative agencies and federal agencies operating within the same general area of regulation. See Frankfurter and Landis, The Compact Clause of the Constitution — A Study in Interstate Adjustments, 34 Yale L. J. 685, 688-691! About' such instances it has been said that they “illustrate extra-constitutional forms of legal invention for the solution of problems touching, more than one state. They were neither contemplated nor specifically provided for by the Constitution.” Frankfurter .and Landis, supra, at 691.
The manifold arrangements by which the Federal' and State Governments collaborate constitute an extensive network of cooperative governmental activities not formulated in the Constitution but not offensive to any of its provisions or prohibitions. See Clark, supra. Among the examples of such devices discussed by Dr. Clark are the Selective Service System, Civilian Conservation Corps, deportation law enforcement, administration of the Pure Food and Drugs Act and the federal game statutes, and federal-state contracts for the boarding of federal prisoners in state facilities.
To hold that these and other arrangements are beyond the power of the States and Federal Goyernment because there is no specific empowering provision in the United States Constitution would be to take án unwarrantedly constricted view of state and national powers and would hobble the effective functioning of' our federalism. Diffusion of power has its corollary of diffusion of responsibilities, with its stimulus to cooperative effort in devising ways and means for making the federal system work. That is not a mechanical structure. It is an interplay of living forces of government to meet the evolving needs of a complex society.
The Constitution of the United States does not preclude resourcefulness of relationships between States on matters as to which there is no grant of power to Congress and as to whieh the range of .authority restricted within an individual State is inadequate. By reciprocal, voluntary legislation the States have invented methods to accomplish fruitful and unprohibited ends.' A citizen cannot shirk his duty, no matter how inconvenienced thereby, to testify in criminal proceedings and grand jury investigations in a State where he is found. There is no constitutional provision granting him relief from this obligation to testify , even though he must travel to another State to do so. Comity among States, an end particularly to be cherished when the object is enforcement of internal criminal laws, is not to be defeated by an a priori restrictive view of state power.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is reversed, and the cause is remanded to that court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Compulsion to travel across State boundaries to testify in sister States antedates the United States Constitution. See Laws of Maryland, November 1785, Chapter I, An ACT to approve, confirm and ratify, the'compact made by the commissioners appointed by the general assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the commissioners appointed by this state, to regulate and settle the jurisdiction and navigation of Patowmack and Pocomoke rivers, and that part of Chesapeake bay which lieth withiri the territory of Virginia: “And in all cases of trial in pursuance of the jurisdiction settled by this compact, citizens of either state shall attend as. witnesses in the other, upon a summons from any court or magistrate having jurisdiction, being served by a proper officer of the county where such citizen shalLreside.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this federal income tax case is whether the respondent, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company (CB&Q), an interstate common carrier railroad, may depreciate the cost of certain facilities paid for prior to June 22, 1954, not by it or by its shareholders, but from public funds.
Starting about 1930, CB&Q entered into a series of contracts with various Midwestern States. By these agreements the States were to fund some or all of the costs of construction of specified improvements, and the railroad apparently was to bear, at least in part, the costs of maintenance and replacement of the improvements once they had been installed. In 1933, as part of the program of the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195, Congress authorized federal reimbursement to the States of the shares of the costs the States incurred in the construction of those improvements that inured to the benefit of public safety and improved highway traffic control. In 1944 Congress went further and authorized reimbursement, with stated limitations, to the States for the entire cost of the improvements, subject to the condition that a railroad that received a benefit from a facility so constructed was liable to the Government for up to 10% of the cost of the project pro rata in relation to the benefit received by the railroad.
Under these programs CB&Q received, at public expense, highway undercrossings and overcrossings having a cost of $1,538,543; crossing signals, signs, and floodlights having a cost of $548,877; and jetties and bridges having a cost of $58,721. These improvements, aggregating $2,146,141, were carried on the railroad’s books as capital assets even though most of the agreements between CB&Q and the several States did not expressly convey title to the railroad.
CB&Q instituted a timely suit in the Court of Claims alleging, among other things, that it had overpaid its 1955 federal income tax because it had failed to assert, as a deduction on its return as filed, allowable depreciation on the subsidized assets. By a 4-to-3 decision on this issue (only one of several in the case), the Court of Claims concluded that, under § 167 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 167, CB&Q was entitled to the depreciation deduction it claimed. This was on the theory that the subsidies qualified as contributions to the railroad’s capital under §§ 362 and 1052 (c) of that Code, 26 U. S. C. §§ 362 and 1052 (c), and under § 113 (a)(8) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939.
In arriving at this conclusion, the Court of Claims majority relied on Brown Shoe Co. v. Commissioner, 339 U. S. 583 (1950), and reasoned that, even though the governmental payments for the facilities may not have been intended as contributions to the railroad’s capital, the “principal purpose” being, instead, “to benefit the community-at-large,” 197 Ct. Cl., at 276, 455 F. 2d, at 1000, the facilities did in fact enlarge the railroad’s working capital, were used in its business, and produced economic benefits for it, thereby qualifying as contributions to its capital under the cited section of the 1939 Code. The three dissenting judges disagreed with this interpretation of Brown Shoe, and, instead, relied on Detroit Edison Co. v. Commissioner, 319 U. S. 98 (1943). They concluded that the critical features were the donor’s attitude, purpose, and intent, and that, with governmental payments, there could be no intention to confer a benefit upon CB&Q. Instead, as the findings revealed, the intention was to expedite traffic flow and to improve public safety at highway-railroad crossings. 197 Ct. Cl., at 315, 320, 455 F. 2d, at 1023, 1026.
Because the Court of Claims decision apparently would afford a precedent for the tax treatment of substantial sums, we granted certiorari. 409 U. S. 947.
I
Section 23 (l) of the 1939 Code and its successor, § 167 (a) of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. § 167 (a), allow a taxpayer “as a depreciation deduction a reasonable allowance for the exhaustion, wear and tear ... of property used in the trade or business.” In the usual situation the taxpayer himself incurs cost in acquiring the assets as to which the depreciation deduction is asserted. But there are other and different situations formally recognized in the governing tax statutes. A familiar example is gift property. Another is property acquired by a corporation from its shareholders as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to capital. Another, and the one that is pertinent here, is covered by § 113 (a)(8) of the 1939 Code and by the contrasting provisions of §§ 362 (a) and (c) of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. §§362 (a) and (c). This concerns a contribution to capital by a nonshare-holder. See Treas. Reg. Ill, § 29.113 (a)(8)-l (1943). Under §§ 113 (a)(8) and 114 (a) of the earlier Code, the nonshareholder-contributed asset in the hands of the receiving corporation had the same basis, subject to adjustment, for depreciation purposes as it had in the hands of the transferor; under the 1954 Code, however, its basis for the transferee is zero.
Pertinent to all this is the Court’s decision in Edwards v. Cuba R. Co., 268 U. S. 628 (1925). The Court there held that subsidies granted by the Cuban Government to a railroad to promote construction in Cuba “were not profits or gains from the use or operation of the railroad,” and did not constitute income to the receiving corporation. Id., at 633. The holding in Edwards, taken with § 113 (a)(8) of the 1939 Code, produced a seemingly anomalous result, for it meant that a corporate taxpayer receiving property from a nonshareholder as a contribution to capital not only received the property free from income tax but was allowed to assert a deduction for depreciation on the asset so received tax free. This result also ensued under the Court’s holding in Brown Shoe and led to the enactment of the zero-basis provision, referred to above, in § 362 (c) of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. § 362 (c). Veterans Foundation v. Commissioner, 317 F. 2d 456, 458 (CA10 1963).
CB&Q argues that this very result should follow here. It is said that the railroad received no taxable income and incurred no income tax liability when it received, at governmental expense prior to June 22, 1954, the facilities as to which CB&Q now asserts depreciation. And, in providing the facilities, CB&Q argues, the Government intended to make a contribution to the railroad’s capital, within the meaning of § 113 (a)(8), thereby permitting CB&Q to depreciate the Government’s cost in the assets. Whether the governmental subsidies qualified as income to the railroad is an issue not raised in this case, and we intimate no opinion with respect to it. The United States, however, asserts that the subsidies did not constitute a “contribution to capital” under §113 (a)(8), and that, accordingly, the transferee railroad’s tax basis is zero and no depreciation deduction is available.
Our inquiry, therefore, is a narrow one: whether the nonshareholder payment in this case constituted a “contribution to capital,” within the meaning of § 113 (a) (8). Because both Detroit Edison and Brown Shoe bear upon the issue, we turn to those two decisions.
l — l 1 — 1
Detroit Edison concerned customers’ payments to a utility for the estimated costs of construction of service facilities (primary power lines) that the utility otherwise was not obligated to provide. For its tax years 1936 and 1937, to which the Revenue Act of 1936, 49 Stat. 1648, applied, the utility claimed the full cost of the facilities in its base for computing depreciation. The Commissioner disallowed, for depreciation purposes, that portion of the cost paid by customers and not refundable. The Board of Tax Appeals, 45 B. T. A. 358 (1941), and the Court of Appeals, 131 F. 2d 619 (CA6 1942), sustained the Commissioner. This Court affirmed.
Mr. Justice Jackson, speaking for a unanimous Court (the Chief Justice not participating), observed, “The end and purpose of it all [depreciation] is to approximate and reflect the financial consequences to the taxpayer of the subtle effects of time and use on the value of his capital assets.” 319 U. S., at 101. The statute, § 113 (a) of the 1936 Act, it was said, “means . . . cost to the taxpayer,” even though the property “may have a cost history quite different from its cost to the taxpayer.” Also, the “taxpayer’s outlay is the measure of his re-coupment through depreciation accruals.” 319 U. S., at 102. The utility’s attempt to avoid this result by its contention that the payments were gifts or contributions to its capital, and entitled to the transferors’ bases, was rejected.
“It is enough to say that it overtaxes imagination to regard the farmers and other customers who furnished these funds as makers either of donations or contributions to the Company. The transaction neither in form nor in substance bore such a semblance.
“The payments were to the customer the price of the service. . . . They have not been taxed as income. . . . But it does not follow that the Company must be permitted to recoup through untaxed depreciation accruals on investment it has refused to make.” Id., at 102-103.
Detroit Edison, by itself, would appear almost to foreclose CB&Q’s claims here, for there is an obvious parallel between the customers’ payment for the utility service facilities in Detroit Edison, and the governmental payments for improvements to the railroad’s service facilities in the case before us.
But Detroit Edison was not the last word. Brown Shoe was decided seven years later, and the opposite tax result was reached by an 8-1 vote of the Court, with Mr. Justice Black in dissent without opinion.
Brown Shoe concerned a corporate taxpayer’s excess profits tax, under the Second Revenue Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 974, as amended, for its fiscal years 1942 and 1943. Community groups paid cash or transferred property to the taxpayer as an inducement for the location or expansion of factory operations in their communities. Contracts were entered into, and in each instance the taxpayer obligated itself to locate or enlarge a facility in the community and to operate it for at least a minimum term. The value of the payments and transfers was the focus of the controversy between the taxpayer and the Commissioner, for depreciation on the transferred assets was claimed and their inclusion in equity invested capital was asserted. The Tax Court overruled the Commissioner’s disallowance with respect to the acquisitions paid for with cash, but sustained the Commissioner with respect to buildings transferred. 10 T. C. 291 (1948). The Court of Appeals upheld the Commissioner on both items. 175 F. 2d 305 (CA8 1949). This Court reversed.
Mr. Justice Clark, writing the opinion for the majority of the Court, concluded that the assets transferred by the community groups to the taxpayer were contributions to capital, within the meaning of § 113 (a)(8) of the 1939 Code. The Court noted that in time they would wear out and, if the taxpayer continued in business, the physical plant eventually would have to be replaced. Detroit Edison was cited and recognized, but was considered not to be controlling. In Brown Shoe there were "neither customers nor payments for service,” and therefore the Court “may infer a different purpose in the transactions between petitioner and the community groups.” 339 U. S., at 591. The only expectation of the groups was that “such contributions might prove advantageous to the community at large.” Thus, it was said, “the transfers manifested a definite purpose to enlarge the working capital of the company.” Ibid.
The Court thus professed to distinguish and not at all to overrule Detroit Edison. It did so on an analysis of the purposes behind the respective transfers in the two cases. Where the facts were such that the trans-ferors could not be regarded as having intended to make contributions to the corporation, as in Detroit Edison, the assets transferred were not depreciable. But where the transfers were made with the purpose, not of receiving direct service or recompense, but only of obtaining advantage for the general community, as in Brown Shoe, the result was a contribution to capital.
Ill
It seems fair to say that neither in Detroit Edison nor in Brown Shoe did the Court focus upon the use to which the assets transferred were applied, or upon the economic and business consequences for the transferee corporation. Instead, the Court stressed the intent or motive of the transferor and determined the tax character of the transaction by that intent or motive. Thus, the decisional distinction between Detroit Edison and Brown Shoe rested upon the nature of the benefit to the transferor, rather than to the transferee, and upon whether that benefit was direct or indirect, specific or general, certain or speculative. These factors, of course, are simply indicia of the transferor’s intent or motive.
That this line of inquiry, and these distinctions, have relatively little to do with the economic and business consequences of the transaction seems self-evident. In both cases the assets transferred were actually used in the transferee's trade or business for the production of income. In neither case did the transferee provide the investment for the assets sought to be depreciated. Yet in both cases, the assets in question were transferred for a consideration pursuant to an agreement. If, at first glance, Detroit Edison and Brown Shoe seem somewhat inconsistent, they may be reconciled, and indeed must be, on the ground that in Detroit Edison the transferor intended no contribution to the transferee’s capital, whereas in Brown Shoe the transferors did have that intent.
The statutory phrase “contribution to capital” is nowhere expressly defined in either the 1939 Code or the 1954 Code, and our prior decisions provide only limited guidance as to its precise meaning. Detroit Edison might be said to be only a holding that a payment for services is not a contribution to capital. Brown Shoe sheds little additional light, for the Court stated only that because the community payments were not compensation for specific services rendered, and did not constitute gifts, they must have been made in order to enlarge the working capital of the company. 339 U. S., at 591.
But other characteristics of a contribution to capital are implicit in the two cases and become apparent when viewed in the light of the facts presently before us. In Brown Shoe, for example, the contributed funds were intended to benefit not only the transferors but the transferee as well, for the assets were put to immediate use by the taxpayer for the generation of additional income. Without benefit to the taxpayer, the agreement certainly would not have been made. Perhaps to some extent this was true in Detroit Edison; that taxpayer, however, was a public utility, and the anticipated revenue from the service lines to the customers would not have warranted the investment by the utility itself. 319 U. S., at 99. Its benefit, therefore, was marginal.
We can distill from these two cases some of the characteristics of a nonshareholder contribution to capital under the Internal Revenue Codes. It certainly must become a permanent part of the transferee’s working capital structure. It may not be compensation, such as a direct payment for a specific, quantifiable service provided for the transferor by the transferee. It must be bargained for. The asset transferred foreseeably must result in benefit to the transferee in an amount commensurate with its value. And the asset ordinarily, if not always, will be employed in or contribute to the production of additional income and its value assured in that respect.
By this measure, the assets with which this case is concerned clearly do not qualify as contributions to capital. Although the assets were not payments for specific, quantifiable services performed by CB&Q for the Government as a customer, other characteristics of the transaction lead us to the conclusion that, despite this, the assets did not qualify as contributions to capital. The facilities were not in any real sense bargained for by CB&Q. Indeed, except for the orders by state commissions and the governmental subsidies, the facilities most likely would not have been constructed at all. See Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Walters, 294 U. S. 405, 421-424 (1935). The transaction in substance was unilateral: CB&Q would accept the facilities if the Government would require their construction and would pay for them. Any incremental economic benefit to CB&Q from the facilities was marginal; its extent and importance were indicated and accounted for by the requirement that the railroad pay not to exceed 10% of the cost in relation to its own benefit. The facilities were peripheral to its business and did not materially contribute to the production of further income by the railroad. They simply replaced existing facilities or provided new, better, and safer ones where none otherwise would have been deemed necessary. As the Court of Claims found, the facilities were constructed “primarily for the benefit of the public to improve safety and to expedite highway traffic flow,” and the need of the railroad for capital funds was not considered, 197 Ct. Cl., at 326. While some incremental benefit from lower accident rates, from reduced expenses of operating crossing facilities, and from possibly higher train speed might have resulted, these were incidental and insubstantial in relation to the value now sought to be depreciated, and they were presumably considered in computing the railroad’s maximum 10% liability under the Act. In our view, no substantial incremental benefit in terms of the production of income was foreseeable or taken into consideration at the time the facilities were transferred. Accordingly, no contribution to capital was effected.
CB&Q nevertheless contends that it is entitled to depreciate the facilities because of its obligation to maintain and replace them. Whatever may be the desirability of creating a depreciation reserve under these circumstances, as a matter of good business and accounting practice, the answer is, as Judge Davis of the Court of Claims observed in dissent, 197 Ct. Cl., at 318, 455 F. 2d, at 1025, “Depreciation reflects the cost of an existing capital asset, not the cost of a potential replacement.” Reisinger v. Commissioner, 144 F. 2d 475, 478 (CA2 1944). See United States v. Ludey, 274 U. S. 295, 300-301 (1927); Weiss v. Wiener, 279 U. S. 333, 335-336 (1929); Helvering v. Lazarus Co., 308 U. S. 252, 254 (1939); Massey Motors v. United States, 364 U. S. 92 (1960); Fribourg Nav. Co. v. Commissioner, 383 U. S. 272 (1966).
We conclude that the governmental subsidies did not constitute contributions to CB&Q’s capital, within the meaning of §113 (a)(8) of the 1939 Code; that the assets in question in the hands of CB&Q have a zero basis, under §§113 and 114 of that Code and § 1052 (c) of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. § 1052 (c); and that CB&Q is therefore precluded from claiming a depreciation allowance with respect to those assets. The judgment of the Court of Claims on this issue is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
National Industrial Recovery Act, §204 (a)(1), 48 Stat. 203.
Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, §5, 58 Stat. 840.
The Court of Claims, both the majority and dissenters, asserted, and indeed found, that the $1,538,543 figure related to highway undercrossings and overcrossings. 197 Ct. Cl. 264, 271-272, 325, 455 F. 2d 993, 997-998 (1972). CB&Q, in its Brief, p. 3, and in oral argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 25, claims that this figure has to do only with railroad bridges and that the assets sought to be depreciated relate only to railroad use. According to CB&Q, no facilities directly related to highway use are involved. Inasmuch as the resolution of this factual issue would not affect the result we reach, it need not be resolved.
The parties are in agreement as to what the adjusted bases of the assets in question would be, and as to the applicable rates of depreciation, if depreciation for tax purposes is allowable at all.
The Trial Commissioner and the Court of Claims made the following finding of fact:
“9. The facilities noted in finding 7 were constructed primarily for the benefit of the public to improve safety and to expedite highway traffic flow. Plaintiff [CB&Q], however, received benefits from the facilities, among others, probable lower accident rates, reduced expenses of operating crossing facilities, and, where permitted, higher train speed limits, all of which permitted plaintiff to function more efficiently and presumably less expensively.” 197 Ct. CL, at 326-327.
The Solicitor General asserts, Pet. for Cert. 15-16, that $623,000,000 in federal funds were paid out for projects and improvements at railroad-highway grade crossings alone between 1934 and 1954. See U. S. Department of Transportation, Report to Congress: Railroad-Highway Safety, Part I: A Comprehensive Statement of the Problem 38 (1971). The Commissioner of Internal Revenue estimates that, taking into account grants of this kind to railroads and federal grants to utility companies, depreciation on property with asserted cost bases between a half billion and one billion dollars is dependent upon the resolution of this issue and is still litigable. Pet. for Cert. 16.
Section 113 (a) of the 1939 Code and § 1012 of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. § 1012, state the general rule that the “basis of property shall be the cost of such property.”
Section 113 (a)(2) of the 1939 Code provides that with respect to “property . . . acquired by gift after December 31, 1920, the basis shall be the same as it would be in the hands of the donor or the last preceding owner by whom it was not acquired by gift, except . . . .” This provision was carried over into § 1015 (a) of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. § 1015 (a). The language of § 362 (c) of the 1954 Code, to the effect that the basis of a nonshareholder’s contribution made on or after June 22, 1954, to the capital of a corporation shall be zero in the hands of the transferee, has been said not to affect the availability of a carryover basis with respect to gifts. See H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Ses’s., A128 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 272 (1954); B. Bittker & J. Eustice, Federal Income Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders ¶ 3.14, pp. 3-51 and n. 81 (3d ed. 1971); 3A J. Mertens, Law of Federal Income Taxation §21.134 (1968 rev.).
Section 113 (a) (8) of the 1939 Code; § 362 (a) of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. §362 (a).
Ҥ 113. Adjusted basis for determining gain or loss.
“(a) Basis (unadjusted) of property.
“The basis of property shall be the cost of such propertj''; except that—
“ (8) Property acquired by issuance of stock or as paid-in surplus.
“If the property was acquired after December 31, 1920, by a corporation—
“(A) by the issuance of its stock or securities in connection with a transaction described in section 112 (b) (5) (including, also, cases where part of the consideration for the transfer of such property to the corporation was property or money, in addition to such stock or securities), or
“(B) as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to capital, then the basis shall be the same as it would be in the hands of the trans-feror, increased in the amount of gain or decreased in the amount of loss recognized to the transferor upon such transfer under the law applicable to the year in which the transfer was made.”
Ҥ 362. Basis to corporations.
“ (a) Property acquired by issuance of stock or as paid-in surplus.
“If property was acquired on or after June 22, 1954, by a corporation—
“(1) in connection with a transaction to which section 351 (relating to transfer of property to corporation controlled by trans-feror) applies, or
“(2) as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to capital, then the basis shall be the same as it would be in the hands of the trans-feror, increased in the amount of gain recognized to the transferor on such transfer.
“(c) Special rule for certain contributions to capital.
“(1) Property other than money.
“Notwithstanding subsection (a)(2), if property other than money—
“(A) is acquired by a corporation, on or after June 22, 1954, as a contribution to capital, and
“(B) is not contributed by a shareholder as such, then the basis of such property shall be zero.
“(2) Money.
“Notwithstanding subsection (a)(2), if money- — ■
“(A) is received by a corporation, on or after June 22, 1954, as a contribution to capital, and
“(B) is not contributed by a shareholder as such, then the basis of any property acquired with such money during the 12-month period beginning on the day the contribution is received shall be reduced by the amount of such contribution.”
See, for example, Teleservice Co. v. Commissioner, 254 F. 2d 105 (CA3 1958), cert, denied, 357 U. S. 919 (1959); United Grocers, Ltd. v. United States, 308 F. 2d 634 (CA9 1962). There is support in the legislative history of § 118 of the 1954 Code, 26 U. S. C. § 118, providing for the exclusion from gross income of “any contribution to the capital of the taxpayer,” for the indirect benefit — prepayment-for-future-services distinction. H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 17 (1954).
The distinctions wrought by Detroit Edison and Brown Shoe have been the subject of scholarly criticism. See, for example, Note, Taxation of Nonshareholder Contributions to Corporate Capital, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 619 (1969); Landis, Contributions to Capital of Corporations, 24 Tax L. Rev. 241 (1969); Note, Tax Consequences of Non-Shareholder Contributions to Corporate Capital, 66 Yale L. J. 1085 (1957); Freeman & Speiller, Tax Consequences of Subsidies to Induce Business Location, 9 Tax. L. Rev. 255 (1954). In the article last cited the authors suggest that Detroit Edison and Brown Shoe are irreconcilable, the latter in effect overruling the former. Id., at 262. See also The Supreme Court, 1949 Term, 64 Harv. L. Rev. 114, 149-151 (1950).
Counsel for CB&Q stated at oral argument that the railroad was under a “preexisting legal obligation to construct these facilities” that were funded by the governmental subsidies. Tr. of Oral Arg. 30, 35-36.
The Government does not challenge the CB&Q’s right to depreciate those portions of a facility for which it was required to pay.
See n. 5, supra.
The Government has argued, in the alternative, that, by virtue of a “terms letter” agreement entered into by CB&Q and the Commissioner with respect to a change in the railroad's accounting method from retirement to straight-line depreciation, CB&Q irrevocably agreed to exclude donated property, or contributions or grants in aid of construction from any source, from its depreciation base. Because of our conclusion that the governmental payments did not qualify as contributions to capital, we need not determine whether the "terms letter” agreement barred CB&Q from claiming depreciation on the assets in question.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Presented for decision in this case is the validity, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, of the apportionment of seats in the legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
I.
Plaintiffs below, residents, taxpayers, and qualified voters of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, filed a complaint on April 9, 1962, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in their own behalf and on behalf of all voters in Virginia similarly situated, challenging the apportionment of the Virginia General Assembly. Defendants, sued in their representative capacities, were various officials charged with duties in connection with state elections. ' Plaintiffs claimed rights under, provisions of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983, 1988, and asserted jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3).
The complaint alleged that the present statutory provisions apportioning seats in the Virginia Legislature, as amended- in 1962, result in invidious discrimination against plaintiffs and “all other voters of the State Senatorial and House districts” in which they reside, since voters in Arlington and Fairfax Counties are given substantially less representation than voters living in other parts of the State. Plaintiffs asserted that the discrimination was violative of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Virginia Constitution, and contended that the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitution, and of the Virginia Constitution, could be met only by a redistribution of legislative representation among the counties and independent cities of the State “substantially in proportion to their respective populations.” Plaintiffs asserted that they “possess an inherent right to vote for members of the General Assembly . . . and to cast votes that are equally effective with the votes of every other citizen” of Virginia, and that this right was being diluted and effectively denied by the discriminatory apportionment of seats in both houses of the Virginia Legislature under the statutory provisions attacked as being unconstitutional. Plaintiffs contended that the alleged inequalities and distortions in the allocation of legislative seats prevented the Virginia Legislature from “being a body representative of the people of the Commonwealth,” and resulted in a minority of the people of Virginia controlling the General Assembly.
The complaint requested the convening of a three-judge District Court. With respect to relief, plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that the statutory scheme of legislative apportionment in Virginia, prior as well as subsequent to the 1962 amendments, contravenes the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is thus unconstitutional and void. Plaintiffs also requested the issuance of a prohibitory injunction restraining defendants from performing their official duties relating to the election of members of the General Assembly pursuant to the present statutory provisions. Plaintiffs further sought a mandatory injunction requiring defendants to conduct the next primary and general elections for legislators on an at-large basis throughout the State.
A three-judge District Court was promptly convened. Residents and voters of the City of Norfolk were permitted to intervene as plaintiffs against the original defendants and against certain additional defendants, election officials in Norfolk. On June 20, 1962, all of the plaintiffs obtained leave to amend the complaint by adding an additional prayer for relief which requested that, unless the General Assembly “promptly and fairly” reapportioned the legislative districts, the Court should reapportion the districts by its own order so as to accord the parties and others similarly situated “fair and proportionate” representation in the Virginia Legislature.
Evidence presented to the District Court b.y plaintiffs included basic figures showing the populations of the various districts from which senators and delegates are elected and the number of seats assigned to each. From that data various statistical comparisons were derived. Since the 1962 reapportionment measures were enacted only two days before the complaint was filed and made only small changes in the statutory provisions relating to legislative apportionment, which had been last amended in 1968, the evidence submitted covered both the present and the last previous apportionments. Defendants introduced various exhibits showing the numbers of military and military-related personnel in the City of Norfolk and in Arlington and Fairfax Counties, disparities from population-based representation among the various States in the Federal Electoral College, and results of a comparative study of state legislative apportionment which show Virginia as ranking eighth among the States in population-based legislative representativeness, as reapportioned in 1962.
On November 28, 1962, the District Court, with one judge dissenting, sustained plaintiffs’ claim and entered an interlocutory order holding the apportionment of the Virginia Legislature violative of the Federal Constitution. 213 F. Supp. 577. The Court refused to dismiss the case or stay its action on the ground, asserted by defendants, that plaintiffs should be required first to procure the views of the state courts on the validity of the apportionment scheme. Instead, it held that, since neither the 1962 legislation nor the relevant state constitutional provisions were ambiguous, no question of state law necessitating abstention by the Federal District Court was presented. In applying the Equal Protection Clause to the Virginia apportionment scheme, the Court stated that, although population is the predominant consideration, other factors may be of some relevance “in assaying the justness of the apportionment.” Stating that the Federal Constitution requires a state legislative apportionment to “accord the citizens of the State substantially equal representation,” the Court held that the inequalities found in the statistical information relating to the population of the State’s various legislative districts, if unexplained, sufficiently showed an “invidious discrimination” against plaintiffs and those similarly situated. The Court rejected any possibility of different bases of representation being applicable in the two houses of the Virginia Legislature, stating that, in Virginia, each house has “a direct, indeed the same, relation to the people,” and that the principal present-day justification for bicameralism in state legislatures is to insure against precipitate action by imposing greater deliberation upon proposed legislation. Because of the gross inequalities in representation among various districts in both houses of the Virginia Legislature, the Court put the burden of explanation on defendants, and found that they had failed to meet it. Consequently, the Court concluded that the discrimination against Arlington and Fairfax Counties and the City of Norfolk was a grave and “constitutionally impermissible” deprivation, violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
With respect to relief, the Court stated that, while it would have preferred that the General Assembly itself correct the unconstitutionality of the 1962 apportionment legislation, it would not defer deciding the case until after the next regular session of the Virginia Legislature in January 1964, because senators elected in November 1963 would hold office until 1968 and delegates elected in 1963 would serve until 1966. Deferring action would thus result in unreasonable delay in correcting the injustices in the apportionment of the Senate and the House of Delegates, concluded the Court.
The District Court’s interlocutory order declared that the 1962 apportionment violated the Equal Protection Clause and accordingly was void and of no effect. It also restrained and enjoined defendants from proceeding with the conducting of elections under the 1962 legislation, but stayed the operation of the injunction until January 31, 1963, so that either the General Assembly could act or an appeal could be taken to this Court, provided that, if neither of these steps was taken, plaintiffs might apply to the District Court for further relief. Finally, the court below retained jurisdiction of the case for the entry of such orders as might be required.
An appeal to this Court was timely noted by defendants. On application by appellants, The Chief Justice, on December 15, 1962, granted a stay of the District Court’s injunction pending final disposition of the ease by this Court'. Because of this stay, the November 1963 election of members of the Virginia Legislature was conducted under the existing statutory provisions. We noted probable jurisdiction on June 10, 1963. 374 U. S. 803.
II.
The Virginia Constitution provides for a Senate of not more than 40 nor less than 33 members, in Art. IV, § 41, and for a House of Delegates of not more than 100 nor less than 90 seats, in Art. IV, §.42. Senators are elected quadrennially and delegates biennially. At all relevant times, state statutes have fixed the number of senators at 40 and the number of delegates at 100. Pursuant to the state constitutional requirement of legislative reapportionment at least decenially, contained in Art. IV, § 43, the General Assembly has reapportioned senatorial and House seats in 1932, 1942, and 1952, as well as in 1962, and in 1958 the apportionment statutes were amended. The Virginia Constitution contains no express standards, however, for the apportionment of legislative representation, and leaves the task of establishing districts solely up to the discretion of the legislature.
With respect to political subdivisions, Virginia has 98 counties and 32 independent cities. Despite the absence of any specific provisions in the State Constitution, population has generally been traditionally regarded as the most important factor for legislative consideration in reapportioning and redistricting. Because cities and counties have consistently not been split or divided for' purposes of legislative representation, multimember districts have been utilized for cities and counties whose populations entitle them to more than a single representative, resulting in there always being less than 100 delegate districts and less than 40 senatorial districts. And, because of a tradition of respecting the integrity of the boundaries of cities and counties in drawing district lines, districts have been constructed only of combinations of counties and cities and not by pieces of them. This has resulted in the periodic utilization of floterial districts where contiguous cities or counties cannot be combined to yield population totals reasonably close to a population ratio figure determined by dividing the State’s total population by the number of seats in the particular legislative body. Various other factors, in addition to population, which have historically been considered by Virginia Legislatures in enacting apportionment statutes include compactness and contiguity of territory in forming districts, geographic and topographic features, and community of interests among people in various districts.
Section 24-14 of the Virginia Code, as amended in 1962, provides for the apportionment of the Virginia Senate, and divides the State into 36 senatorial districts for the allocation of the 40 seats in that body. With a total state population of 3,966,949, according to the 1960 census, and 40 Senate seats, the ideal ratio would be one senator for each 99,174 persons. Under the 1962 statute, however, Arlington County is given but one senator for its 163,401 persons, only .61 of the representation to which it would be entitled on a strict population basis. The City of Norfolk has only .65 of its ideal share of senatorial representation, with two senators for a population of 305,872. And Fairfax County (including the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church), with two senators for 285,194 people, has but .70 of its ideal representation in the Virginia Senate. In comparison, the smallest senatorial district, with respect to population, has only 61,730, and the next smallest 63,703. Thus, the maximum population-variance ratio between the most populous and least populous senatorial districts is 2.65-to-l. Under the 1962 senatorial apportionment, applying 1960 population figures, approximately 41.1% of the State’s total population reside in districts electing a majority of the members of that body.
Apportionment of seats in the Virginia House of Delegates is provided for in § 24-12 of the Virginia Code, as amended in 1962, which creates 70 House districts and distributes the .100 House seats among them. Dividing the State’s total 1960 population by 100 results in an ideal ratio of one delegate for each 39,669 persons. Fair-fax County, with a population of 285,194, is allocated only three House seats under the 1962 apportionment provisions, however, thus being given only .42 of its ideal representation. While the average population per delegate in Fairfax County is 95,064, Wythe County, with only 21,975 persons, and Shenandoah County, with a population of only 21,825, are each given one seat in the Virginia House. The maximum population-variance ratio, between the most populous and least populous House districts, is thus 4.36-to-1. The City of Norfolk, with 305,872 people, is given only six House seats, and Arlington County, with a population of 163,401, is allocated only three. Under the 1962 reapportionment of the House of Delegates, 40.5% of the State’s population live in districts electing a majority of the House members. Twenty-seven House districts have more than three times the representation of the people of Fairfax County, 12 districts have twice the representation of Arlington County, and six, twice that of Norfolk.
No adequate political remedy to obtain legislative reapportionment appears to exist in Virginia. No initiative procedure is provided for under Virginia law. Amendment of the State Constitution or the calling of a constitutional convention initially requires the vote of a majority of both houses of the Virginia General Assembly. Only after such legislative approval is obtained is such a measure submitted to the people for a referendum vote. Legislative apportionment questions do not appear to have been traditionally regarded as non justiciable by Virginia state courts, however, and appellees could possibly have sought and obtained relief in a state court as well as in a Federal District Court.
III.
In Reynolds v. Sims, ante, p. 533, decided also this date, we held that the Equal Protection Clause requires that seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned substantially on a population basis. Neither of the houses of the Virginia General Assembly, under the 1962 statutory provisions here attacked, is apportioned sufficiently on a population basis to be constitutionally sustainable. Accordingly, we hold that the District Court properly found the Virginia legislative apportionment invalid.
Appellants' contention that the court below should have abstained so as to permit a state court to decide the questions of state law involved in this litigation is without merit. Where a federal court's jurisdiction is properly invoked, and the relevant state constitutional and statutory provisions are plain and unambiguous, there is no necessity for the federal court to abstain pending determination of the state law questions in a state court. McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 668. This is especially so where, as here, no state proceeding had been instituted or was pending when the District Court’s jurisdiction was invoked. We conclude that the court below did not err in refusing to dismiss the proceeding or stay its action pending recourse to the state courts.
Undoubtedly, the situation existing in Virginia, with respect to legislative apportionment, differs not insignificantly from that in Alabama. In contrast to Alabama, in Virginia the legislature has consistently reapportioned itself decennially as required by the State Constitution. Nevertheless, state legislative malapportionment, whether resulting from prolonged legislative inaction or from failure to comply sufficiently with federal constitutional requisites, although reapportionment is accomplished periodically, falls equally within the proscription of the Equal Protection Clause.
We reject appellants’ argument that the underrepresen-tation of Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk is constitutionally justifiable since it allegedly resulted in part from the fact that those areas contain large numbers of military and military-related personnel. Discrimination against a class of individuals, merely because of the nature of their employment, without more being shown, is constitutionally impermissible. Additionally, no showing was made that the Virginia Legislature in fact took, such a factor into account in allocating legislative representation. And state policy, as evidenced by Virginia’s election laws, actually favors and fosters voting by military and military-related personnel. Furthermore, even if such persons were to be excluded in determining the populations of the various legislative districts, the discrimination against the disfavored areas would hardly be satisfactorily explained, because, after deducting military and military-related personnel, the maximum population-variance ratios would still be 2.22-to-1 in the Senate and 3.53-to-l in the House.
We also reject appellants’ claim that the Virginia apportionment is sustainable as involving an attempt to balance urban and rural power in the legislature. Not only does this explanation lack legal merit, but it also fails to conform to the facts. Some Virginia urban areas, such as Richmond, by comparison with Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk, appear to be quite adequately represented in the General Assembly. And, for the reasons stated in Reynolds, in rejecting the so-called federal analogy, and in Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368, 378, appellants’ reliance on an asserted analogy to the deviations from population in the Federal Electoral College is misplaced. The fact that the maximum variances in the populations of various state legislative districts are less than the extreme deviations from a population basis in the composition of the Federal Electoral College fails to provide a constitutionally cognizable basis for sustaining a state apportionment scheme under the Equal Protection Clause.
We find it unnecessary and inappropriate to discuss questions relating to remedies at the present time. Since the next election of Virginia legislators will not occur until 1965, ample time remains for the Virginia Legislature to enact a constitutionally valid reapportionment scheme for purposes of that election.. After the District Court has provided the Virginia Legislature with an adequate opportunity to enact a valid plan, it can then proceed, should it become necessary, to grant relief under equitable principles to insure that no further elections are held under an unconstitutional scheme. Since the District Court stated that it was retaining jurisdiction and that plaintiffs could seek further appropriate relief, the court below presumably intends to take further action should the Virginia Legislature fail to act promptly in remedying the constitutional defects in the State’s legislative apportionment plan. We therefore affirm the judgment of the District Court on the merits of this litigation, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with the views stated here and in our opinion in Reynolds v. Sims.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Clark concurs in the affirmance for the reasons stated in his concurring opinion in Reynolds v. Sims, ante, p. 587, decided this date.
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan, see ante, p. 589.]
Mr. Justice Stewart.
In this case, the District Court.recognized that “population is not . . . the sole or definitive measure of districts when taken by the Equal Protection Clause.” 213 F. Supp., at 584. In reaching its decision the. court made clear that it did not “intend to say that there cannot be wide differences of population in districts if a sound reason can be advanced for the discrepancies.” Id., at 585. The District Court, however, could find “no rational basis for the disfavoring of Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk.” Ibid. In my opinion the appellants have failed to show that the trial court erred in reaching this conclusion. Accordingly, in keeping with the view expressed in my dissenting opinion in Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado, post, p. 744, I would affirm the District Court’s judgment holding that to the extent a state legislative apportionment plan is conclusively shown to have no rational basis, such a plan violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Reapportionment in 1952 was accomplished only after the Governor convened a special session of the Virginia Legislature for that purpose, since the legislature had adjourned without enacting any statutes reallocating representation. In anticipation of the constitutional mandate to reapportion in 1962, the Virginia Governor, in January 1961, appointed a commission on redistricting. In doing its work, this commission employed the assistance of the Bureau of Public Administration of the University of Virginia. Suggesting that Senate and House districts should be, as nearly as practicable, equal in population, the Bureau submitted two alternative plans for the apportionment of the House and three alternative plans for the apportionment of Senate seats. These plans all followed the various criteria traditionally considered in previous apportionments, and complied with the constitutionally prescribed size limitations on both of the houses. In late 1961, the commission filed its report recommending a redistricting plan different from any of the plans submitted by the Bureau. Its plan, based more on political compromise than any of the Bureau’s suggested plans, deviated further from population-based representation than any of the Bureau’s proposals. At its 1962 regular session, the Virginia General Assembly completely disregarded both the commission report and the plans prepared by the Bureau, and adopted apportionment schemes of its own for each house, in practical effect making only minimal changes in the existing statutory provisions. These enactments, of course, are the ones principally complained of by appellees in this litigation.
The term “floterial district” is used to refer to a legislative district which includes within its boundaries several separate districts or political subdivisions which independently would not be entitled to additional representation but whose conglomerate population entitles the entire area to another seat in the particular legislative body being apportioned. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 256 (Clark, J., concurring). As an example, the City of Lynchburg, with a 1960 population of 54,790, is itself allocated one seat in the Virginia House of Delegates under the 1962 apportionment plan. Amherst County, with a population of only 22,953, is not given any independent representation in the Virginia House. But the City of Lynchburg and Amherst County are combined in a floterial district with a total population of 77,743. Presumably, it was felt that Lynchburg was entitled to some additional representation in the Virginia House, since its population significantly exceeded the ideal House district size of 36,669. However, since Lynchburg’s population did not approach twice that figure, it was apparently decided that Lynchburg was not entitled, by itself, to an added seat. Adjacent Amherst County, with a population substantially smaller than the ideal district size, was presumably felt not to be entitled to a separate House seat. The solution was the creation of a floterial district comprising the two political subdivisions, thereby according Lynchburg additional representation and giving Amherst County a voice in the Virginia House, without having to create separate additional districts for each of the two political subdivisions.
In illustrating the disparities from population-based representation in the apportionment of Senate seats, the District Court included in its opinion a chart showing the composition (by counties and cities) and populations of, and the number of senators allotted to, various senatorial districts, and comparing these figures with the senatorial representation given Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk. 213 F. Supp., at 581-582.
Appellees have pointed out, however, that, since seats in the Virginia Legislature are reapportioned decennially, and since the allegedly underrepresented districts are those whose populations are increasing more rapidly than the allegedly overrepresented ones, the disparities from population-based representation, in both houses of the Virginia Legislature, will continually increase throughout the 10-year period until the next reapportionment.
In discussing deviations from population-based representation in the allocation of seats in the House of Delegates, the District Court included, as part of its opinion, a chart showing the populations of and the number of seats given to certain House districts, and comparing these figures with the House representation accorded Arlington, Fair-fax and Norfolk. 213 F. Supp., at 582-584.
For a discussion of the lack of federal constitutional significance of the presence or absence of an available political remedy, see Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado, post, pp. 736-737, decided also this date.
Va. Const., Art. XV, §§ 196, 197.
In Brown v. Saunders, 159 Va. 28, 166 S. E. 105 (1932), the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia held that a congressional dis-tricting statute enacted by the Virginia Legislature was invalid since it conflicted with Art. IV, § 55, of the State Constitution, which requires congressional districts to have “as nearly as practicable, an equal number of inhabitants.” Of course, involved in that case was a specific state constitutional requirement relating to congressional districting, whereas no such detailed state requirements exist with respect to apportionment of seats in the Virginia Legislatura. Appellants have argued, however, that this decision indicates that Virginia courts will also adjudicate questions relating to the validity of the State's legislative apportionment scheme under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.
However, in Tyler v. Davis, a case involving a suit instituted on March 26, 1963, almost four months after the District Court’s decision in the instant case, the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond dismissed, on the merits, an action challenging the apportionment of seats in the Virginia Legislature. Although the state court found that it had jurisdiction and that the questions raised were justiciable in nature, it dismissed the complaint on the ground that plaintiffs had failed to show that the scheme for apportioning seats in the Virginia Legislature was an invidiously discriminatory one violative 'of the Equal Protection Clause.
See 213 F. Supp., at 584.
Virginia’s election laws enable persons in the armed forces to vote without registration or payment of poll tax. Va. Code Ann., 1950 (Repl. Vol. 1964) §24r-23.1. While the literal language of this provision grants the privilege to those “in active service ... in time of war,” the Virginia State Board of Electors is applying it currently. Although the mere stationing of military personnel in the State does not give them residence, Virginia election officials interpret the applicable statutory provisions to mean that residence for military personnel is determined in the same manner as for all other citizens. Military personnel and members of their families who have been residents of Virginia for a year, residents of a county, city or town for six months, and residents of a precinct for 30 days are entitled to vote. Military personnel are not included in the categories of persons disabled from voting. Va. Code Ann., 1950 (Repl. Vol. 1964) § 24-18.
See Reynolds v. Sims, ante, pp. 571-576.
See id., at 585.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Goldberg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves the tax consequences of the purchase by petitioner of a number of ships from the United States Government during the Second World War and the subsequent post-war refund by the Government, pursuant to an Act of Congress, of a substantial portion of the purchase price.
At various times during the years 1942 through 1946, petitioner purchased from the United States Maritime Commission a total of 18 ships that had been built by the United States Government. It paid a total of $46,973,167 for these vessels (after an allowance for the trade-in by petitioner of four of its own ships). The vessels purchased by petitioner were immediately chartered back, by bareboat charters, to the United States so that the Government continued to operate them. The United States paid a total of $13,430,431 in charter hire to petitioner for the wartime use of these ships during the years 1942 through 1946, which amount petitioner reported in its federal income tax returns for those years.
On March 8,1946, Congress enacted the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 41, as amended, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1735 et seq. (1958 ed.), which gave American citizens the right to purchase war-built ships from the United States at statutory sales prices which were substantially below the prices at which such vessels were sold by the Commission during the war. Section 9 of the Act, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1742 (1958 ed.), provided the opportunity, upon application, for those, like petitioner, who had bought ships during the war years to obtain a downward adjustment in their sales price “by treating the vessel as if it were being sold to the applicant on the date of the enactment of this Act [March 8, 1946], and not before that time.” The details of a § 9 adjustment are complex. They consist, however, essentially of two parts: (1) an adjustment in the purchase price down to the new statutory price (§§ 9 (b)(l)-(4)); and (2) an unwinding of the transactions, including tax payments, that occurred as a result of the sale prior to 1946 (§§ 9 (b)(5), (6), (e)(1)).
Petitioner applied for a downward adjustment of the sales price of its 18 ships purchased prior to the Act. The Maritime Commission granted such an adjustment, determining that under the statute the sales price of these vessels should be $17,685,424. Petitioner therefore was credited with $29,287,743, the difference between the statutory sales price and the original price of $46,973,167.
The pre-Act transactions were then unwound, pursuant to the statute, as follows: (1) the Government was credited $13,430,431, representing the charter hire which had been paid by the Government to petitioner for use of the 18 vessels from 1942 to 1946; (2) the Government was debited $1,495,125, representing charter hire which would have been paid by the Government to petitioner prior to 1946 for use of the four ships traded in by petitioner on the original purchase; (3) the Government was debited $2,686,262, representing a return of the interest petitioner paid on the mortgages and interest income which petitioner could have earned on the cash invested in the 18 vessels prior to the date of the Act had this cash not been so committed; and (4) the Government was debited $430,206, representing an overpayment by petitioner of federal income taxes, which, under the Act, were recalculated to give effect to the foregoing unwinding. The sum of the unwinding credits and debits was a net credit in favor of the Government of $8,818,838. This amount reduced petitioner’s credit on the original sales price of $46,973,167 from $29,287,743 to $20,468,904.
In tabular form, the computations and credits made under the Act were as follows:
Statutory Adjustments.
1. Original sales price. $46,973,167
2. Statutory sales price. 17,685,424
3. Gross sales price adjustment
(§§ 9 (b) (1) — (4) and (7)). $29,287,743
4. Credit to Government:
5. Charter hire on 18 vessels
(§9 (b)(6)). 13,430,431
6. Debits against Government:
7. Charter hire on 4 ships traded in
(§9 (b)(6)). (1,495,125)
8. Interest on petitioner’s invest-
ment (§ 9 (b) (5)). (2,686,262)
9. Overpayment by petitioner
of federal income taxes
(§9 (b)(8)). (430,206)
10. Net credit in favor of Government
(line 5 minus lines 7-9). 8,818,838
11. Net 1946 sales price adjustment
(line 3 minus line 10).
$20,468,904
Neither party here disputes the accuracy of any of these computations. The issue between the parties is the effect of these determinations on the tax treatment of the ships for the years following this 1946 adjustment. In its federal income tax returns for the years 1947 through 1950 petitioner took depreciation on these vessels on the assumption that its cost was $17,685,424, the statutory sales price. In 1959, however, petitioner sued in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama for a tax refund, contending that its real cost and therefore its basis for depreciation was not the statutory sales price, $17,685,424, but rather $26,504,263, the difference between $46,973,167, the original sales price, and $20,468,904, the net 1946 sales price adjustment credited to petitioner. The District Court agreed with petitioner that its real cost was $26,504,263 and that this was its depreciation basis for tax purposes. 203 F. Supp. 915. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, however, holding that, under the statutory scheme, petitioner’s real cost was $17,685,424, the statutory sales price, and that this therefore was its proper depreciation basis. 330 F. 2d 128. The difference between the lower courts’ determinations of the real cost to petitioner of these 18 ships is $8,818,838, the net credit in favor of the Government in the preceding calculations of the 1946 sales price adjustment. We granted certiorari, 379 U. S. 927, to resolve a conflict between Courts of Appeals and the Court of Claims on the issue here involved. For the reasons set forth below, we agree with the Court of Appeals in this case and consequently affirm the judgment.
Petitioner’s argument, put quite simply, is that during the war it paid $46,973,167 for the ships. In 1946, petitioner asserts, it was paid back $20,468,904. Thus petitioner concludes that its cost and therefore its depreciation basis for tax purposes in these ships is the difference between these two figures, or $26,504,263. The Government agrees that petitioner paid $46,973,167 during the war and received back $20,468,904 in 1946. It points out, however, that from 1942 through 1946 petitioner also received from the Government in charter hire for the use of the ships, a net of $8,818,838 (the net credit to the Government under the unwinding provisions of the Act), which petitioner would not have received had it not bought these ships prior to the date of the Act. The Government contends that when this $8,818,838 paid to petitioner from 1942 to 1946 is added to the amount of $20,468,904 paid as a lump sum to petitioner in 1946, it is clear that petitioner has received a total of $29,287,743 from the Government. The Government concludes that petitioner’s cost and therefore its basis for depreciation for tax purposes in these ships is the difference between the original sales price, $46,973,167, and this total refund, $29,287,743, or $17,685,424 — the statutory sales price. Petitioner cannot and does not dispute the fact that it received this $8,818,838 from the Government from 1942 through 1946. It argues, however, that this sum was received as income and thus cannot be taken to reduce petitioner’s cost. The Government, on the other hand, contends that, although the $8,818,838 was undoubtedly originally received as income, under the statutory unwinding scheme this amount must be deemed a return of capital which has reduced petitioner's cost. The only issue dividing the parties, therefore, is the proper treatment of this $8,818,838, an issue which must be determined by reference to the 1946 Act.
Section 9 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946 expressly provides that, upon application, a statutory adjustment “shall be made, as hereinafter provided, by treating the vessel as if it were being sold to the applicant on the date of the enactment of this Act [March 8, 1946], and not before that time.” It is clear that if petitioner had bought the ships on the date of the Act its cost and depreciation basis would have been the statutory sales price of $17,685,424 and that petitioner would not have received net charter hire from the Government of $8,818,838 — a payment attributable to the fact that the vessels involved were sold to it before the date of the 1946 Act.
In order to achieve the statutory purpose of putting petitioner and the Government in the positions they would have occupied had petitioner bought the ships on the 1946 statutory enactment date and not before that time, it was necessary that this $8,818,838 net charter hire be refunded to the Government. In effect this is just what § 9 provides. As applied to this case, petitioner was first credited with $29,287,743, the difference between the original sales price, $46,973,167, and the lower statutory sales price, $17,685,424. The Government owed this amount of $29,287,743 to petitioner. Because of the unwinding of the pre-Act transactions pursuant to the statutory scheme, however, the Government was credited with $8,818,838, representing the net amount, after appropriate tax adjustments, which petitioner received from the United States Government from 1942 through 1946 over and above the amount which it would have earned had it not purchased the ships from the Government prior to the statutory adjustment date. Petitioner owed this amount of $8,818,838 to the Government.
The Government could have paid its obligation to petitioner by its check in the amount of $29,287,743. Petitioner, in turn, could have paid its obligation to the Government by its check in the amount of $8,818,838. Obviously, it makes no difference that this same result was reached through an offsetting of the mutual debts which resulted in a net credit to petitioner of their difference— $20,468,904. Thus petitioner is correct in its assertion that it only received $20,468,904 as a lump sum payment in 1946. It is not correct, however, in its assertion that this was the total amount it received in repayment of the sales price. The total it received was $29,287,743; it received $20,468,904 of this amount in a lump sum in 1946 and $8,818,838 in the years 1942 through 1946 in government payments which it would not have received had it not owned the ships during those years — an ownership which the statute unwinds. This $29,287,743 total refund must be credited against petitioner’s original cost of $46,973,167, producing a net cost to petitioner and thus a basis for depreciation of $17,685,424 — the statutory sales price.
In order to give effect to the statutory scheme, therefore, this $8,818,838 must be treated not as income but as a return of capital against the original $46,973,167 purchase price. That this is the proper way of treating this amount for tax purposes is made clear by the statutory language which directs recomputation of an applicant’s federal income taxes based upon the unwinding of the pre-Act transactions. As a condition of receiving an adjustment under the Act, § 9 (c)(1) requires the applicant to agree (1) that the charter hire actually received from the United States for the ships prior to the Act “shall be treated for Federal tax purposes as not having been received or accrued as income” (emphasis added); (2) that “depreciation and amortization allowed or allowable with respect to the vessel up to the date of the enactment of this Act for Federal tax purposes shall be treated as not having been allowable”; and (3) that the return of interest paid on the mortgages plus the income attributed to the applicant which it would have received as charter hire on the ships traded in and interest on the cash invested which it could have earned had it not bought the ships prior to the date of the Act “shall be treated for Federal tax purposes as having been received and accrued as income... The net sum derived from these tax computations is assigned as a credit to the party in whose favor they run, and payment of this credit is explicitly deemed to constitute payment of the tax overpayment or deficiency created by the recomputations. (§9 (b)(8)).
All of these provisions, as we have already stated, were given effect in this case. Pursuant to agreement between petitioner and the Government, petitioner’s federal income taxes were recomputed on the statutory assumptions that it did not receive the charter hire on the 18 vessels purchased from the Government from 1942 through 1946, but did receive charter hire on the four ships it traded in and interest on its investment in the 18 ships during this period. Based on this recalculation, petitioner was held entitled to a tax refund of $430,206, for which the Government was debited in the unwinding computations. See the table on p. 257, supra. The total impact of these tax provisions makes it quite clear that the net amount the Government paid to petitioner as a result of its owning the ships prior to 1946, $8,818,838, as the statute specifically states, “shall be treated for Federal tax purposes as not having been received or accrued as income,” but rather shall be treated as a repayment of the purchase price, or, in other words, a return of capital reducing basis. Moreover, the result contended for by petitioner would produce the anomaly that, due to the unwinding calculations, there is no income tax paid or to be paid on the $8,818,838 which petitioner claims is income earned during 1942 to 1946. This anomaly is only avoided if, as Congress obviously intended, this amount be treated not as income but rather as a return of capital.
Furthermore, petitioner’s argument is necessarily predicated on the theory that, although the original acquisition cost of the ships should, under the statutory scheme, be adjusted to the lower 1946 price, nevertheless, petitioner’s cost as a basis for depreciation should remain the higher one determined on the assumption that the ships were purchased not in 1946 but at the time of their original acquisitions, dating back to 1942. It could only be under such a theory that the $8,818,838 net charter hire received by petitioner from the Government could be considered to be income and not a return of capital. But the Act vitiates any such theory in its express statement that the statute treats “the vessel as if it were being sold to the applicant on the date of the enactment of this Act, and not before that time.” Nothing in the language or legislative history of the Act supports petitioner’s contention that this statutory treatment was to apply to give petitioner a lower actual cost of acquisition but that the contrary treatment sought by petitioner was to apply to give it, at the same time, a higher cost basis for depreciation purposes.
Indeed, our conclusion derived from the plain words of the statute is confirmed fully by the legislative history of the Act. As originally reported out of the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, see H. R. Rep. No. 831, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., and the Senate Committee on Commerce, see S. Rep. No. 807, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., the bill contained petitioner’s assumption that the sale took place not on the date of the Act, but at its original date and at the lower statutory sales price. On the floor of the House, however, a committee amendment was proffered and accepted which rejected this assumption and premised the operation of § 9 on the contrary assumption that the sale took place on the date of the enactment of the Act and not before. 91 Cong. Rec. 9281. This committee amendment is the version of the Act that was enacted into law. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1526, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 17.
Representative (now Senator) Henry Jackson, the manager of the committee amendments on the House floor, explained it as follows:
“Section 9 of H. R. 3603 provides for a refund to operators who purchased vessels during the war, at war cost, back to the statutory sales price contained in section 3 of the bill. Such an adjustment is fair. We do not want to place the wartime purchaser at a disadvantage with his competitor who acquires a similar vessel under the provisions of this bill.
“However, section 9 contains many loopholes which in my opinion places the wartime purchaser in a far better position than future purchasers. For one thing, the wartime purchaser, under section 9, would be allowed trade-in allowances far in excess of those provided under the committee amendment to section 8.
“If there is to be equality between past and future purchases there must be comparable terms and nothing less....
“I have proposed certain modifications to section 9 of H. R. 3603 which has been accepted as a committee amendment. The effect of this amendment is to treat prior sales as having taken place on the date of the enactment of this bill. The operator is compensated for all actual money investment to date by an allowance of 3½ percent interest thereon.
“The committee amendment treats all of these prior sales as being made on the date of the bill’s enactment and not before that time, so that the previous purchaser and a future purchaser will be put on exactly the same basis. In order to accomplish this result it is necessary to ‘unwind’ a previous transaction, and most of the provisions of the committee amendment which appear complicated are the provisions describing how this unwinding is to be done.
“These are the provisions which the amendment includes for the purpose of unwinding the previous transaction. The basic principle of the amendment is very simple — the previous transaction is to be looked upon as having taken place not when it actually did but as taking place on the date of the bill’s enactment and subject to all of the bill’s provisions....” (Emphasis added.) 91 Cong. Rec. 9182, 9185, 9282.
Treating pre-Act and post-Act purchasers as having the same tax basis in the vessels — the statutory sales price — serves the congressional purpose of putting the two groups “on exactly the same basis.” Otherwise, pre-Act purchasers, with a higher basis for federal income tax purposes, would have competitive advantages over post-Act purchasers in the ability of pre-Act purchasers to take higher depreciation deductions from income, thus paying lower taxes on the same income than their post-Act purchaser competitors. In fact, this advantage over post-Act purchasers is exactly what petitioner seeks in this case. Both petitioner and a post-Act purchaser of comparable ships would pay a statutory sales price of $17,685,424. Yet petitioner seeks a depreciation basis of $26,504,263 while the post-Act purchaser would only have a basis of $17,685,424. This varying result is prohibited by the statute.
Petitioner argues, however, that the Senate predecessor to § 9 of the 1946 Act contained an express provision that, if an adjustment in the purchase price is made for a pre-Act purchaser, for purposes of federal income taxes, “the vessel shall be considered as having been acquired at the adjusted purchase price [the statutory sales price]....” See §9 (e)(1) of H. R. 3603, as amended by the Senate Committee on Commerce, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 91 Cong. Rec. 11535. Petitioner states that this provision, which would confirm the result here contended for by the Government, was eliminated from the version of the Act that was finally adopted. From these facts, petitioner would have us infer that Congress rejected the notion that the statutory sales price should be the cost basis of the ships for depreciation. This contention of petitioner, however, completely overlooks the fact that the provision upon which petitioner relies was in an early version of the bill which at that time was premised not on the assumption finally accepted that the sales took place on the 1946 statutory enactment date, but rather on the contrary theory that the sales took place at the statutory prices but on their original dates. On this latter assumption which the bill then contained, the express provision of the Senate bill was necessary to prevent the very result for which petitioner now contends. However, as we have already pointed out, in the legislative consideration of the bill as finally enacted, the early version of the bill premised on the assumption that the sales took place at their original dates was rejected and the bill revised to embrace the contrary assumption that the sales took place at the date of the enactment of the Act and not before that time. See pp. 264-266, supra. Once this revision in the bill’s basic approach was made there was no longer any necessity to provide, as the earlier Senate version had, that for tax or any other specific purpose “the vessel shall be considered as having been acquired at the... [statutory sales] price....” For in the bill as finally enacted, it was expressly provided that the vessel is to be treated “as if it were being sold to the applicant on the date of the enactment of this Act, and not before that time,” and explicit provision was made for unwinding all pre-Act transactions, including taxes. We therefore reject this argument of petitioner.
Finally, petitioner argues that the congressional history subsequent to the enactment of the 1946 statute supports its interpretation of the Act. In 1950, Congress passed an amendment to the 1946 Act, designed to provide precisely the tax result here contended for by petitioner. This amendment, however, was vetoed by President Truman. While both House and Senate Committee Reports contain statements that this amendment was deemed simply a clarifying one which expressed the intent of the original Act, see H. R. Rep. No. 1342, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 1; S. Rep. No. 1915, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 1, it was vetoed by President Truman on the ground that, on the contrary, he considered it to vitiate the intent of Congress in enacting the 1946 Act. The President’s veto message stated:
“[OJther provisions of the Merchant Ship Sales Act already provide that for certain purposes the cost basis of the vessels owned by prior purchasers shall be the statutory sales price. The consistent pattern of treatment provided in the act would be destroyed by granting in this one subsection the concession on cost basis entailed in this measure. Finally, the benefits accruing to prior purchasers, if they are allowed to capitalize these amounts above the statutory sales price, would afford them the special operating advantages which arise from the higher depreciation allowances possible under this measure.” 96 Cong. Rec. 15792.
Thus, it is apparent that the President and Congress disagreed over the meaning of a law passed by a prior Congress, and that the President, deeming the amendment to depart from the purpose of the original statute, refused to approve it so that the amendment was not enacted into law. This Court has pointed out on previous occasions that “the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one.” United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304, 313; United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 348-349. This is particularly true where a President (the same President who signed the original Act) vetoes a “clarifying” amendment on the grounds that, in his view, it does not clarify but rather vitiates the intent of the Congress that passed the original Act. As this Court held in Fogarty v. United States, 340 U. S. 8, in considering a similar situation, the abortive action of the subsequent Congress “would not supplant the contemporaneous intent of the Congress which enacted the... Act.” Id., at 14. See also United States v. Wise, 370 U. S. 405, 411.
For all the reasons set forth above, we conclude that, under the statutory scheme which unwinds the pre-Act transactions, petitioner’s real cost and thus its basis for depreciation was the statutory sales price of $17,685,424. Consequently, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT:
Section 9 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 46, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1742 (1958 ed.), provides in relevant part:
"Sec. 9. (a) A citizen of the United States who on the date of the enactment of this Act—
“(1) owns a vessel which he purchased from the Commission prior to such date, and which was delivered by its builder after December 31, 1940;...
“shall, except as hereinafter provided, be entitled to an adjustment in the price of such vessel under this section if he makes application therefor, in such form and manner as the Commission may prescribe, within sixty days after the date of publication of the applicable prewar domestic costs in the Federal Register under section 3 (c) of this Act....
“(b) Such adjustment shall be made, as hereinafter provided, by treating the vessel as if it were being sold to the applicant on the date of the enactment of this Act, and not before that time. The amount of such adjustment shall be determined as follows:
“(1) The Commission shall credit the applicant with the excess of the cash payments made upon the original purchase price of the vessel over 25 per centum of the statutory sales price of the vessel as of such date of enactment. If such payment was less than 25 per centum of the statutory sales price of the vessel, the applicant shall pay the difference to the Commission.
“(2) The applicant’s indebtedness under any mortgage to the United States with respect to the vessel shall be adjusted.
“(3) The adjusted mortgage indebtedness shall be in an amount equal to the excess of the statutory sales price of the vessel as of the date of the enactment of this Act over the sum of the cash payment retained by the United States under paragraph (1) plus the readjusted trade-in allowance (determined under paragraph (7)) with respect to any vessel exchanged by the applicant on the original purchase. The adjusted mortgage indebtedness shall be payable in equal annual installments thereafter during the remaining life of such mortgage with interest on the portion of the statutory sales price remaining unpaid at the rate of 3½ per centum per annum.
“(4) The Commission shall credit the applicant with the excess, if any, of the sum of the cash payments made by the applicant upon the original purchase price of the vessel plus the readjusted trade-in allowance (determined under paragraph (7)) over the statutory sales price of the vessel as of the date of the enactment of this Act to the extent not credited under paragraph (1).
“(5) The Commission shall also credit the applicant with an amount equal to interest at the rate of 3½ per centum per annum (for the period beginning with the date of the original delivery of the vessel to the applicant and ending with the date of the enactment of this Act) on the excess of the original purchase price of the vessel over the amount of any allowance allowed by the Commission on the exchange of any vessel on such purchase; the amount of such credit first being reduced by any interest on the original mortgage indebtedness accrued up to such date of enactment and unpaid. Interest so accrued and unpaid shall be canceled.
“(6) The applicant shall credit the Commission with all amounts paid by the United States to him as charter hire for use of the vessel (exclusive of service, if any, required under the terms of the charter) under any charter party made prior to the date of the enactment of this Act, and any charter hire for such use accrued up to such date of enactment and unpaid shall be canceled; and the Commission shall credit the applicant with the amount that would have been paid by the United States to the applicant as charter hire for bare-boat use of vessels exchanged by the applicant on the original purchase (for the period beginning with date on which the vessels so exchanged were delivered to the Commission and ending with the date of the enactment of this Act).
“(7) The allowance made to the applicant on any vessel exchanged by him on the original purchase shall be readjusted so as to limit such allowance to the amount provided for under section 8.
“(8) There shall be subtracted from the sum of the credits in favor of the Commission under the foregoing provisions of this subsection the amount of any overpay-ments of Federal taxes by the applicant resulting from the application of subsection (c) (1), and there shall be subtracted from the sum of the credits in favor of the applicant under the foregoing provisions of this subsection the amount of any deficiencies in Federal taxes of the applicant resulting from the application of subsection (c) (1). If, after making such subtractions, the sum of the credits in favor of the applicant exceeds the sum of the credits in favor of the Commission, such excess shall be paid by the Commission to the applicant. If, after making such subtractions, the sum of the credits in favor of the Commission exceeds the sum of the credits in favor of the applicant, such excess shall be paid by the applicant to the Commission. Upon such payment by the Commission or the applicant, such overpayments shall be treated as having been refunded and such deficiencies as having been paid.
“For the purposes of this subsection, the purchase price of a vessel on account of which a construction-differential subsidy was paid or agreed to be paid under section 504 of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, as amended, shall be the net cost of the vessel to the owner.
“(c) An adjustment shall be made under this section only if the applicant enters into an agreement with the Commission binding upon the citizen applicant and any affiliated interest to the effect that—
“(1) depreciation and amortization allowed or allowable with respect to the vessel up to the date of the enactment of this Act for Federal tax purposes shall be treated as not having been allowable; amounts credited to the Commission under subsection (b)(6) shall be treated for Federal tax purposes as not having been received or accrued as income; amounts credited to the applicant under subsection (b) (5) and (6) shall be treated for Federal tax purposes as having been received and accrued as income in the taxable year in which falls the date of the enactment of this Act....”
(“Secretary,” meaning Secretary of Commerce, was substituted for “Commission” in the above statute, except where otherwise indicated by the context, on authority of 1950 Reorg. Plan No. 21, effective May 24, 1950, 15 Fed. Reg. 3178, 64 Stat. 1273.)
The total purchase price (without trade-in allowance) was $49,582,767. The trade-in allowance was $2,609,600. The net purchase price of $46,973,167 consisted of a cash payment of $6,449,107 and mortgage indebtedness of $40,524,060. For simplicity in this opinion, the $46,973,167 purchase price will be considered as if it had all been paid in cash.
The last two vessels purchased by petitioner were delivered on February 27, 1946, and March 11, 1946, respectively, one just before and the other just after the date (March 8, 1946) of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 41, as amended, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1735 et seq. (1958 ed.), and thus were not chartered to the Government before the Act.
Section 9, in relevant part, is set out in the Appendix to this opinion.
As with the original purchase price, this figure is after an allowance for the four vessels traded in. The statutory price (without trade-in allowance) was $17,997,981. The trade-in allowance (determined under § 9 (b) (7) was $312,557. For simplicity, in the remainder of this opinion, the figures used for both the original sales price and the statutory sales price will be those of the price after these respective trade-in allowances.
The total $29,287,743 purchase price credit was comprised of a cash credit of $11,735,951 and a reduction of mortgage indebtedness of $17,551,792. As with the original purchase price, see note 1, supra, for simplicity this total credit will be considered as if it were all a cash credit.
See note 2, supra.
This recalculation included a readjustment of previous depreciation allowed.
The figure $20,468,904 is one dollar smaller than the difference between $29,287,743 and $8,818,838. This discrepancy is caused by the omission from the calculation of figures of amounts less than one dollar. This net credit of $20,468,904 was divided into a cash credit to petitioner of $2,917,112 and a reduction of the mortgage indebtedness by $17,551,792. Again, for simplicity, this 1946 net credit will be considered as if it were all a cash credit. See notes 1 and 5, supra.
See note 8, supra.
See note 14, infra.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agrees with the result of the Court of Appeals in this case. See National Bulk Carriers, Inc. v. United States, 331 F. 2d 407. However, these decisions conflict with that of the Court of Claims in Socony Mobil Oil Co. v. United States, 153 Ct. Cl. 638, 287 F. 2d 910, upon which the District Court in the instant case relied.
As stated in note 1, supra, the original purchase price of $46,-973,167 consisted of a $6,449,107 cash payment and $40,524,060 in mortgage indebtedness. By the statutory enactment date of March 8, 1946, petitioner had paid an additional $9,786,339 on the mortgage. At that date therefore the original $46,973,167 purchase price consisted of a cash payment of $16,235,446 and a now reduced mortgage indebtedness of $30,737,721. As stated in note 8, supra, the 1946 payment to petitioner was comprised of a cash credit of $2,917,-112 and a reduction of the mortgage indebtedness by $17,551,792. Thus under petitioner’s calculations, after the 1946 adjustment its cost of the vessels was the sum of its cash investment of $13,318,334 ($16,235,446 minus $2,917,112
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.
A federal statute allows judges to issue wiretap orders authorizing the interception of communications to help prevent, detect, or prosecute serious federal crimes. See Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq. The statute requires the judge to find "probable cause" supporting issuance of the order, and it sets forth other detailed requirements governing both the application for a wiretap and the judicial order that authorizes it. See § 2518.
The statute provides for the suppression of "the contents of any wire or oral communication" that a wiretap "intercept[s]" along with any "evidence derived therefrom" if
"(i) the communication was unlawfully intercepted;
"(ii) the order of ... 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." § 2518(10)(a).
This litigation concerns the second of these provisions-the provision that governs the "insufficien[cy]" of an order "on its face." § 2518(10)(a)(ii).
Los and Roosevelt Dahda-defendants in the trial below and petitioners here-sought to suppress evidence derived from nine wiretap Orders used to obtain evidence of their participation in an unlawful drug distribution conspiracy. They argue that each Order is "insufficient on its face" because each contains a sentence authorizing interception "outside the territorial jurisdiction" of the authorizing judge, App. 97 (emphasis added), even though the statute normally allows a judge to authorize wiretaps only within his or her "territorial jurisdiction," § 2518(3).
In deciding whether each Order was "insufficient on its face," we assume that the Dahdas are right about the "territorial" requirement. That is to say, we assume the relevant sentence exceeded the judge's statutory authority. But none of the communications unlawfully intercepted outside the judge's territorial jurisdiction were introduced at trial, so the inclusion of the extra sentence had no significant adverse effect upon the Dahdas. Because the remainder of each Order was itself legally sufficient, we conclude that the Orders were not "insufficient" on their "face."
I
A
As we just said, the relevant statute permits a judge to issue an order authorizing the Government to intercept wire communications for an initial (but extendable) period of 30 days. § 2518(5). To obtain that order, the Government must submit an application that describes the particular offense being investigated as well as the type of communications it seeks to intercept; that sets forth the basis for an appropriate finding of "probable cause"; that explains why other less intrusive methods are inadequate, have failed, or are too dangerous to try; and that meets other requirements, showing, for example, authorization by a specified governmental official. § 2518(1). If the judge accepts the application, finds probable cause, and issues an authorizing order, that order must itself contain specified information, including, for example, the identity of the "person" whose "communications are to be intercepted"; the "nature and location of the [relevant] communications facilities"; a "particular description of the type of communication sought to be intercepted"; a statement of the "particular offense" to which the intercept "relates"; the "identity of the agency authorized to intercept"; the identity of the "person authorizing the application"; and "the period of time during which" the "interception is authorized." §§ 2518(4)(a)-(e).
A judge's authorizing authority normally extends only within statutorily defined bounds. The statute specifies that an order can permit the interception of communications "within the territorial jurisdiction of the court in which the judge is sitting." § 2518(3). (There is an exception allowing interception beyond the judge's territorial jurisdiction if the judge authorizes a "mobile interception device," ibid., but the parties now agree that exception does not apply to these Orders.) The Government here adds (without the Dahdas' disagreement) that an intercept takes place either where the tapped telephone is located or where the Government's "listening post" is located. See § 2510(4) (defining "intercept" as "the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device"); see also Brief for Petitioners 11; Brief for United States 6. As so interpreted, the statute generally requires that one or the other or both of these locations must be found within the authorizing judge's "territorial jurisdiction."
B
In 2011, the Government began investigating a suspected drug distribution ring based in Kansas. It submitted an application asking a federal judge for the District of Kansas to issue nine related wiretap Orders, and the judge issued them. For present purposes we assume, see infra, at 1495 - 1500, that all nine Orders met all statutory requirements with one exception. Each Order contained a sentence that read as follows:
"Pursuant to Title 18, United States Code § 2518(3), it is further Ordered that, in the event TARGET TELEPHONE # 1, TARGET TELEPHONE # 3 and TARGET TELEPHONE # 4, are transported outside the territorial jurisdiction of the court, interception may take place in any other jurisdiction within the United States." App. 105 (under seal) (emphasis added); see also id., at 97, 114, 123, 132, 140, 149, 158, 166, 174 (Orders containing identical language but targeting different telephones).
Although they disputed it below, the parties now agree that this sentence could not lawfully allow a wiretap of a phone that was located outside Kansas in instances where the Government's listening post was also located outside of Kansas.
Pursuant to these Orders, the Government listened from a listening post within Kansas to conversations on mobile phones that were located within Kansas and conversations on mobile phones that were located outside of Kansas. But, in one instance, the Government listened from a listening post outside of Kansas (in Missouri) to conversations on a mobile phone that was also outside of Kansas (in California). That one instance concerned a mobile phone (Target Telephone # 7) belonging to Philip Alarcon.
In 2012, the Government indicted the Dahdas and several others, charging them with conspiracy to buy illegal drugs in California and sell them in Kansas. Prior to trial, the Dahdas moved to suppress all evidence derived from the wiretaps authorized by the nine Orders on the ground that the District Court could not authorize the interception of calls from the Missouri listening post to and from Alarcon's mobile phone in California. In its response, the Government said it would not introduce any evidence arising from its Missouri listening post. A Magistrate Judge and subsequently the District Court denied the Dahdas' suppression motion. App. to Pet. for Cert. 59a-76a.
The Dahdas appealed. They argued that, even though the Government did not use any wiretap information from the Missouri listening post, the court should have suppressed all evidence derived from any of the Orders. That, they said, is because each Order was "insufficient on its face" given the extra sentence authorizing interception outside Kansas. Hence the second subparagraph of the statute's suppression provision required the evidence to be suppressed. § 2518(10)(a)(ii).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rejected this argument on the ground that the claimed insufficiency concerned the statute's territorial requirement. 853 F.3d 1101, 1114-1116 (2017). That requirement, in its view, did not " 'implemen[t]' " Congress' core statutory concerns in enacting the wiretap statute. Id., at 1114 (quoting United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 527, 94 S.Ct. 1820, 40 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974) ). And for that reason a violation of the territorial requirement did not warrant suppression. See also 852 F.3d 1282, 1290 (2017).
The Dahdas filed a petition for certiorari, seeking review of the Tenth Circuit's determination. And, in light of different related holdings among the Circuits, we granted that petition. Compare 853 F.3d, at 1114-1116 (suppression was not required for orders authorizing suppression beyond the District Court's territorial jurisdiction), and Adams v. Lankford, 788 F.2d 1493, 1500 (C.A.11 1986) (same), with United States v. Glover, 736 F.3d 509, 515 (C.A.D.C.2013) (suppression required for territorial defect).
II
A
The question before us concerns the interpretation of the suppression provision's second subparagraph, which requires suppression where a wiretap order is "insufficient on its face." § 2518(10)(a)(ii). The Dahdas ask us to read subparagraph (ii) as applying to any legal defect that appears within the four corners of the order. The Government replies that the Dahdas' approach would require suppression of evidence of serious criminal behavior due to the most minor of technical failures, including those that have little or no relation to any statutory objective.
The Tenth Circuit, agreeing with the Government, held that subparagraph (ii) applies only where the "insufficiency" constitutes an order's failure to satisfy a " 'statutory requiremen[t] that directly and substantially implement [s] the congressional intention to limit the use of intercept procedures to those situations clearly calling for the employment of this extraordinary investigative device.' " 853 F.3d, at 1114 (quoting Giordano, supra, at 527, 94 S.Ct. 1820 ; second alteration in original). The court identified two such core concerns-" '(1) protecting the privacy of wire and oral communications, and (2) delineating on a uniform basis the circumstances and conditions under which the interception of wire and oral communications may be authorized' "-and concluded that neither applies to the statute's territorial limitation. 853 F.3d, at 1114 (quoting S. Rep. No. 90-1097, p. 66 (1986)).
Like the Dahdas, we believe that the Tenth Circuit's interpretation of this provision is too narrow. The Tenth Circuit took the test it applied from this Court's decision in United States v. Giordano, supra, at 527, 94 S.Ct. 1820. But Giordano involved a different provision. Keep in mind that the statute sets forth three grounds for suppression:
"(i) the communication was unlawfully intercepted;
"(ii) the order of ... 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." § 2518(10)(a).
Giordano focused not, as here, on the second subparagraph but on the first subparagraph, which calls for the suppression of "unlawfully intercepted" communications.
In Giordano, a criminal defendant sought suppression of wiretap-gathered information on the ground that the wiretap application was unlawfully authorized. 416 U.S., at 525, 94 S.Ct. 1820. A provision of the wiretap statute that has since been amended required an application to be approved by either the Attorney General or a designated Assistant Attorney General. See 18 U.S.C. § 2516(1) (1970 ed.). But, in Giordano's case, an executive assistant to the Assistant Attorney General-not the Assistant Attorney General himself-had approved the application. 416 U.S., at 510, 94 S.Ct. 1820.
The Government argued that this statutory violation did not violate the first subparagraph, i.e., it did not lead to an "unlawfu[l] intercept[ion]," 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(i), because that subparagraph covers only violations of the Constitution, not statutes. Giordano, 416 U.S., at 525-526, 94 S.Ct. 1820. Otherwise, the Government added, subparagraphs (ii) and (iii)-which clearly cover some statutory violations-would be superfluous. Id., at 526, 94 S.Ct. 1820. But this Court held that the first subparagraph did cover certain statutory violations, namely, violations of those statutory provisions that "implemented" the wiretap-related congressional concerns the Tenth Circuit mentioned in its opinion. Id., at 527, 94 S.Ct. 1820. So construed, the suppression provision left room for the second and third subparagraphs to have separate legal force. The Court went on to hold that a violation of the approval-by-the-Attorney-General provision implicated Congress' core concerns. Subparagraph (i) thus covered that particular statutory provision. And, finding the provision violated, it ordered the wiretap evidence suppressed. Id., at 527-528, 94 S.Ct. 1820.
Here, by contrast, we focus upon subparagraph (ii), which requires suppression when an order is facially insufficient. And in respect to this subparagraph, we can find no good reason for applying Giordano 's test. The underlying point of Giordano 's limitation was to help give independent meaning to each of § 2518(10)(a)'s subparagraphs. It thus makes little sense to extend the core concerns test to subparagraph (ii) as well. Doing so would "actually treat that subparagraph as 'surplusage'-precisely what [this] Court tried to avoid in Giordano ." Glover, 736 F.3d, at 514. We consequently conclude that subparagraph (ii) does not contain a Giordano- like "core concerns" requirement. The statute means what it says. That is to say, subparagraph (ii) applies where an order is "insufficient on its face." § 2518(10)(a)(ii).
B
Although we believe the Tenth Circuit erred in applying Giordano 's core concerns test to subparagraph (ii), we cannot fully endorse the Dahdas' reading of the statute either. In our view, subparagraph (ii) does not cover each and every error that appears in an otherwise sufficient order. It is clear that subparagraph (ii) covers at least an order's failure to include information that § 2518(4) specifically requires the order to contain. See §§ 2518(4)(a)-(e) (requiring an order to specify, e.g., the "identity of the person, if known, whose communications are to be intercepted," "a particular description of the type of communication sought to be intercepted, and a statement of the particular offense to which it relates"); Brief for United States 17. An order lacking that information would deviate from the uniform authorizing requirements that Congress explicitly set forth, while also falling literally within the phrase "insufficient on its face."
But the Dahdas would have us go further and conclude that any defect that may appear on an order's face would render it insufficient. The lower courts in various contexts have debated just which kinds of defects subparagraph (ii) covers. See, e.g., United States v. Moore, 41 F.3d 370, 375-376 (C.A.8 1994) (order missing judge's signature); United States v. Joseph, 519 F.2d 1068, 1070 (C.A.5 1975) (order identifying the wrong Government official as authorizing the application); United States v. Vigi, 515 F.2d 290, 293 (C.A.6 1975) (same). We need not, however, resolve the questions that these many different cases raise. We need only determine whether the defects in the Orders before us render them "insufficient." We conclude that they do not.
We rest that conclusion upon an argument that the Government did not make below but which it did set forth in its response to the petition for certiorari and at the beginning of its brief on the merits. That argument is closely related to the arguments the Government did make below. It has been fully briefed by both sides. And as we may "affir[m]" a lower court judgment "on any ground permitted by the law and the record," Murr v. Wisconsin, 582 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 1933, 1949, 198 L.Ed.2d 497 (2017), we see little to be gained by remanding this litigation for further consideration.
The argument is simply this: Subparagraph (ii) refers to an order that is "insufficient on its face." An order is "insufficient" insofar as it is "deficient" or "lacking in what is necessary or requisite." 5 Oxford English Dictionary 359 (1933); accord, Webster's New International Dictionary 1288 (2d ed. 1957). And, looking, as the Dahdas urge us to do, at "the four corners of the order itself," Reply Brief 4, we cannot find any respect in which the Orders are deficient or lacking in anything necessary or requisite.
The Orders do contain a defect, namely, the sentence authorizing interception outside Kansas, which we set forth above. See supra, at 1495 - 1496. But not every defect results in an insufficiency. In that sentence, the District Court "further" ordered that interception may take place "outside the territorial jurisdiction of the court." App. 97. The sentence is without legal effect because, as the parties agree, the Orders could not legally authorize a wiretap outside the District Court's "territorial jurisdiction." But, more importantly, the sentence itself is surplus. Its presence is not connected to any other relevant part of the Orders. Were we to remove the sentence from the Orders, they would then properly authorize wiretaps within the authorizing court's territorial jurisdiction. As we discussed above, a listening post within the court's territorial jurisdiction could lawfully intercept communications made to or from telephones located within Kansas or outside Kansas. See supra, at 1495. Consequently, every wiretap that produced evidence introduced at the Dahdas' trial was properly authorized under the statute.
The Dahdas argue that, without the offending sentence, the Orders are "insufficient" because they then do not specifically list the territorial area where they could lawfully take effect. Reply Brief 6. The Orders, however, clearly set forth the authorizing judge's territorial jurisdiction: the "District of Kansas." See App. 100. And the statute itself presumptively limits every Order's scope to the issuing court's territorial jurisdiction. See § 2518(3). We consequently fail to see how the additional language here at issue could render the Orders facially insufficient.
The Dahdas add that interpreting the term "insufficient" as we have just done will produce "bizarre results." Reply Brief 5. They claim that, under the Government's logic, an order authorizing interception for 180 days would not be facially insufficient even though the wiretap statute expressly limits the maximum duration of a wiretap order to 30 days. § 2518(5). To be sure, a 180-day order may raise problems that the language at issue here does not. On the one hand, it may be argued that such an order would be facially insufficient because without the 180-day provision the order would not contain any time limit at all. See § 2518(4)(e). On the other hand, one might argue that such an order merely would be overly broad-not facially insufficient-and that suppression would be warranted only for those communications unlawfully intercepted after 30 days. See § 2518(10)(a)(i).
Regardless, we need not now address the Dahdas' 180-day hypothetical. It is enough to say that the problems that may be associated with such an order are not present in this litigation. Here, the Orders would have been sufficient even if they lacked the language authorizing interception outside Kansas. And the Dahdas cannot seek suppression under subparagraph (i) given that the unlawfully intercepted communications from the Missouri listening post were not introduced at trial.
Our interpretation of subparagraph (ii) makes sense of the suppression provision as a whole. Where the Government's use of a wiretap is unconstitutional or violates a statutory provision that reflects Congress' core concerns, an aggrieved person may suppress improperly acquired evidence under subparagraph (i) (as "unlawfully intercepted," see Giordano, 416 U.S., at 527, 94 S.Ct. 1820 ). Where an order lacks information that the wiretap statute requires it to include, an aggrieved person may suppress the fruits of the order under subparagraph (ii) (as "insufficient on its face"). And where the Government fails to comply with conditions set forth in the authorizing order, an aggrieved person may suppress its fruits under subparagraph (iii) (as an "interception ... not made in conformity with the order of authorization or approval").
For these reasons, the judgments of the Court of Appeals are affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice GORSUCH took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
JUSTICE SCALIA
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether, in a federal prosecution, a general guilty verdict on a multiple-object conspiracy charge must be set aside if the evidence is inadequate to support conviction as to one of the objects.
I
A federal grand jury returned a 23-count indictment against petitioner Diane Griffin and others. Count 20, the only count in which Griffin was named, charged her, Alex Beverly, and Betty McNulty with conspiring to defraud an agency of the Federal Government in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 371, which reads, in pertinent part, as follows:
"If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be [guilty of a crime]."
The unlawful conspiracy was alleged to have had two objects: (1) impairing the efforts of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to ascertain income taxes; and (2) impairing the efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to ascertain forfeitable assets.
The evidence introduced at trial implicated Beverly and McNulty in both conspiratorial objects, and petitioner in the IRS object. However, because testimony anticipated by the Government from one of its witnesses did not materialize, the evidence did not connect petitioner to the DEA object. On that basis, petitioner moved for a severance, but her motion was denied. At the close of trial, she proposed instructions to the effect that she could be convicted only if the jury found she was aware of the IRS object of the conspiracy. She also proposed special interrogatories asking the jury to identify the object or objects of the conspiracy of which she had knowledge. Both requests were denied. The court instructed the jury in a manner that would permit it to return a guilty verdict against petitioner on Count 20 if it found her to have participated in either one of the two objects of the conspiracy. The jury returned a general verdict of guilty on Count 20 against Beverly, McNulty, and petitioner.
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld petitioner’s conviction, rejecting the argument that the general verdict could not stand because it left in doubt whether the jury had convicted her of conspiring to defraud the IRS, for which there was sufficient proof, or of conspiring to defraud the DEA, for which (as the Government concedes) there was not. United States v. Beverly, 913 F. 2d 337 (1990). We granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 1082 (1991).
The question presented for review, as set forth in the petition, is simply whether a general verdict of guilty under circumstances such as existed here “is reversible.” The body of the petition, however, sets forth the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the jury trial provision of the Sixth Amendment as bases for the relief requested. Only the former has been discussed (and that briefly) in the written and oral argument before us. For that reason, and also because the alleged defect here is not that a jury determination was denied but rather that a jury determination was permitted, we find it unnecessary to say anything more about the Sixth Amendment. We address below the Due Process Clause and also the various case precedents relied upon by petitioner.
II
The rule of criminal procedure applied by the Seventh Circuit here is not an innovation. It was settled law in England before the Declaration of Independence, and in this country long afterwards, that a general jury verdict was valid so long as it was legally supportable on one of the submitted grounds — even though that gave no assurance that a valid ground, rather than an invalid one, was actually the basis for the jury’s action. As Wharton wrote in 1889:
“For years it was the prevailing practice in England and this country, where there was a general verdict of guilty on an indictment containing several counts, some bad and some good, to pass judgment on the counts that were good, on the presumption that it was to them that the verdict of the jury attached, and upon the withdrawal by the prosecution of the bad counts.... [I]n the United States, with but few exceptions, the courts have united in sustaining general judgments on an indictment in which there are several counts stating cognate of-fences, irrespective of the question whether one of these counts is bad.” F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 771, pp. 533-536 (9th ed. 1889) (footnotes omitted).
And as this Court has observed:
“In criminal cases, the general rule, as stated by Lord Mansfield before the Declaration of Independence, is ‘that if there is any one count to support the verdict, it shall stand good, notwithstanding all the rest are bad.’ And it is settled law in this court, and in this country generally, that in any criminal case a general verdict and judgment on an indictment or information containing several counts cannot be reversed on error, if any one of the counts is good and warrants the judgment, because, in the absence of anything in the record to show the contrary, the presumption of law is that the court awarded sentence on the good count only.” Claassen v. United States, 142 U. S. 140, 146 (1891) (quoting Peake v. Oldham, 1 Cowper 275, 276, 98 Eng. Rep. 1083 (K. B. 1775)) (other citations omitted).
See also Snyder v. United States, 112 U. S. 216, 217 (1884); Clifton v. United States, 4 How. 242, 250 (1846); 1 J. Bishop, Criminal Procedure § 1015, p. 631 (2d ed. 1872).
This common-law rule applied in a variety of contexts. It validated general verdicts returned on multicount indictments where some of the counts were legally defective (“bad”), see, e. g., Clifton, supra, at 250; State v. Shelledy, 8 Iowa 477, 511 (1859); State v. Burke, 38 Me. 574, 575-576 (1854); Commonwealth v. Holmes, 17 Mass. 336, 337 (1821), and general verdicts returned on multicount indictments where some of the counts were unsupported by the evidence, see, e. g., State v. Long, 52 N. C. 24, 26 (1859); State v. Bugbee, 22 Vt. 32, 35 (1849); 1 Bishop, supra, § 1014, p. 630. It also applied to the analogous situation at issue here: a general jury verdict under a single count charging the commission of an offense by two or more means. For example, in reviewing a count charging defendants with composing, printing, and publishing a libel, Lord Ellenborough stated:
“It is enough to prove publication. If an indictment charges that the defendant did and caused to be done a particular act, it is enough to prove either. The distinction runs through the whole criminal law, and it is invariably enough to prove so much of the indictment as shows that the defendant has committed a substantive crime therein specified.” King v. Hunt, 2 Camp. 583, 584-585, 170 Eng. Rep. 1260 (N. P. 1811).
The latter application of the rule made it a regular practice for prosecutors to charge conjunctively, in one count, the various means of committing a statutory offense, in order to avoid the pitfalls of duplicitous pleading.
“A statute often makes punishable the doing of one thing or another,... sometimes thus specifying a considerable number of things. Then, by proper and ordinary construction, a person who in one transaction does all, violates the statute but once, and incurs only one penalty. Yet he violates it equally by doing one of the things. Therefore the indictment on such a statute may allege, in a single count, that the defendant did as many of the forbidden things as the pleader chooses, employing the conjunction and where the statute has ‘or,’ and it will not be double, and it will be established at the trial by proof of any one of them.” 1 J. Bishop, New Criminal Procedure §436, pp. 355-356 (2d ed. 1913) (footnotes omitted).
See, e. g., Crain v. United States, 162 U. S. 625, 636 (1896); Sanford v. State, 8 Ala. App. 245, 247, 62 So. 317, 318 (1913); State v. Bresee, 137 Iowa 673, 681, 114 N. W. 45, 48 (1907); Morganstern v. Commonwealth, 94 Va. 787, 790,26 S. E. 402, 403 (1896). See also Schad v. Arizona, 501 U. S. 624, 630-631 (1991); Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 7(c)(1) (authorizing a single count to allege that an offense was committed “by one or more specified means”).
The historical practice, therefore, fails to support petitioner’s claim under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. See Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 276-277 (1856). Petitioner argues, however, that — whether as a matter of due process or by virtue of our supervisory power over federal courts — a result contrary to the earlier practice has been prescribed by our decision in Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298 (1957). Yates involved a single-count federal indictment charging a conspiracy “(1) to advocate and teach the duty and necessity of overthrowing the Government of the United States by force and violence, and (2) to organize, as the Communist Party of the United States, a society of persons who so advocate and teach.” Id., at 300. The first of these objects (the “advocacy” charge) violated § 2(a)(1) of the Smith Act of 1940 (subsequently repealed and substantially reenacted as 18 U. S. C. § 2385), and the second of them (the “organizing” charge) violated § 2(a)(3). We found that the “organizing” object was insufficient in law, since the statutory term referred to initial formation, and the Communist Party had been “organized” in that sense at a time beyond the period of the applicable statute of limitations. 354 U. S., at 304-311. We then rejected the Government’s argument that the convictions could nonetheless stand on the basis of the “advocacy” object. Our analysis made no mention of the Due Process Clause but consisted in its entirety of the following:
“In these circumstances we think the proper rule to be applied is that which requires a verdict to be set aside in cases where the verdict is supportable on one ground, but not on another, and it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 367-368; Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 291-292; Cramer v. United States, 325 U. S. 1, 36, n. 45.” id, at 312.
None of the three authorities cited for that expansive proposition in fact establishes it. The first of them, Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931), is the fountainhead of decisions departing from the common law with respect to the point at issue here. That case, however — which does not explicitly invoke the Due Process Clause — does not sanction as broad a departure as the dictum in Yates expresses, or indeed even the somewhat narrower departure that the holding in Yates adopts. The defendant in Stromberg was charged in one count of violating a California statute prohibiting the display of a red flag in a public place for any one of three purposes: (a) as a symbol of opposition to organized government; (b) as an invitation to anarchistic action; or (c) as an aid to seditious propaganda. Id., at 361. The jury was instructed that it could convict if it found the defendant guilty of violating any one purpose of the statute. Id., at 363-364. A conviction in the form of a general verdict followed. The California appellate court upheld the conviction on the ground that, even though it doubted the constitutionality of criminalizing the first of the three purposes, the statute (and conviction) could be saved if that provision was severed from the statute. We rejected that:
“As there were three purposes set forth in the statute, and the jury were instructed that their verdict might be given with respect to any one of them, independently considered, it is impossible to say under which clause of the statute the conviction was obtained. If any one of these clauses, which the state court has held to be separable, was invalid, it cannot be determined upon this record that the appellant was not convicted under that clause.... It follows that instead of its being permissible to hold, with the state court, that the verdict could be sustained if any one of the clauses of the statute were found to be valid, the necessary conclusion from the manner in which the case was sent to the jury is that, if any of the clauses in question is invalid under the Federal Constitution, the conviction cannot be upheld.” Id., at 368.
This language, and the holding of Stromberg, do not necessarily stand for anything more than the principle that, where a provision of the Constitution forbids conviction on a particular ground, the constitutional guarantee is violated by a general verdict that may have rested on that ground.
The same principle explains the other two cases relied on by Yates. In Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287 (1942), the defendant was convicted of bigamous cohabitation after the jury had been instructed that it could disregard the defendants’ Nevada divorce decrees on the ground either that North Carolina did not recognize decrees based on substituted service or that the decrees were procured by fraud. Id., at 290-291. The former of these grounds, we found, violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause. We continued:
“[T]he verdict of the jury for all we know may have been rendered on that [unconstitutional] ground alone, since it did not specify the basis on which it rested. ... No reason has been suggested why the rule of the Strom-berg case is inapplicable here. Nor has any reason been advanced why the rule of the Stromberg case is not both appropriate and necessary for the protection of rights of the accused. To say that a general verdict of guilty should be upheld though we cannot know that it did not rest on the invalid constitutional ground on which the case was submitted to the jury, would be to countenance a procedure which would cause a serious impairment of constitutional rights.” Id., at 292.
The third case cited by Yates, Cramer v. United States, 325 U. S. 1 (1945), was our first opportunity to interpret the provision of Article III, §3, which requires, for conviction of treason against the United States, that there be “two Witnesses to the same overt Act.” The prosecution had submitted proof of three overt acts to the jury, which had returned a general verdict of guilty. After a comprehensive analysis of the overt-act requirement, id., at 8-35, we found that two of the acts proffered by the prosecution did not satisfy it, id., at 36-44, and accordingly reversed the conviction. “Since it is not possible,” we said, “to identify the grounds on which Cramer was convicted, the verdict must be set aside if any of the separable acts submitted was insufficient.” Id., at 36, n. 45.
A host of our decisions, both before and after Yates, has applied what Williams called “the rule of the Stromberg case” to general-verdict convictions that may have rested on an unconstitutional ground. See, e. g., Bachellar v. Maryland, 397 U. S. 564, 570-571 (1970); Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6, 31-32 (1969); Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 585-588 (1969); Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 5 (1949); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 529 (1945). Cf. Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 880-884 (1983) (rejecting contention that Stromberg required a death sentence to be set aside if one of several statutory aggravating circumstances underlying the jury verdict was unconstitutionally vague). Yates, however, was the first and only case of ours to apply Strom-berg to a general verdict in which one of the possible bases of conviction did not violate any provision of the Constitution but was simply legally inadequate (because of a statutory time bar). As we have described, that was an unexplained extension, explicitly invoking neither the Due Process Clause (which is an unlikely basis) nor our supervisory powers over the procedures employed in a federal prosecution.
Our continued adherence to the holding of Yates is not at issue in this case. What petitioner seeks is an extension of its holding — an expansion of its expansion of Stromberg — to a context in which we have never applied it before. Petitioner cites no case, and we are aware of none, in which we have set aside a general verdict because one of the possible bases of conviction was neither unconstitutional as in Strom-berg, nor even illegal as in Yates, but merely unsupported by sufficient evidence. If such invalidation on evidentiary grounds were appropriate, it is hard to see how it could be limited to those alternative bases of conviction that constitute separate legal grounds; surely the underlying principle would apply equally, for example, to an indictment charging murder by shooting or drowning, where the evidence of drowning proves inadequate. See Schad v. Arizona, 501 U. S., at 630-631. But petitioner’s requested extension is not merely unprecedented and extreme; it also contradicts another case, postdating Yates, that in our view must govern here.
Turner v. United States, 396 U. S. 398 (1970), involved a claim that the evidence was insufficient to support a general guilty verdict under a one-count indictment charging the defendant with knowingly purchasing, possessing, dispensing, and distributing heroin not in or from the original stamped package, in violation of 26 U. S. C. § 4704(a) (1964 ed.). We held that the conviction would have to be sustained if there was sufficient evidence of distribution alone. We set forth as the prevailing rule: “[W]hen a jury returns a guilty verdict on an indictment charging several acts in the conjunctive, as Turner’s indictment did, the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged.” Id., at 420. Cf. United States v. Miller, 471 U. S. 130, 136 (1985).
Although petitioner does not ask us to overrule Turner, neither does she give us any adequate basis for distinguishing it. She claims that we have not yet applied the rule of that case to multiple-act conspiracies. That is questionable. See United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 250 (1940). But whether we have yet done so or not, the controlling point is that a logical and consistent application of Turner demands that proof of alternative facts in conspiracy cases be treated the same as proof of alternative facts in other contexts. Imagine the not unlikely case of a prosecution for defrauding an insurer through two means and for conspiring to defraud the insurer through the same two means; and imagine a failure of proof with respect to one of the means. Petitioner’s proposal would produce the strange result of voiding a conviction on the conspiracy while sustaining a conviction on the substantive offense. We agree with the vast majority of Federal Courts of Appeals, which have made no exception to the Turner rule for multiple-object and multiple-overt-act conspiracies. See, e. g., United States v. Bilzerian, 926 F. 2d 1285, 1302 (CA2 1991), cert. denied, post, p. 813; United States v. Beverly, 913 F. 2d 337, 362-365 (CA7 1990) (case below); United States v. Johnson, 713 F. 2d 633, 645-646, and n. 15 (CA11 1983), cert. denied sub nom. Wilkins v. United States, 465 U. S. 1081 (1984); United States v. Wedelstedt, 589 F. 2d 339, 341-342 (CA8 1978), cert. denied, 442 U. S. 916 (1979); United States v. James, 528 F. 2d 999, 1014 (CA5), cert. denied sub nom. Austin v. United States, 429 U. S. 959 (1976); Moss v. United States, 132 F. 2d 875, 877-878 (CA6 1943).
Petitioner also seeks to distinguish Turner on the basis that it applies only where one can be sure that the jury did not use the inadequately supported ground as the basis of conviction. That assurance exists, petitioner claims, when the prosecution presents no evidence whatever to support the insufficient theory; if the prosecution offers some, but insufficient, evidence on the point, as it did in this case, then the Yates “impossible to tell” rationale controls. This novel theory posits two different degrees of failure of proof — a failure that is sufficiently insufficient, to which Turner would apply, and one that is insufficiently insufficient, to which Yates would apply. Besides producing an odd system in which the greater failure of proof is rewarded, the rule seems to us full of practical difficulty, bereft of support in Turner, and without foundation in the common-law presumption upon which Turner is based.
Finally, petitioner asserts that the distinction between legal error (Yates) and insufficiency of proof (Turner) is illusory, since judgments that are not supported by the requisite minimum of proof are invalid as a matter of law — and indeed, in the criminal law field at least, are constitutionally required to be set aside. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 (1979). Insufficiency of proof, in other words, is legal error. This represents a purely semantical dispute. In one sense “legal error” includes inadequacy of evidence— namely, when the phrase is used as a term of art to designate those mistakes that it is the business of judges (in jury cases) and of appellate courts to identify and correct. In this sense “legal error” occurs when a jury, properly instructed as to the law, convicts on the basis of evidence that no reasonable person could regard as sufficient. But in another sense — a more natural and less artful sense — the term “legal error” means a mistake about the law, as opposed to a mistake concerning the weight or the factual import of the evidence. The answer to petitioner’s objection is simply that we are using “legal error” in the latter sense.
That surely establishes a clear line that will separate Turner from Yates, and it happens to be a line that makes good sense. Jurors are not generally equipped to determine whether a particular theory of conviction submitted to them is contrary to law — whether, for example, the action in question is protected by the Constitution, is time barred, or fails to come within the statutory definition of the crime. When, therefore, jurors have been left the option of relying upon a legally inadequate theory, there is no reason to think that their own intelligence and expertise will save them from that error. Quite the opposite is true, however, when they have been left the option of relying upon a factually inadequate theory, since jurors are well equipped to analyze the evidence, see Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 157 (1968). As the Seventh Circuit has put it:
“It is one thing to negate a verdict that, while supported by evidence, may have been based on an erroneous view of the law; it is another to do so merely on the chance— remote, it seems to us — that the jury convicted on a ground that was not supported by adequate evidence when there existed alternative grounds for which the evidence was sufficient.” United States v. Townsend, 924 F. 2d 1385, 1414 (1991).
* * *
What we have said today does not mean that a district court cannot, in its discretion, give an instruction of the sort petitioner requested here, eliminating from the jury’s consideration an alternative basis of liability that does not have adequate evidentiary support. Indeed, if the evidence is insufficient to support an alternative legal theory of liability, it would generally be preferable for the court to give an instruction removing that theory from the jury’s consideration. The refusal to do so, however, does not provide an independent basis for reversing an otherwise valid conviction. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
At the outset of its discussion of the two overt acts, the Cramer Court said: “At the present stage of the case we need not weigh their sufficiency as a matter of pleading. Whatever the averments might have permitted the Government to prove, we now consider their adequacy on the proof as made.” 325 U. S., at 37. Petitioner suggests this means that Cramer was a sufficiency-of-the-evidence case — a point relevant to our later analysis, see infra, at 58-59. That suggestion is mistaken. As is apparent from the Court’s full discussion, “adequacy on the proof as made” meant not whether the evidence sufficed to enable an alleged fact to be found, but rather whether the facts adduced at trial sufficed in law to constitute overt acts of treason. Thus the Court could say: “It is not relevant to our issue to appraise weight or credibility of the evidence apart from determining its constitutional sufficiency.” 325 U. S., at 43. The Court of Appeals’ opinion in Cramer makes even clearer that legal as opposed to evi-dentiary sufficiency was at issue; it specifically distinguishes the case from those in which multiple overt acts sufficient in law are submitted to the jury and the conviction is upheld as long as the evidence suffices to show one of them. See United States v. Cramer, 137 F. 2d 888, 893-894 (CA2 1943).
The only Court of Appeals we are aware of that adheres to the contrary rule is the Third Circuit, albeit without distinguishing, or even acknowledging the existence of, Turner. See United States v. Tarnopol, 561 F. 2d 466, 474-475 (1977). Many eases can be found, some of which are cited by petitioner, that invalidate general conspiracy verdicts on the basis of legal deficiency of some of the objects rather than inadequacy of proof; these are of course irrelevant. See, e. g., United States v. Irwin, 654 F. 2d 671, 680 (CA10 1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 1016 (1982); United States v. Head, 641 F. 2d 174, 178-179 (CA4 1981), cert. denied, 462 U. S. 1132 (1983); United States v. Kavazanjian, 623 F. 2d 730, 739-740 (CA1 1980); United States v. Carman, 577 F. 2d 556, 567-568 (CA9 1978); United States v. Baranski, 484 F. 2d 556, 560-561 (CA7 1973); Van Liew v. United States, 321 F. 2d 664, 672 (CA5 1963). Some other cases cited by petitioner do not involve a conspiracy charge at all, e. g., United States v. Natelli, 527 F. 2d 311, 324-325 (CA2 1975), cert. denied, 425 U. S. 934 (1976), or apply their ruling to both substantive and conspiracy charges, e. g., United States v. Garcia, 907 F. 2d 380, 381 (CA2 1990) — which means that they flatly contradict Turner and offer no support for the distinction that petitioner suggests. Still others have been distinguished (or effectively overruled) by later cases within the Circuit, see, e. g., United States v. Berardi, 675 F. 2d 894, 902 (CA7 1982).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
■ For many years, an Indiana statute, the “Barrett Law,” authorized Indiana’s cities to impose upon benefited lot own.ers the cost of sewer improvement projects. The Barrett Law also permitted those lot owners to pay either immediately in the form of a lump sum or over time in installments. In 2005, the city of Indianapolis (Indianapolis or City) adopted a new assessment and payment method, the “STEP” plan, and it forgave any Barrett Law installments that lot owners had not yet paid.
A group of lot owners who had already paid their entire Barrett Law assessment in a lump sum believe that the City should have provided them with equivalent refunds. And we must decide whether the City’s refusal to do so unconstitutionally discriminates against them in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, Arndt. 14, § 1. We hold that the City had a rational basis for distinguishing between those lot owners who had already paid their share of project costs and those who had not. And we conclude that there is no equal protection violation.
I
A
Beginning in 1889, Indiana’s Barrett Law permitted cities to pay for public improvements, such as sewage projects, by “apportioning]” the costs of a project “equally among all abutting lands or lots.” Ind. Code § 36-9-39-15(b)(3) (2011); see Town Council of New Harmony v. Parker, 726 N. E. 2d 1217, 1227, n. 13 (Ind. 2000) (project’s beneficiaries pay its costs). When a city built a Barrett Law project, the city’s public works board would create an initial lot-owner assessment by “dividing the estimated total cost of the sewage works by the total number of lots.” § 36-9-39-16(a). It might then adjust an individual assessment downward if the lot would benefit less than would others. § 36-9-39-17(b). Upon completion of the project, the board would issue a final lot-by-lot assessment.
The Barrett .Law permitted lot owners to pay the assessment either in a single lump sum or over time in installment payments (with interest). The City would collect installment payments “in the same manner as other taxes.” §36-9-37-6. The Barrett Law authorized 10-, 20-, or 30-year installment plans. § 36-9-37-8.5(a). Until fully paid, an assessment would constitute a lien against the property, permitting the city to initiate foreclosure proceedings in case of a default. §§ 36-9~37-9(b), -22.
For several decades, Indianapolis used the Barrett Law system to fund sewer projects. See, e. g., Conley v. Brummil, 92 Ind. App. 620, 621, 176 N. E. 880, 881 (1931) (in banc). But in 2005, the City adopted a new system, called the Septic Tank Elimination Program (STEP), which financed projects in part through bonds, thereby lowering individual lot owners' sewer-connection costs. By that time, the City had constructed more than 40 Barrett Law projects. App. to Pet. for Cert. 5a. We are told that installment-paying lot owners still owed money in respect to 24 of those projects. See Reply Brief for Petitioners 16-17, n. 3 (citing City’s Response to Plaintiff’s Brief on Damages, Record in Cox v. Indianapolis, No. 1:09-cv-0435 (SD Ind.), Doc. 98-1 (Exh. A)). In respect to 21 of the 24, some installment payments had not yet fallen due; in respect to the other 3, those who owed money were in default. Reply Brief for Petitioners 17, n. 3.
B
This case concerns one of the 24 still-open Barrett Law projects, namely, the Brisbane/Manning Sanitary Sewers Project. The Brisbane/Manning Project began in 2001. It connected about 180 homes to the City’s sewage system. Construction was completed in 2003. The Indianapolis Board of Public Works (Board) held an assessment hearing in June 2004. And in July 2004, the Board sent the 180 affected homeowners a formal notice of their payment obligations.
The notice made clear that each homeowner could pay the entire assessment — $9,278 per property — in a lump sum or in installments, which would include interest at a 3.5% annual rate. Under an installment plan, payments would amount to $77.27 per month for 10 years; $38.66 per month for 20 years; or $25.77 per month for 30 years. In the event, 38 homeowners chose to pay up front; 47 chose the 10-year plan; 27 chose the 20-year plan; and 68 chose the 30-year plan. And in the first year each homeowner paid the amount due ($9,278 upfront; $927.80 under the 10-year plan; $463.90 under the 20-year plan, or $309.27 under the 30-year plan). App. to Pet. for Cert. 48a.
The next year, however, the City decided to abandon the Barrett Law method of financing. It thought that the Barrett Law’s lot-by-lot payments had become too burdensome for many homeowners to pay, discouraging changes from less healthy septic- tanks to healthier sewer systems. See id., at 4a-5a. (For example, homes helped by the Brisbane/ Manning Project, at a cost of more than $9,000 each, were then valued at $120,000 to $270,000. App. 67.) The City’s new STEP method of financing would charge each connecting lot owner a flat $2,500 fee and make up the difference by floating bonds eventually paid for by all lot owners citywide. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 5a, n. 5.
On October 31, 2005, the City enacted an ordinance implementing its decision. In December, the Board enacted a further resolution, Resolution 101, which, as part of the transition, would “forgive all assessment amounts ... established pursuant to the Barrett Law Funding for Municipal Sewer programs due and owing from the date of November 1, 2005 forward.” App. 72 (emphasis added). In its preamble, the resolution said that the Barrett Law “may present financial hardships on many middle to lower income participants who most need sanitary sewer service in lieu of failing septic systems”; it pointed out that the City was transitioning to the new STEP method of financing; and it said that the STEP method was based upon a financial model that had “considered the current assessments being made by participants in active Barrett Law projects” as well as future projects. Id., at 71-72. The upshot was that those who still owed Barrett Law assessments would not have to make further payments but those who had already paid their assessments would not receive refunds. This meant that homeowners who had paid the full $9,278 Brisbane/Manning Project assessment in a lump sum the preceding year would receive no refund, while homeowners who had elected to pay the assessment in installments, and had paid a total of $309.27, $463.90, or $927.80, would be under no obligation to make further payments.
In February 2006, the 38 homeowners who had paid the full Brisbane/Manning Project assessment asked the City for a partial refund (in an amount equal to the smallest forgiven Brisbane/Manning installment debt, apparently $8,062). The City denied the request in part because “ [refunding payments made in your project area, or any portion of the payments, would establish a precedent of unfair and inequitable treatment to all other property owners who have also paid Barrett Law assessments . . . and while [the November 1, 2005, cutoff date] might seem arbitrary to you, it is essential for the City to establish this date and move forward with the new funding approach.” Id., at 50-51.
C
Thirty-one of the thirty-eight Brisbane/Manning-Project lump-sum homeowners brought this lawsuit in Indiana state court seeking a refund of about $8,000 each. They claimed in relevant part that the City’s refusal to provide them with refunds at the same time that the City forgave the outstanding project debts of other Brisbane/Manning homeowners violated the Federal Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, Arndt. 14, §1; see also Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983. The trial court granted summary judgment in their favor. The State Court of Appeals affirmed that judgment. 918 N. E. 2d 401 (2009). But the Indiana Supreme Court reversed. 946 N. E. 2d 553 (2011). In its view, the City’s distinction between those who had already paid their Barrett Law assessments and those who had not was “rationally related to its legitimate interests in reducing its administrative costs, providing relief for property owners experiencing financial hardship, establishing a clear transition from [the] Barrett Law to STEP, and preserving its limited resources.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a. We granted certiorari to consider the equal protection question. And we now affirm the Indiana Supreme Court.
II
A
As long as the City’s distinction has a rational basis, that distinction does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. This Court has long held that “a classification neither involving fundamental rights nor proceeding along suspect lines . . . cannot run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause if there is a rational relationship between the disparity of treatment and some legitimate governmental purpose.” Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. 312, 319-320 (1993); cf. Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 155, 165-166 (1897). We have made clear in analogous contexts that, where “ordinary commercial transactions” are at issue, rational basis review requires deference to reasonable underlying legislative judgments. United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152 (1938) (due process); see also New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297, 303 (1976) (per curiam) (equal protection). And we have repeatedly pointed out that “[legislatures have especially broad latitude in creating classifications and distinctions in tax statutes.” Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash., 461 U. S. 540, 547 (1983); see also Fitzgerald v. Racing Assn, of Central Iowa, 539 U. S. 103, 107-108 (2003); Nordlinger v. Hahn, 505 U. S. 1, 11 (1992); Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U. S. 356, 359 (1973); Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U. S. 83, 87-88 (1940); Citizens’ Telephone Co. of Grand Rapids v. Fuller, 229 U. S. 322, 329 (1913).
Indianapolis’ classification involves neither a “fundamental right” nor a “suspect” classification. Its subject matter is local, economic, social, and commercial. It is a tax classification. And no one here claims that Indianapolis.has discriminated against out-of-state commerce or new residents. Cf. Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor, 472 U. S. 612 (1985); Williams v. Vermont, 472 U. S. 14 (1985); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Ward, 470 U. S. 869 (1985); Zobel v. Williams, 457 U. S. 55 (1982). Hence, this case falls directly within the scope of our precedents holding such a law constitutionally valid if “there is a plausible policy reason for the classification, the legislative facts on which the classification is apparently based rationally may have been considered to be true by the governmental decisionmaker, and the relationship of the classification to its goal is not so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational.” Nordlinger, supra, at 11 (citations omitted). And it falls within the scope of our precedents holding that there is such a plausible reason if “there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification.” FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U. S. 307, 313 (1993); see also Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 78 (1911).
Moreover, analogous precedent warns us that we are not to “pronoune[e]” this classification “unconstitutional unless in the light of the facts made known or generally assumed it is of such a character as to preclude the assumption that it rests upon some rational basis within the knowledge and experience of the legislators.” Carotene Products Co., supra, at 152 (due process claim). Further, because the classification is presumed constitutional, the “ ‘burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support it.’” Heller, supra, at 320 (quoting Lehnhausen, supra, at 364).
B
In our view, Indianapolis’ classification has a rational basis. Ordinarily, administrative considerations can justify a tax-related distinction. See, e. g., Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U. S. 495, 511-512 (1937) (tax exemption for businesses with fewer than eight employees rational in light of the “ [administrative convenience and expense” involved); see also Lehnhausen, supra, at 365 (comparing administrative cost of taxing corporations versus individuals); Madden, supra, at 90 (comparing administrative cost of taxing deposits in local banks versus those elsewhere). And the City’s decision to stop collecting outstanding Barrett Law debts finds rational support in related administrative concerns.
The City had decided to switch to the STEP system. After that change, to continue Barrett Law unpaid-debt collection could have proved complex and expensive. It would have meant maintaining an administrative system that for years to come would have had to collect debts arising out of 20-plus different construction projects built over the course of a decade, involving monthly payments as low as $25 per household, with the possible need to maintain credibility by tracking down defaulting debtors and bringing legal action. The City, for example, would have had to maintain its Barrett Law operation within the City Controller’s Office, keep files on old, small, installment-plan debts, and (a City official says) possibly spend hundreds of thousands of dollars keeping computerized debt-tracking systems current. See Brief for International City/County Management Association et al. as Amici Curiae 13, n. 12 (citing Affidavit of Charles White ¶13, Record in Cox, Doc. No. 57-3). Unlike the collection system prior to abandonment, the City would not have added any new Barrett Law installment-plan debtors. And that fact means that it would have had to spread the fixed administrative costs of collection over an ever-declining number of debtors,, thereby continuously increasing the per-debtor cost of collection.
Consistent with these facts, the director of the City’s Department of Public Works later explained that the City decided to forgive outstanding debt in part because “[t]he administrative costs to service and process remaining balances on Barrett Law accounts long past the transition to the STEP program would hot benefit the taxpayers” and would defeat the purpose of the transition. App. 76. The four other members of the Board have said the same. See Affidavit of Gregory Taylor ¶6, Record in Cox, Doc. No. 57-5; Affidavit of Kipper Tew ¶6, ibid., Doc. No. 57-6; Affidavit of Susan Schalk ¶6, ibid., Doc. No. 57-7; Affidavit of Roger Brown ¶6, ibid., Doc. No. 57-8.
The rationality of the City’s distinction draws further support from the nature of the line-drawing choices that confronted it. To have added refunds to forgiveness would have meant adding yet further administrative costs, namely, the cost of processing refunds. At the same time, to have tried to limit the City’s costs and lost revenues by limiting forgiveness (or refund) rules to Brisbane/Manning homeowners alone would have led those involved in other Barrett Law projects to have justifiably complained about unfairness. Yet to have granted refunds (as well as providing forgiveness) to all those involved in all Barrett Law projects (there were more than 40 projects) or in all open projects (there were more than 20) would have involved even greater administrative burden. The City could not just “cut . . . checks,” post, at 691 (Roberts, C. J., dissenting), without taking funding from other programs or finding additional revenue. If, instead, the City had tried to keep the amount of revenue it lost constant (a rational goal) but spread it evenly among the apparently thousands of homeowners involved in any of the Barrett Law projects, the result would have been yet smaller individual payments, even more likely to have been too small to justify the administrative expense.
Finally, the rationality of the distinction draws support from the fact that the line that the City drew — distinguishing past payments from future obligations — is a line well known to the law. Sometimes such a line takes the form of an amnesty program, involving, say, mortgage payments, taxes, or parking tickets. E. g., 26 U. S. C. § 108(a) (1)(E) (2006 ed., Supp. IV) (federal income tax provision allowing homeowners to omit from gross income newly forgiven home mortgage debt); United States v. Martin, 523 F.. 3d 281, 284 (CA4 2008) (tax amnesty program whereby State newly forgave penalties and liabilities if taxpayer satisfied debt); Horn v. Chicago, 860 F. 2d 700, 704, n. 9 (CA7 1988) (city parking ticket amnesty program whereby outstanding tickets could be' newly settled for a fraction of amount specified). This kind of line is consistent with the distinction that the law often makes between actions previously taken and those yet to come.
C
Petitioners’ contrary arguments are not sufficient to change our conclusion. Petitioners point out that the Indiana Supreme Court also listed a different consideration, namely, “financial hardship,” as one of the factors supporting rationality. App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a. They refer to the City’s resolution that said that, the Barrett Law “may present financial hardships on many middle to lower income participants who most need sanitary sewer service in lieu of failing septic systems.” App. 71. And they argue that the tax distinction before us would not necessarily favor low-income homeowners.
We need not consider this argument, however, for the administrative considerations we have mentioned are sufficient to show a rational basis for the City’s distinction. The Indiana Supreme Court wrote that the City’s classification was “rationally related” in part “to its legitimate interests in reducing its administrative costs.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a (emphasis added). The record of the City’s proceedings is consistent with that determination. See App. 72 (when developing transition, the City “considered the current assessments being made by participants in active Barrett Law projects”)- In any event, a legislature need not “actually articulate at any time the purpose or rationale supporting its classification.” Nordlinger, 505 U. S., at 15; see also Fitzgerald, 539 U. S., at 108 (similar). Rather, the “burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support it.” Madden, 309 U. S., at 88; see Heller, 509 U. S., at 320 (same); Lehnhausen, 410 U. S., at 364 (same); see also Allied Stores of Ohio, Inc. v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 522, 530 (1959) (upholding state tax classification resting “upon a state of facts that reasonably can be conceived” as creating a rational distinction). Petitioners have not “negative[dj” the Indiana Supreme Court’s first listed justification, namely, the administrative concerns we have discussed.
Petitioners go on to propose various other forgiveness systems that would have included refunds for at least some of those who had already paid in full. They argue that those systems are superior to the system that the City chose. We have discussed those, and other possible, systems earlier. Supra, at 682-683. Each has advantages and disadvantages. But even if petitioners have found a superior system, the Constitution does not require the City to draw the perfect line nor even to draw a line superior to some other line it might have drawn. It requires only that the line actually drawn be a rational line. And for the reasons we have set forth in Part II-B, supra, we believe that the line the City drew here is rational.
Petitioners further argue that administrative considerations alone should not justify a tax distinction, lest a city arbitrarily allocate taxes among a few citizens while forgiving many similarly situated citizens on the ground that it is cheaper and easier to collect taxes from a few people than from many. Brief for Petitioners 45. Petitioners are right that administrative considerations could not justify such an unfair system. But that is not because administrative considerations can never justify tax differences (any more than they can always do so). The question is whether reducing those expenses, in the particular circumstances, provides a rational basis justifying the tax difference in question.
In this case, “in the light of the facts made known or generally assumed,” Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S., at 152, it is reasonable to believe that to graft a refund system onto the City’s forgiveness decision could have (for example) imposed an administrative burden of both collecting and paying out small sums (say, $25 per month) for years. As we have said, supra, at 682-684, it is rational for the City to draw a line that avoids that burden. Petitioners, who are the ones “attacking the legislative arrangement,” have the burden of showing that the circumstances are otherwise, i. e., that the administrative burden is too insubstantial to justify the classification. That they have not done.
Finally, petitioners point to precedent that in their view makes it more difficult than we have said for the City to show a “rational basis.” With but one exception, however, the cases to which they refer involve discrimination based on residence or length of residence. E. g., Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor, 472 U. S. 612 (state tax preference distinguishing between long-term and short-term resident veterans); Williams v. Vermont, 472 U. S. 14 (state use tax that burdened out-of-state car buyers who moved in state); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Ward, 470 U. S. 869 (state law that taxed out-of-state insurance companies at a higher rate than in-state companies); Zobel v. Williams, 457 U. S. 55 (state dividend, distribution system that favored long-term residents). But those circumstances are not present here.
The exception consists of Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. Commission of Webster Cty., 488 U. S. 336 (1989). The Court there took into account a State Constitution and related laws that required equal valuation of equally valuable property. Id., at 345. It considered the constitutionality of a county tax assessor’s practice (over a period of many years) of determining property values as of the time of the property’s last sale; that practice meant highly unequal valuations for two identical properties that were sold years or decades apart. Id., at 341. The Court first found that the assessor’s practice was not rationally related to the county’s avowed purpose of assessing properties equally at true current value because of the intentional systemic discrepancies the practice created. Id., at 343-344. The Court then noted that, in light of the State Constitution and related laws requiring equal valuation, there could be no other rational basis for the practice. Id., at 344-345. Therefore, the Court held, the assessor’s discriminatory policy violated the Federal Constitution’s insistence upon “equal protection of the law.” Id., at 346.
Petitioners argue that the City’s refusal to add refunds to its forgiveness decision is similar, for it constitutes a refusal to apply “equally” an Indiana state law that says that the costs of a Barrett Law project shall be equally “apportioned.” Ind. Code § 36-9-39-15(b)(3). In other words, petitioners say that even if the City’s decision might otherwise be related to a rational purpose, state law (as in Allegheny) makes this the rare case where the facts preclude any rational basis for the City’s decision other than to comply with the state mandate of equality.
Allegheny, however, involved a clear state-law requirement clearly and dramatically violated. Indeed, we have described Allegheny as “the rare case where the facts precluded” any alternative reading of state law and thus any alternative rational basis. Nordlinger, supra, at 16. Here, the City followed state law by apportioning the cost of its Barrett Law projects equally. State law says nothing about forgiveness, how to design a forgiveness program, or whether or when rational distinctions in doing so are permitted. To adopt petitioners’ view would risk transforming ordinary violations of ordinary state tax law into violations of the Federal Constitution.
* * *
For these reasons, we conclude that the City has not violated the Federal Equal Protection Clause. And the Indiana Supreme Court’s similar judgment is
Affirmed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We here consider whether a federal statute that prohibits States from enacting any law “related to” a motor carrier “price, route, or service” pre-empts two provisions of a Maine tobacco law, which regulate the delivery of tobacco to customers within the State. 49 U. S. C. §§ 14501(c)(1), 41713(b)(4)(A); see Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 22, §§ 1555-C(3)(C), 1555-D (second sentence) (2004). We hold that the federal law pre-empts both provisions.
I
A
In 1978, Congress “determin[ed] that ‘maximum reliance on competitive market forces’” would favor lower airline fares and better airline service, and it enacted the Airline Deregulation Act. Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U. S. 374, 378 (1992) (quoting 49 U. S. C. App. § 1302(a)(4) (1988 ed.)); see 92 Stat. 1705. In order to “ensure that the States would not undo federal deregulation with regulation of their own,” that Act “included a pre-emption provision” that said “no State . . . shall enact or enforce any law . . . relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier.” Morales, supra, at 378; 49 U. S. C. App. § 1305(a)(1) (1988 ed.).
In 1980, Congress deregulated trucking. See Motor Carrier Act of 1980, 94 Stat. 793. And a little over a decade later, in 1994, Congress similarly sought to pre-empt state trucking regulation. See Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994,108 Stat. 1605-1606; see also ICC Termination Act of 1995, 109 Stat. 899. In doing so, it borrowed language from the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 and wrote into its 1994 law language that says: “[A] State ... may not enact or enforce a law . . . related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier ... with respect to the transportation of property.” 49 U. S. C. § 14501(c)(1); see also § 41713(b)(4)(A) (similar provision for combined motor-air carriers).
The State of Maine subsequently adopted An Act To Regulate the Delivery and Sales of Tobacco Products and To Prevent the Sale of Tobacco Products to Minors, 2003 Me. Acts p. 1089, two sections of which are relevant here. The first section forbids anyone other than a Maine-licensed tobacco retailer to accept an order for delivery of tobacco. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 22, § 1555-C(1). It then adds that, when a licensed retailer accepts an order and ships tobacco, the retailer must “utilize a delivery service” that provides a special kind of recipient-verification service. § 1555-C(3)(C). The delivery service must make certain that (1) the person who bought the tobacco is the person to whom the package is addressed; (2) the person to whom the package is addressed is of legal age to purchase tobacco; (3) the person to whom the package is addressed has himself or herself signed for the package; and (4) the person to whom the package is addressed, if under the age of 27, has produced a valid government-issued photo identification with proof of age. Ibid. Violations are punishable by civil penalties. See §§ 1555-C(3)(E) to C(3)(F) (first offense up to $1,500; subsequent offenses up to $5,000).
The second section forbids any person “knowingly” to “transport” a “tobacco product” to “a person” in Maine unless either the sender or the receiver has a Maine license. §1555-D. It then adds that a “person is deemed to know that a package contains a tobacco product” (1) if the package is marked as containing tobacco and displays the name and license number of a Maine-licensed tobacco retailer; or (2) if the person receives the package from someone whose name appears on a list of m-licensed tobacco retailers that Maine’s attorney general distributes to various package-delivery companies. Ibid, (emphasis added); see also §§ 1555— C(3)(B), 1555-D(1). Violations are again punishable by civil penalties. § 1555-D(2) (up to $1,500 per violation against violator and/or violator’s employer).
B
Respondents, several transport carrier associations, brought this lawsuit in federal court, claiming that federal law pre-empts several sections of Maine’s statute. The District Court held (among other things) that federal law preempts the portions of the two sections we have described, namely, the “recipient-verification” provision (§ 1555-C(3)(C)) and the “deemed to know” provision (the second sentence of § 1555-D). See 377 F. Supp. 2d 197, 220 (Me. 2005). On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed that federal law pre-empted the two provisions. 448 F. 3d 66, 82 (2006). We granted certiorari to review these determinations. 551 U. S. 1144 (2007).
II
A
In Morales, this Court interpreted the pre-emption provision in the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. See 504 U. S., at 378. And we follow Morales in interpreting similar language in the 1994 Act before us here. We have said that “when 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.” Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Dabit, 547 U. S. 71, 85 (2006) (internal, quotation marks and alteration omitted). Here, the Congress that wrote the language before us copied the language of the air-carrier pre-emption provision of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Compare 49 U. S. C. §§ 14501(c)(1), 41713(b)(4)(A), with 49 U. S. C. App. § 1305(a)(1) (1988 ed.); see also H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 103-677, pp. 82-83, 85 (1994) (hereinafter H. R. Conf. Rep.). And it did so fully aware of this Court’s interpretation of that language as set forth in Morales. See H. R. Conf. Rep., at 83 (motor carriers will enjoy “the identical intrastate preemption of prices, routes and services as that originally contained in” the Airline Deregulation Act); ibid, (expressing agreement with “the broad preemption interpretation adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Morales”)-, id., at 85.
In Morales, the Court determined: (1) that “[s]tate enforcement actions having a connection with, or reference to,” carrier “‘rates, routes, or services’ are pre-empted,” 504 U. S., at 384 (emphasis added); (2) that such pre-emption may occur even if a state law’s effect on rates, routes, or services “is only indirect,” id., at 386 (internal quotation marks omitted); (3) that, in respect to pre-emption, it makes no difference whether a state law is “consistent” or “inconsistent” with federal regulation, id., at 386-387 (emphasis deleted); and (4) that pre-emption occurs at least where state laws have a “significant impact” related to Congress’ deregulatory and pre-emption-related objectives, id., at 390. The Court described Congress’ overarching goal as helping ensure transportation rates, routes, and services that reflect “maximum reliance on competitive market forces,” thereby stimulating “efficiency, innovation, and low prices,” as well as “variety” and “quality.” Id., at 378 (internal quotation marks omitted). Morales held that, given these principles, federal law pre-empts States from enforcing their consumer-fraud statutes against deceptive airline-fare advertisements. Id., at 391. See American Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, 513 U. S. 219, 226-228 (1995) (federal law pre-empts application of a State’s general consumer-protection statute to an airline’s frequent flyer program).
Finally, Morales said that federal law might not pre-empt state laws that affect fares in only a “tenuous, remote, or peripheral. . . manner,” such as state laws forbidding gambling. 504 U. S., at 390 (internal quotation marks omitted). But the Court did not say where, or how, “it would be appropriate to draw the line,” for the state law before it did not “present a borderline question.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Wolens, supra, at 226.
B
In light of Morales, we find that federal law pre-empts the Maine laws at issue here. Section 1555-C(3)(C) of the Maine statute forbids licensed tobacco retailers to employ a “delivery service” unless that service follows particular delivery procedures. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 22, § 1555-C(3)(C). In doing so, it focuses on trucking and other motor-carrier services (which make up a substantial portion of all “delivery services,” § 1551(1-C)), thereby creating a direct “connection with” motor-carrier services. See Morales, 504 U. S., at 384.
At the same time, the provision has a “significant” and adverse “impact” in respect to the federal Act’s ability to achieve its pre-emption-related objectives. Id., at 390. The Solicitor General and the carrier associations claim (and Maine does not deny) that the law will require carriers to offer a system of services that the market does not now provide (and which the carriers would prefer not to offer). And even were that not so, the law would freeze into place services that carriers might prefer to discontinue in the future. The Maine law thereby produces the very effect that the federal law sought to avoid, namely, a State’s direct substitution of its own governmental commands for “competitive market forces” in determining (to a significant degree) the services that motor carriers will provide. Id., at 378 (internal quotation marks omitted).
We concede that the regulation here is less “direct” than it might be, for it tells shippers what to choose rather than carriers what to do. Nonetheless, the effect of the regulation is that carriers will have to offer tobacco delivery services that differ significantly from those that, in the absence of the regulation, the market might dictate. And that being so, “treating sales restrictions and purchase restrictions differently for pre-emption purposes would make no sense.” Engine Mfrs. Assn. v. South Coast Air Quality Management Dist., 541 U. S. 246, 255 (2004). If federal law preempts state efforts to regulate, and consequently to affect, the advertising about carrier rates and services at issue in Morales, it must pre-empt Maine’s efforts to regulate carrier delivery services themselves.
Section 1555-D’s “deemed to know” provision applies yet more directly to motor-carrier services. The provision creates a conclusive presumption of carrier knowledge that a shipment contains tobacco when it is marked as originating from a Maine-licensed tobacco retailer or is sent by anyone Maine has specifically identified as an unlicensed tobacco retailer. That presumption means that the Maine law imposes civil liability upon the carrier, not simply for its knowing transport of (unlicensed) tobacco, but for the carrier’s failure sufficiently to examine every package. The provision thus requires the carrier to check each shipment for certain markings and to compare it against the Maine attorney general’s list of proscribed shippers. And it thereby directly regulates a significant aspect of the motor carrier’s package pickup and delivery service. In this way it creates the kind of state-mandated regulation that the federal Act pre-empts.
Maine replies that the regulation will impose no significant additional costs upon carriers. But even were that so (and the carriers deny it), Maine’s reply is off the mark. As with the recipient-verification provision, the “deemed to know” provision would freeze in place and immunize from competition a service-related system that carriers do not (or in the future might not) wish to provide. Supra, at 371-372. To allow Maine to insist that the carriers provide a special checking system would allow other States to do the same. And to interpret the federal law to permit these, and similar, state requirements could easily lead to a patchwork of state service-determining laws, rules, and regulations. That state regulatory patchwork is inconsistent with Congress’ major legislative effort to leave such decisions, where federally unregulated, to the competitive marketplace. See H. R. Conf. Rep., at 87. If federal law pre-empts state regulation of the details of an air carrier’s frequent flyer program, a program that primarily promotes carriage, see Wolens, supra, at 226-228, it must pre-empt state regulation of the essential details of a motor carrier’s system for picking up, sorting, and carrying goods — essential details of the carriage itself.
C
Maine’s primary arguments focus upon the reason why it has enacted the provisions in question. Maine argues for an exception from pre-emption on the ground that its laws help it prevent minors from obtaining cigarettes. In Maine’s view, federal law does not pre-empt a State’s efforts to protect its citizens’ public health, particularly when those laws regulate so dangerous an activity as underage smoking.
Despite the importance of the public health objective, we cannot agree with Maine that the federal law creates an exception on that basis, exempting state laws that it would otherwise pre-empt. The Act says nothing about a public health exception. To the contrary, it explicitly lists a set of exceptions (governing motor vehicle safety, certain local route controls, and the like), but the list says nothing about public health. See 49 U. S. C. §§ 14501(c)(2) to (c)(3); see also § 41713(b)(4)(B). Maine suggests that the provision’s history indicates that Congress’ primary concern was not with the sort of law it has enacted, but instead with state “economic” regulation. See, e. g., H. R. Conf. Rep., at 88; see also Columbus v. Ours Garage & Wrecker Service, Inc., 536 U. S. 424, 440 (2002). But it is frequently difficult to distinguish between a State’s “economic’’-related and “health”-related motivations, see infra, at 375, and, indeed, the parties vigorously dispute Maine’s actual motivation for the laws at issue here. Consequently, it is not surprising that Congress declined to insert the term “economic” into the operative language now before us, despite having at one time considered doing so. See S. Rep. No. 95-631, p. 171 (1978) (reprinting Senate bill).
Maine’s argument for an implied “public health” or “tobacco” exception to federal pre-emption rests largely upon (1) legislative history containing a list of nine States, with laws resembling Maine’s, that Congress thought did not regulate “intrastate prices, routes and services of motor carriers,” see H. R. Conf. Rep., at 86; and (2) the Synar Amendment, a law that denies States federal funds unless they forbid sales of tobacco to minors, see 42 U. S. C. §§ 300x-26(a)(1), (b)(1). The legislative history, however, does not suggest Congress made a firm judgment about, or even focused upon, the issue now before us. And the Synar Amendment nowhere mentions the particular state enforcement method here at issue; indeed, it does not mention specific state enforcement methods at all.
Maine’s inability to find significant support for some kind of “public health” exception is not surprising. “Public health” does not define itself. Many products create “public health” risks of differing kind and degree. To accept Maine’s justification in respect to a rule regulating services would legitimate rules regulating routes or rates for similar public health reasons. And to allow Maine directly to regulate carrier services would permit other States to do the same. Given the number of States through which carriers travel, the number of products, the variety of potential adverse public health effects, the many different kinds of regulatory rules potentially available, and the difficulty of finding a legal criterion for separating permissible from impermissible public-health-oriented regulations, Congress is unlikely to have intended an implicit general “public health” exception broad enough to cover even the shipments at issue here.
This is not to say that this federal law generally pre-empts state public health regulation: for instance, state regulation that broadly prohibits certain forms of conduct and affects, say, truckdrivers, only in their capacity as members of the public (e.g., a prohibition on smoking in certain public places). We have said that federal law does not pre-empt state laws that affect rates, routes, or services in “too tenuous, remote, or peripheral a manner.” Morales, 504 U. S., at 390 (internal quotation marks omitted). And we have written that the state laws whose “effect” is “forbidden” under federal law are those with a “significant impact” on carrier rates, routes, or services. Id., at 388, 390 (emphasis added).
In this ease, the state law is not general, it does not affect truckers solely in their capacity as members of the general public, the impact is significant, and the connection with trucking is not tenuous, remote, or peripheral. The state statutes aim directly at the carriage of goods, a commercial field where carriage by commercial motor vehicles plays a major role. The state statutes require motor-carrier operators to perform certain services, thereby limiting their ability to provide incompatible alternative services; and they do so simply because the State seeks to enlist the motor-carrier operators as allies in its enforcement efforts. Given these circumstances, from the perspective of pre-emption, this case is no more “borderline” than was Morales. Id., at 390 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Wolens, 513 U. S., at 226.
Maine adds that it possesses legal authority to prevent any tobacco shipments from entering into or moving within the State, and that the broader authority must encompass the narrower authority to regulate the manner of tobacco shipments. But even assuming purely for argument’s sake that Maine possesses the broader authority, its conclusion does not follow. To accept that conclusion would permit Maine to regulate carrier routes, carrier rates, and carrier services, all on the ground that such regulation would not restrict carriage of the goods as seriously as would a total ban on shipments. And it consequently would severely undermine the effectiveness of Congress’ pre-emptive provision. Indeed, it would create the very exception that we have just rejected, extending that exception to all other products a State might ban. We have explained why we do not believe Congress intended that result. Supra, at 373-375 and this page.
Finally, Maine says that to set aside its regulations will seriously harm its efforts to prevent cigarettes from falling into the hands of minors. The Solicitor General denies that this is so. He suggests that Maine, like other States, can prohibit all persons from providing tobacco products to minors (as it already has, see Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 22, § 1555-B(2) (Supp. 2007)); that it can ban all non-face-to-face sales of tobacco; that it might pass other laws of general (non-carrier-specific) applicability; and that it can, if necessary, seek appropriate federal regulation (see, e.g., H. R. 4081, 110th Cong., 1st Sess. (2007) (proposed bill regulating tobacco shipment); H. R. 4128, 110th Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 1411-1416, pp. 577-583 (2007) (proposed bill providing criminal penalties for trafficking in contraband tobacco)). Regardless, given Morales, where the Court held that federal law pre-empts state consumer-protection laws, we find that federal law must also pre-empt Maine’s efforts directly to regulate carrier services.
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal immigration law provides that any “alien who is convicted of an aggravated felony at any time after admission is deportable.” 8 U. S. C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (emphasis added). A related statute defines “aggravated felony” in terms of a set of listed offenses that includes “an offense that... involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000.” § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) (emphasis added). See Appendix A, infra. The question before us is whether the italicized language refers to an element of the fraud or deceit “offense” as set forth in the particular fraud or deceit statute defining the offense of which the alien was previously convicted. If so, then in order to determine whether a prior conviction is for the kind of offense described, the immigration judge must look to the criminal fraud or deceit statute to see whether it contains a monetary threshold of $10,000 or more. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575 (1990) (so interpreting the Armed Career Criminal Act). We conclude, however, that the italicized language does not refer to an element of the fraud or deceit crime. Rather it refers to the particular circumstances in which an offender committed a (more broadly defined) fraud or deceit crime on a particular occasion.
I
Petitioner, an alien, immigrated to the United States in 1985. In 2002 he was indicted for conspiring to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. 18 U. S. C. §§371, 1341, 1343, 1344, 1956(h). A jury found him guilty. But because none of these statutes requires a finding of any particular amount of victim loss, the jury made no finding about the amount of the loss. At sentencing petitioner stipulated that the loss exceeded $100 million. The court then imposed a sentence of 41 months in prison and required restitution of $683 million.
In 2005 the Government, claiming that petitioner had been convicted of an “aggravated felony,” sought to remove him from the United States. The Immigration Judge found that petitioner’s conviction was for crimes of fraud and deceit; that the sentencing stipulation and restitution order showed that the victims’ loss exceeded $10,000; and that petitioner’s conviction consequently fell within the immigration statute’s “aggravated felony” definition. See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1101(a)(43)(M)(i), (U) (including within the definition of “aggravated felony” any “attempt or conspiracy to commit” a listed “offense”). The Board of Immigration Appeals agreed. App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a-51a. So did the Third Circuit. 523 F. 3d 387 (2008). The Third Circuit noted that the statutes of conviction were silent as to amounts, but, in its view, the determination of loss amounts for “aggravated felony” purposes “requires an inquiry into the underlying facts of the case.” Id., at 396 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Courts of Appeals have come to different conclusions as to whether the $10,000 threshold in subparagraph (M)(i) refers to an element of a fraud statute or to the factual circumstances surrounding commission of the crime on a specific occasion. Compare Conteh v. Gonzales, 461 F. 3d 45, 55 (CA1 2006) (fact-based approach); 523 F. 3d 387 (case below) (same); Arguelles-Olivares v. Mukasey, 526 F. 3d 171, 178 (CA5 2008) (same), with Dulal-Whiteway v. United States Dept. of Homeland Security, 501 F. 3d 116, 131 (CA2 2007) (definitional approach); Kawashima v. Mukasey, 530 F. 3d 1111, 1117 (CA9 2008) (same); Obasohan v. United States Atty. Gen., 479 F. 3d 785, 791 (CA11 2007) (same). We granted certiorari to decide the question.
II
The interpretive difficulty before us reflects the linguistic fact that in ordinary speech words such as “crime,” “felony,” “offense,” and the like sometimes refer to a generic crime, say, the crime of fraud or theft in general, and sometimes refer to the specific acts in which an offender engaged on a specific occasion, say, the fraud that the defendant planned and executed last month. See Chambers v. United States, 555 U. S. 122, 125 (2009). The question here, as we have said, is whether the italicized statutory words “offense that involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the... victims exceeds $10,000” should be interpreted in the first sense (which we shall call “categorical”), i. as referring to a generic crime, or in the second sense (which we shall call “circumstance-specific”), as referring to the specific way in which an offender committed the crime on a specific occasion. If the first, we must look to the statute defining the offense to determine whether it has an appropriate monetary threshold; if the second, we must look to the facts and circumstances underlying an offender’s conviction.
A
The basic argument favoring the first — i. e., the “generic” or “categorical” — interpretation rests upon Taylor, Chambers, and James v. United States, 550 U. S. 192 (2007). Those cases concerned the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), a statute that enhances the sentence imposed upon certain firearm-law offenders who also have three prior convictions for “a violent felony.” 18 U. S. C. § 924(e). See Appendix B, infra. ACCA defines “violent felony” to include, first, felonies with elements that involve the use of physical force against another; second, felonies that amount to “burglary, arson, or extortion” or that involve the use of explosives; and third, felonies that “otherwise involv[e] conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” § 924(e)(2)(B).
In Taylor and James we held that ACCA’s language read naturally uses the word “felony” to refer to a generic crime as generally committed. Chambers, supra, at 125 (discussing Taylor, supra, at 602); James, supra, at 201-202. The Court noted that such an interpretation of the statute avoids “the practical difficulty of trying to ascertain” in a later proceeding, “perhaps from a paper record” containing only a citation (say, by number) to a statute and a guilty plea, “whether the [offender’s] prior crime... did or did not involve,” say, violence. Chambers, supra, at 125.
Thus in James, referring to Taylor, we made clear that courts must use the “categorical method” to determine whether a conviction for “attempted burglary” was a conviction for a crime that, in ACCA’s language, “involve[d] conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). That method required the court to “examine, not the unsuccessful burglary the defendant attempted on a particular occasion, but the generic crime of attempted burglary.” Chambers, supra, at 125 (discussing James, supra, at 204-206).
We also noted that the categorical method is not always easy to apply. That is because sometimes a separately numbered subsection of a criminal statute will refer to several different crimes, each described separately. And it can happen that some of these crimes involve violence while others do not. A single Massachusetts statute section entitled “Breaking and Entering at Night,” for example, criminalizes breaking into a “building, ship, vessel or vehicle.” Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, § 16 (West 2006). In such an instance, we have said, a court must determine whether an offender’s prior conviction was for the violent, rather than the nonviolent, break-ins that this single five-word phrase describes (e. g., breaking into a building rather than into a vessel), by examining “the indictment or information and jury instructions,” Taylor, 495 U. S., at 602, or, if a guilty plea is at issue, by examining the plea agreement, plea colloquy, or “some comparable judicial record” of the factual basis for the plea, Shepard v. United States, 544 U. S. 13, 26 (2005).
Petitioner argues that we should interpret the subsection of the “aggravated felony” statute before us as requiring use of this same “categorical” approach. He says that the statute’s language, read naturally as in Taylor, refers to a generic kind of crime, not a crime as committed on a particular occasion. He adds that here, as in Taylor, such a reading avoids the practical difficulty of determining the nature of prior conduct from what may be a brief paper record, perhaps noting only a statutory section number and a guilty plea; or, if there is a more extensive record, combing through that record for evidence of underlying conduct. Also, the categorical approach, since it covers only criminal statutes with a relevant monetary threshold, not only provides assurance of a finding on the point, but also assures that the defendant had an opportunity to present evidence about the amount of loss.
B
Despite petitioner’s arguments, we conclude that the “fraud and deceit” provision before us calls for a “circumstance-specific,” not a “categorical,” interpretation. The “aggravated felony” statute of which it is a part differs in general from ACCA, the statute at issue in Taylor. And the “fraud and deceit” provision differs specifically from ACCA’s provisions.
1
Consider, first, ACCA in general. That statute defines the “violent” felonies it covers to include “burglary, arson, or extortion” and “crime[s]” that have “as an element” the use or threatened use of force. 18 U. S. C. §§ 924(e)(2)(B)(i)-(ii). This language refers directly to generic crimes. The statute, however, contains other, more ambiguous language, covering “crime[s]” that “involv[eJ conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” Ibid. (emphasis added). While this language poses greater interpretive difficulty, the Court held that it too refers to crimes as generically defined. James, supra, at 202.
Now compare the “aggravated felony” statute before us. 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(43). We concede that it resembles ACC A in certain respects. The “aggravated felony” statute lists several of its “offenses” in language that must refer to generic crimes. Subparagraph (A), for example, lists “murder, rape, or sexual abuse of a minor.” See, e. g., Estrada-Espinoza v. Mukasey, 546 F. 3d 1147, 1152 (CA9 2008) (en banc) (applying the categorical approach to “sexual abuse”); Singh v. Ashcroft, 383 F. 3d 144, 164 (CA3 2004) (same); Santos v. Gonzales, 436 F. 3d 323, 324 (CA2 2005) (per curiam) (same). Subparagraph (B) lists “illicit trafficking in a controlled substance.” See Gousse v. Ashcroft, 339 F. 3d 91, 95-96 (CA2 2003) (applying categorical approach); Fernandez v. Mukasey, 544 F. 3d 862, 871-872 (CA7 2008) (same); Steele v. Blackman, 236 F. 3d 130, 136 (CA3 2001) (same). And subparagraph (C) lists “illicit trafficking in firearms or destructive devices.” Other sections refer specifically to an “offense described in” a particular section of the Federal Criminal Code. See, e. g., subparagraphs (E), (H), (I), (J), (L).
More importantly, however, the “aggravated felony” statute differs from ACCA in that it lists certain other “offenses” using language that almost certainly does not refer to generic crimes but refers to specific circumstances. For example, subparagraph (P), after referring to “an offense” that amounts to “falsely making, forging, counterfeiting, mutilating, or altering a passport,” adds, “except in the case of a first offense for which the alien... committed the offense for the purpose of assisting... the alien’s spouse, child, or parent... to violate a provision of this chapter.” (Emphasis added.) The language about (for example) “forging... passport[s]” may well refer to a generic crime, but the italicized exception cannot possibly refer to a generic crime. That is because there is no such generic crime; there is no criminal statute that contains any such exception. Thus if the provision is to have any meaning at all, the exception must refer to the particular circumstances in which an offender committed the crime on a particular occasion. See also subparagraph (N) (similar exception).
The statute has other provisions that contain qualifying language that certainly seems to call for circumstance-specific application. Subparagraph (K)(ii), for example, lists “offense[s]... described in section 2421, 2422, or 2423 of title 18 (relating to transportation for the purpose of prostitution) if committed for commercial advantage.” (Emphasis added.) Of the three specifically listed criminal statutory sections only one subsection (namely, § 2423(d)) says anything about commercial advantage. Thus, unless the “commercial advantage” language calls for circumstance-specific application, the statute’s explicit references to §§2421 and 2422 would be pointless. But see Gertsenshteyn v. United States Dept. of Justice, 544 F. 3d 137, 144-145 (CA2 2008).
Subparagraph (M)(ii) provides yet another example. It refers to an offense “described in section 7201 of title 26 (relating to tax evasion) in which the revenue loss to the Government exceeds $10,000.” (Emphasis added.) There is no offense “described in section 7201 of title 26” that has a specific loss amount as an element. Again, unless the “revenue loss” language calls for circumstance-specific application, the tax-evasion provision would be pointless.
The upshot is that the “aggravated felony” statute, unlike ACCA, contains some language that refers to generic crimes and some language that almost certainly refers to the specific circumstances in which a crime was committed. The question before us then is to which category subparagraph (M)(i) belongs.
2
Subparagraph (M)(i) refers to “an offense that... involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000.” (Emphasis added.) The language of the provision is consistent with a circumstance-specific approach. The words “in which” (which modify “offense”) can refer to the conduct involved “m” the commission of the offense of conviction, rather than to the elements of the offense. Moreover, subparagraph (M)(i) appears just prior to subparagraph (M)(ii), the internal revenue provision we have just discussed, and it is identical in structure to that provision. Where, as here, Congress uses similar statutory language and similar statutory structure in two adjoining provisions, it normally intends similar interpretations. IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U. S. 21, 34 (2005).
Moreover, to apply a categorical approach here would leave subparagraph (M)(i) with little, if any, meaningful application. We have found no widely applicable federal fraud statute that contains á relevant monetary loss threshold. See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. §§ 1341 (mail fraud), 1343 (wire fraud), 1344 (bank fraud), 371 (conspiracy to defraud the United States), 666 (theft in federally funded programs), 1028 (fraud in connection with identification documents), 1029 (fraud in connection with access devices), 1030 (fraud in connection with computers), 1347 (health care fraud), and 1348 (securities fraud). Petitioner has found only three federal fraud statutes that do so, and those three contain thresholds not of $10,000, but of $100,000 or $1 million, §§ 668 (theft by fraud of an artwork worth $100,000 or more), 1031(a) (contract fraud against the United States where the contract is worth at least $1 million), and 1039(d) (providing enhanced penalties for fraud in obtaining telephone records, where the scheme involves more than $100,000). Why would Congress intend subparagraph (M)(i) to apply to only these three federal statutes, and then choose a monetary threshold that, on its face, would apply to other, nonexistent statutes as well?
We recognize, as petitioner argues, that Congress might have intended subparagraph (M)(i) to apply almost exclusively to those who violate certain state fraud and deceit statutes. So we have examined state law. See Appendix C, infra. We have found, however, that in 1996, when Congress added the $10,000 threshold in subparagraph (M)(i), see Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility-Act § 321(a)(7), 110 Stat. 3009-628, 29 States had no major fraud or deceit statute with any relevant monetary threshold. In 13 of the remaining 21 States, fraud and deceit statutes contain relevant monetary thresholds but with amounts significantly higher than $10,000, leaving only 8 States with statutes in respect to which subparagraph (M)(i)’s $10,000 threshold, as categorically interpreted, would have full effect. We do not believe Congress would have intended (M)(i) to apply in so limited and so haphazard a manner. Cf. United States v. Hayes, 555 U. S. 415, 427 (2009) (reaching similar conclusion for similar reason in respect to a statute referring to crimes involving “domestic violence”).
Petitioner next points to 8 U. S. C. § 1326, which criminalizes illegal entry after removal and imposes a higher maximum sentence when an alien’s removal was “subsequent to a conviction for commission of an aggravated felony.” § 1326(b)(2). Petitioner says that a circumstance-specific approach to subparagraph (M)(i) could create potential constitutional problems in a subsequent criminal prosecution under that statute, because loss amount would not have been found beyond a reasonable doubt in the prior criminal proceeding. The Government, however, stated in its brief and at oral argument that the later jury, during the illegal reentry trial, would have to find loss amount beyond a reasonable doubt, Brief for Respondent 49-50; Tr. of Oral Arg. 39-40, eliminating any constitutional concern. Cf. Hayes, supra, at 426.
We conclude that Congress did not intend subparagraph (M)(i)’s monetary threshold to be applied categorically, i. e., to only those fraud and deceit crimes generically defined to include that threshold. Rather, the monetary threshold applies to the specific circumstances surrounding an offender’s commission of a fraud and deceit crime on a specific occasion.
III
Petitioner, as an alternative argument, says that we should nonetheless borrow from Taylor what that case called a “modified categorical approach.” He says that, for reasons of fairness, we should insist that a jury verdict, or a judge-approved equivalent, embody a determination that the loss involved in a prior fraud or deceit conviction amounted to at least $10,000. To determine whether that is so, petitioner says, the subsequent immigration court applying subparagraph (M)(i) should examine only charging documents, jury instructions, and any special jury finding (if one has been requested). If there was a trial but no jury, the subsequent court should examine the equivalent judge-made findings. If there was a guilty plea (and no trial), the subsequent court should examine the written plea documents or the plea colloquy. To authorize any broader examination of the prior proceedings, petitioner says, would impose an unreasonable administrative burden on immigration judges and would unfairly permit him to be deported on the basis of circumstances that were not before judicially determined to have been present and which he may not have had an opportunity, prior to conviction, to dispute.
We agree with petitioner that the statute foresees the use of fundamentally fair procedures, including procedures that give an alien a fair opportunity to dispute a Government claim that a prior conviction involved a fraud with the relevant loss to victims. But we do not agree that fairness requires the evidentiary limitations he proposes.
For one thing, we have found nothing in prior law that so limits the immigration court. Taylor, James, and Shepard, the cases that developed the evidentiary list to which petitioner points, developed that list for a very different purpose, namely, that of determining which statutory phrase (contained within a statutory provision that covers several different generic crimes) covered a prior conviction. See supra, at 34-35; Taylor, 495 U. S., at 602; Shepard, 544 U. S., at 26. For another, petitioner’s proposal itself can prove impractical insofar as it requires obtaining from a jury a special verdict on a fact that (given our Part II determination) is not an element of the offense.
Further, a deportation proceeding is a civil proceeding in which the Government does not have to prove its claim “beyond a reasonable doubt.” At the same time the evidence that the Government offers must meet a “clear and convincing” standard. 8 U. S. C. § 1229a(c)(3)(A). And, as the Government points out, the “loss” must “be tied to the specific counts covered by the conviction.” Brief for Respondent 44; see, e. g., Alaka v. Attorney General of United States, 456 F. 3d 88, 107 (CA3 2006) (loss amount must be tethered to offense of conviction; amount cannot be based on acquitted or dismissed counts or general conduct); Knutsen v. Gonzales, 429 F. 3d 733, 739-740 (CA7 2005) (same). And the Government adds that the “sole purpose” of the “aggravated felony” inquiry “is to ascertain the nature of a prior conviction; it is not an invitation to relitigate the conviction itself.” Brief for Respondent 44 (internal quotation marks omitted). Finally, the Board of Immigration Appeals, too, has recognized that immigration judges must assess findings made at sentencing “with an eye to what losses are covered and to the burden of proof employed.” In re Babaisakov, 24 I. & N. Dec. 306, 319 (2007).
These considerations, taken together, mean that petitioner and those in similar circumstances have at least one and possibly two opportunities to contest the amount of loss, the first at the earlier sentencing and the second at the deportation hearing itself. They also mean that, since the Government must show the amount of loss by clear and convincing evidence, uncertainties caused by the passage of time are likely to count in the alien’s favor.
We can find nothing unfair about the Immigration Judge’s having here relied upon earlier sentencing-related material. Petitioner’s own stipulation, produced for sentencing purposes, shows that the conviction involved losses considerably greater than $10,000. The court’s restitution order shows the same. In the absence of any conflicting evidence (and petitioner mentions none), this evidence is clear and convincing.
The Court of Appeals concluded that petitioner’s prior federal conviction consequently falls within the scope of subparagraph (M)(i). And we affirm its judgment.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIXES
A
Section 101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as set forth in 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(43), provides:
“The term ‘aggravated felony’ means—
“(A) murder, rape, or sexual abuse of a minor;
“(B) illicit trafficking in a controlled substance (as defined in section 802 of title 21), including a drug trafficking crime (as defined in section 924(c) of title 18);
“(C) illicit trafficking in firearms or destructive devices (as defined in section 921 of title 18) or in explosive materials (as defined in section 841(c) of that title);
“(D) an offense described in section 1956 of title 18 (relating to laundering of monetary instruments) or section 1957 of that title (relating to engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specific unlawful activity) if the amount of the funds exceeded $10,000;
“(E) an offense described in—
“(i) section 842(h) or (i) of title 18, or section 844(d), (e), (f), (g), (h), or (i) of that title (relating to explosive materials offenses);
“(ii) section 922(g)(1), (2), (3), (4), or (5), (j), (n), (o), (p), or (r) or 924(b) or (h) of title 18 (relating to firearms offenses); or
“(iii) section 5861 of title 26 (relating to firearms offenses);
“(F) a crime of violence (as defined in section 16 of title 18, but not including a purely political offense) for which the term of imprisonment [is] at least one year;
“(G) a theft offense (including receipt of stolen property) or burglary offense for which the term of imprisonment [is] at least one year;
“(H) an offense described in section 875, 876, 877, or 1202 of title 18 (relating to the demand for or receipt of ransom);
“(I) an offense described in section 2251,2251A, or 2252 of title 18 (relating to child pornography);
“(J) an offense described in section 1962 of title 18 (relating to racketeer influenced corrupt organizations), or an offense described in section 1084 (if it is a second or subsequent offense) or 1955 of that title (relating to gambling offenses), for which a sentence of one year imprisonment or more may be imposed;
“(K) an offense that—
“(i) relates to the owning, controlling, managing, or supervising of a prostitution business;
“(ii) is described in section 2421, 2422, or 2423 of title 18 (relating to transportation for the purpose of prostitution) if committed for commercial advantage; or
“(iii) is described in any of sections 1581-1585 or 1588-1591 of title 18 (relating to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, and trafficking in persons);
“(L) an offense described in—
“(i) section 793 (relating to gathering or transmitting national defense information), 798 (relating to disclosure of classified information), 2153 (relating to sabotage) or 2381 or 2382 (relating to treason) of title 18;
“(ii) section 421 of title 50 (relating to protecting the identity of undercover intelligence agents); or
“(iii) section 421 of title 50 (relating to protecting the identity of undercover agents);
“(M) an offense that—
“(i) involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeds $10,000; or
“(ii) is described in section 7201 of title 26 (relating to tax evasion) in which the revenue loss to the Government exceeds $10,000;
“(N) an offense described in paragraph (1)(A) or (2) of section 1324(a) of this title (relating to alien smuggling), except in the case of a first offense for which the alien has affirmatively shown that the alien committed the offense for the purpose of assisting, abetting, or aiding only the alien’s spouse, child, or parent (and no other individual) to violate a provision of this chapter
“(O) an offense described in section 1325(a) or 1326 of this title committed by an alien who was previously deported on the basis of a conviction for an offense described in another subparagraph of this paragraph;
“(P) an offense (i) which either is falsely making, forging, counterfeiting, mutilating, or altering a passport or instrument in violation of section 1543 of title 18 or is described in section 1546(a) of such title (relating to document fraud) and (ii) for which the term of imprisonment is at least 12 months, except in the case of a first offense for which the alien has affirmatively shown that the alien committed the offense for the purpose of assisting, abetting, or aiding only the alien’s spouse, child, or parent (and no other individual) to violate a provision of this chapter;
“(Q) an offense relating to a failure to appear by a defendant for service of sentence if the underlying offense is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 5 years or more;
“(R) an offense relating to commercial bribery, counterfeiting, forgery, or trafficking in vehicles the identification numbers of which have been altered for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year;
“(S) an offense relating to obstruction of justice, perjury or subornation of perjury, or bribery of a witness, for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year;
“(T) an offense relating to a failure to appear before a court pursuant to a court order to answer to or dispose of a charge of a felony for which a sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment or more may be imposed; and
“(U) an attempt or conspiracy to commit an offense described in this paragraph.
“The term applies to an offense described in this paragraph whether in violation of Federal or State law and applies to such an offense in violation of the law of a foreign country for which the term of imprisonment was completed within the previous 15 years. Notwithstanding any other provision of law (including any effective date), the term applies regardless of whether the conviction was entered before, on, or after September 30,1996.” (Footnotes omitted.)
B
Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U. S. C. § 924(e), provides:
“(1) In the case of a person who violates section 922(g) of this title and has three previous convictions by any court referred to in section 922(g)(1) of this title for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both, committed on occasions different from one another, such person shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not less than fifteen years, and, notwithstanding any other provision of law, the court shall not suspend the sentence of, or grant a probationary sentence to, such person with respect to the conviction under section 922(g).
“(2) As used in this subsection—
“(A) the term ‘serious drug offense’ means—
“(i) an offense under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U. S. C. 801 et seq.), the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act (21 U. S. C. 951 et seq.), or chapter 705 of title 46, for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law; or
“(ii) an offense under State law, involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U. S. C. 802)), for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law;
“(B) the term ‘violent felony’ means any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, or any act of juvenile delinquency involving the use or carrying of a firearm, knife, or destructive device that would be punishable by imprisonment for such term if committed by an adult, that—
“(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or
“(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another; and
“(C) the term ‘conviction’ includes a finding that a person has committed an act of juvenile delinquency involving a violent felony.”
C
We examined state statutes involving fraud or deceit in effect in 1996, when Congress added the $10,000 threshold in subparagraph (M)(i). See Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, § 321(a)(7), 110 Stat. 3009-628. While perhaps questions could be raised about whether certain of the statutes listed below involve “fraud or deceit” as required by subparagraph (M)(i), we give petitioner the benefit of any doubt and treat the statute as relevant.
1
In 29 States plus the District of Columbia, the main statutes in effect in 1996 involving fraud and deceit either did not have any monetary threshold or set a threshold lower than $10,000 even for the most serious grade of the offense. Alabama: see, e. g., Ala. Code §§ 13A-8-2, 13A-8-3, 13A-9-14, 13A-9-14.1,13A-9-46, 13A-9-47,13A-9-73 (1994). Arkansas: see, e. g., Ark. Code Ann. §§5-36-103 (Supp. 1995), 5- 37-203 (1993), 5-37-204, 5-37-207, 5-37-211. California: see, e. g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 484, 487 (West 1985), 502.7 (West Supp. 1998). District of Columbia: see, e. g., D. C. Code §§22-3821, 22-3823 (1996). Georgia: see, e.g., Ga. Code Ann. §§ 16-8-3, 16-8-12, 16-9-33 (1996). Idaho: see, e. g., Idaho Code §§ 18-2403 (Lexis 1987), 18-2407 (Lexis Supp. 1996). Kentucky: see, e. g., Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 514.040 (Lexis Supp. 1996). Louisiana: see, e. g., La. Stat. Ann. §§ 14:67, 14:67.11, 14:70.1, 14:70.4, 14:71, 14:71.1 (West 1997). Maryland: see, e. g., Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, §§340, 342, 145, 230A, 230C, 230D (Lexis 1996). Massachusetts: see, e. g., Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, §§ 30, 37C (West 1996). Michigan: see, e.g., Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §§750.218, 750.271, 750.280, 750.219a, 750.356c (West 1991). Mississippi: see, e.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 thé opinion of the Court.
Respondent Maddox brought suit in an Alabama state court against his employer, the Republic Steel Corporation, for severance pay amounting to $694.08, allegedly owed him under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement existing between Republic and Maddox’ unión. Maddox had been laid off in December 1953. The collective bargaining agreement called for severance pay if thé layoff was the result of a decision to close the mine, at which Maddox worked, “permanently.” The agreement also contained a three-step grievance procedure to be followed by binding arbitration,, but Maddox made no effort to utilize this mode of redress. Instead, in August 1956, he sued for breach of the contract. At all times material to his claim, Republic was engaged in interstate commerce within the meaning of the Labor Management Relations Act, and Republic’s industrial relations with Maddox and his union were subject to the provisions of that Act.
The case was tried on stipulated facts without a jury. Judgment was awarded in favor of Maddox, arid the appellate courts of Alabama affirmed on the theory that state law applies to suits for severance pay since, with the employment relationship necessarily ended, no further danger of industrial strife exists warranting the application of federal labor law. Moore v. Illinois Cen tral R. Co., 312 U. S. 630 (1941), and Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. v. Koppal, 345 U. S. 653 (1953), cases decided under the Railway Labor Act, were cited to support the proposition. Furthermore, it was held that under Alabama law Maddox was not required to exhaust the contract grievance procedures. We granted Republic’s petition for certiorari, 377 U. S. 904, to determine whether the rationale of Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co. carries over to a suit for severance pay on a contract subject to § 301 (a) of the Labor Management Relations Act. We conclude that the state judgment must be reversed.
I.
As a general rule in cases to which federal law applies, federal labor policy requires that individual employees wishing to assert contract grievances must attempt use of the contract grievance procedure agreed upon by employer and union as the mode of redress. If the union refuses to press or only perfunctorily presses the individual’s claim, differences, may arise as to the forms of redress then available. See Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335; Labor Board v. Miranda Fuel Co., 326 F. 2d 172. But unless the contract provides otherwise, there can be no doubt that the employee must afford the union the opportunity to act on his behalf. Congress has expressly approved contract grievance procedures as a preferred method for settling disputes and stabilizing the “common law” of the plant. LMRA § 203 (d), 29 U. S. C. § 173 (d) ; § 201 (c), 29 U. S. C. § 171 (c) (1958 ed.). Union interest in prosecuting employee grievances is clear. Such activity complements the union’s status as exclusive bargaining representative by permitting it to participate actively in the continuing administration of the contract. In addition, conscientious handling of grievance claims will enhance the union’s prestige with employees. Employer interests, for their part, are served by limiting the choice of remedies available to aggrieved employees. And it cannot be said, in the normal situation, that contract grievance procedures are inadequate to protect the interests of an aggrieved employee until the employee has attempted to implement the procedures and found them so.
A contrary rule which would permit an individual employee to completely sidestep available grievance procedures in favor of a lawsuit has little to commend it. In addition to cutting across the interests already mentioned, it would deprive employer and union of the ability to establish a uniform and exclusive method for orderly settlement of employee grievances. If a grievance procedure cannot be made exclusive, it loses much of its desirability as a method of settlement. A rule creating such a situation “would inevitably exert a disruptive influence upon both the negotiation and administration of collective agreements.” Teamsters Local v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 103.
II.
Once it is established that the federal rule discussed above applies to grievances in general, it should next be inquired whether the specific type of grievance here in question — one relating to severance pay — is so different in kind as to justify an exception. Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., and Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. v. Koppal, supra, are put forward for the proposition that it is.
In Moore, the Court ruled that a trainman was not required by the Railway Labor Act to exhaust the administrative remedies granted him by the Act before bringing suit for wrongful discharge. Mr. Justice Black, for the Court, based the decision on the use of permissive language in the Act — disputes “may be referred ... to the . . . Adjustment Board . . . .” Mr. Justice Black wrote again in Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U. S. 239 (1950), a declaratory judgment suit brought in a state court by a.railroad company against two unions to resolve a representation dispute. The Court held that jurisdiction of the Adjustment Board to resolve such disputes was exclusive. Moore was distinguished thus:
“Moore 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.” 339 U. S. 239, at 244.
This distinction was confirmed in Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. v. Koppal, supra:
“Such [a wrongfully discharged] 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.” 345 U. S. 653, at 661.
Federal jurisdiction in both Moore and Koppal was based on diversity; federal law was not thought to apply merely by reason of the fact that the collective bargaining agreements were subject to the Railway Labor Act. Since that timé the Court has made it clear that substantive federal law applies to suits on collective bargaining agreements covered by § 204 of the Railway Labor Act, International Assn. of Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 372 U. S. 682, and by § 301 (a) of the LMRA, Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448. Thus a major underpinning for the continued validity of the Moore case in the field of the Railway Labor Act, and more importantly in the present context, for the extension of its rationale to suits under § 301 (a) of the LMRA, has been removed.
We hold that any such extension is incompatible with the precepts of Lincoln Mills and cannot be accepted. Grievances depending on severance claims are not critically unlike other types of grievances. Although it is true that the employee asserting the claim will necessarily have accepted his discharge as final, it does not follow that the resolution of his claim can have no effect on future relations between the employer and other employees. Severance pay and other contract terms governing discharge are of obvious concern to all- employees, and a potential cause of dispute so long as any employee maintains a continuing employment relationship. Only in the situation in which no employees represented by the union remain employed, as would.be the case with a final and permanent plant shutdown, is there no possibility of a work stoppage resulting from á severance-pay claim. But even in that narrow situation, if applicable law did not require resort to contract procedures, the inability of the union and employer at the contract negotiation stage to agree upon arbitration as the exclusive method of handling permanent shutdown severance claims in all situations could have an inhibiting effect on reaching an agreement. If applicable law permitted a court suit for severance pay in any circumstances without prior recourse to available contract remedies, an employer seeking to limit the modes of redress that could be used against him could do so only by eliminating contract grievance procedures for severance-pay claims. The union would hardly favor the elimination, for it is in the union’s interest to afford comprehensive protection to those it represents, to participate in interpretations of the contract, and to have an arbitrator rather than a court decide such questions as whether the company has determined to “close permanently.”
There are, then, positive reasons why the general federal rule should govern grievances based on severance claims as it does others.. Furthermore, no positive reasons appear why the general federal rule should not apply. “Comprehensiveness is inherent in the process.by which the law is to be formulated under the mandate of Lincoln Mills,” and “the subject matter of § 301 (a) ‘is peculiarly one that calls for uniform law.’ ” Teamsters Local v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S., at 103. Maddox’ suit in the present case is simply on the contract, and the remedy sought, award of $694.08, did not differ from any that the. grievance procedure had power to provide. Federal law governs “Suits' for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization representing employees in-an industry affecting commerce as defined'in this chapter .. . .” Section 301 (a) of the LMRA, 29 U. S. C. § 185 (a) (1958 ed.), Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, supra. The suit by Maddox clearly falls within the terms of the statute and within the principles of Lincoln Mills, and because we see no reason for creating an exception, we conclude that the general federal rule applies.
III.
The federal rule would not of course preclude Maddox’ court suit if the parties to the collective bargaining agreement expressly agreed that arbitration was not the exclusive remédy. The section of this contract governing grievances provides, inter alia:
“It is the purpose of this Section to provide procedure for prompt, equitable adjustment of claimed grievances. It is understood and agreed that unless otherwise specifically specified elsewhere in this Agreement grievances to be considered hereunder must be filed within thirty days after the date on which the fact or events upon which such alleged grievance is based shall have existed or occurred.
“Any Employee who has a complaint may discuss the alleged complaint with his Foreman in an attempt to settle it. Any complaint not so settled shall constitute a grievance within the meaning of this Section, 'Adjustment of Grievances’.
“Grievances shall be handled in the following manner:
“STEP 1. Between the aggrieved Employee, his Grievance Committeeman or Assistant Grievance Committeeman and the Foreman.”
The procedure calls for two more grievance-committee steps capped with binding- arbitration of matters not satisfactorily settled by the initial steps.
The language stating that an employee “may discuss” a complaint with his foreman is susceptible to various interpretations; the most likely is that an employee may, if he chooses, speak to his foreman himself without bringing in his grievance committeeman and formally embarking on Step 1. Use of the permissive “may” does not of itself reveal a clear understanding between the contracting parties that individual employees, unlike either the union or the employer, are free to avoid the contract procedure and its time limitations in favor of a judicial suit. Any doubts must be resolved against such an interpretation. See United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S. 574; Belk v. Allied Aviation Service Co., 315 F. 2d 513, cert. denied, 375 U. S. 847.
Finally, Maddox suggests that it was not possible for him to make use of the grievance procedure, the first step of which called for a discussion within 30 days of his discharge with his foreman, because a mine that has permanently closed has no foreman — indeed, no employees of any kind. This casuistic reading of the contract cannot Ipe accepted. ■ The foreman did not vanish; and it is unlikely that the union grievance procedure broke down within 30 days of Maddox’ discharge. In any event, the case is before us on stipulated facts; in neither the facts nor the pleadings is there any suggestion that Maddox could not have availed himself of the grievance procedure instead of waiting nearly three years and bringing a court suit.
Reversed.
The section of the contract dealing with severance allowance provided in relevant part:
“When, in the sole judgment of the Company, it decides to close permanently a plant or discontinue permanently a department of a mine or plant, or substantial portion thereof and terminate the employment of individuals, an Employee whose employment is terminated either directly as a resúlt thereof because he was not entitled to other employment with the Company under the provisions of Section 9 of this Agreement — Seniority and Subsection C of this Section 14, shall be entitled to a severance allowance in accordance with and subject to the provisions hereinafter set forth in this Section 14.”
See infra, p. 658.
61 Stat. 136 (1947), as amended, 29 U. S. C. §141 et seq. (1958 ed.).
275 Ala. 685, 158 So. 2d 492.
48 Stat. 1185 (1934), 45 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (1958 ed.).
See infra, p. 657.
Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195, 196, n. 1 (by implication); Belk v. Allied Aviation Service Co., 315 F. 2d 513, cert. denied, 375 U. S. 847; see Cox, Rights Under a Labor Agreement, 69 Harv. L. Rev. 601, 647-648 (1956). The proviso of § 9 (a) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 159 (a) (1958 ed.), is not contra; Black-Clawson Co. v. Machinists, 313 F. 2d 179.
See, e. g., Summers, Individual Rights in Collective Agreements and Arbitration, 37 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 362 (1962); Cox, Rights Under a Labor Agreement, 69 Harv. L. Rev. 601 (1956); Note, Federal Protection of Individual Rights Under Labor Contracts, 73 Yale L. J. 1215 (1964).
See infra, pp. 657-658.
45 U. S. C. § 153 (i) (1958 ed.).
Mississippi law, which controlled in Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., did not require exhaustion (but see Illinois Central R. Co. v. Bolton, 240 Miss. 195, 126 So. 2d 524 (1961)). Missouri law controlled in Koppal and did require exhaustion. The suing employee therefore lost.
See n. 1, supra.
“Between” in the statute refers to “contracts,” not “suits.” Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195, 200.
By refusing to extend Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co. to § 301 suits, we do not mean to overrule it within the field of the-Railway Labor Act. Consideration of such action should properly await a case presented under the Railway Labor Act in which the various distinctive features of the administrative remedies provided by that Act can be appraised in context, e. g., the make-up of the Adjustment Board, the scope of review from monetary awards, .and the ability of the Board to give the same remedies as could be obtained by court suit.
Of course a court suit on the collective bargaining agreement •would still be governed by federal law. Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue is whether a statewide association incorporated to regulate interscholastic athletic competition among public and private secondary schools may be regarded as engaging in state action when it enforces a rule against a member school. The association in question here includes most public schools located within the State, acts through their representatives, draws its officers from them, is largely funded by their dues and income received in their stead, and has historically been seen to regulate in lieu of the State Board of Education’s exercise of its own authority. We hold that the association’s regulatory activity may and should be treated as state action owing to the pervasive entwinement of state school officials in the structure of the association, there being no offsetting reason to see the association’s acts in any other way.
I
Respondent Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (Association) is a not-for-profit membership corporation organized to regulate interscholastic sport among the public and private high schools in Tennessee that belong to it. No school is forced to join, but without any other authority actually regulating interscholastic athletics, it enjoys the memberships of almost all the State’s public high schools (some 290 of them or 84% of the Association’s voting membership), far outnumbering the 55 private schools that belong. A member school’s team may play or scrimmage only against the team of another member, absent a dispensation.
The Association’s rulemaking arm is its legislative council, while its board of control tends to administration. The voting membership of each of these nine-person committees is limited under the Association’s bylaws to high school principals, assistant principals, and superintendents elected by the member schools, and the public school administrators who so serve typically attend meetings during regular school hours. Although the Association’s staff members are not paid by the State, they are eligible to join the State’s public retirement system for its employees. Member schools pay dues to the Association, though the bulk of its revenue is gate receipts at member teams’ football and basketball tournaments, many of them held in public arenas rented by the Association.
The constitution, bylaws, and rules of the Association set standards of school membership and the eligibility of students to play in interscholastic games. Each school, for example, is regulated in awarding financial aid, most coaches must have a Tennessee state teaching license, and players must meet minimum academic standards and hew to limits on student employment. Under the bylaws, “in all matters pertaining to the athletic relations of his school,” App. 138, the principal is responsible to the Association, which has the power “to suspend, to fine, or otherwise penalize any member school for the violation of any of the rules of the Association or for other just cause,” id., at 100.
Ever since the Association was incorporated in 1925, Tennessee’s State Board of Education (State Board) has (to use its own words) acknowledged the corporation’s functions “in providing standards, rules and regulations for interscholastic competition in the public schools of Tennessee,” id., at 211. More recently, the State Board cited its statutory authority, Tenn. Code Ann. §49-1-302 (1996) (App. 220), when it adopted language expressing the relationship between the Association and the State Board. Specifically, in 1972, it went so far as to adopt a rule expressly “designat[ing]” the Association as “the organization to supervise and regulate the athletic activities in which the public junior and senior high schools in Tennessee participate on an interscholastic basis.” Tennessee State Board of Education, Administrative Rules and Regulations, Rule 0520-1-2-.26 (1972) (later moved to Rule 0520-1-2-.Q8). The Rule provided that “the authority granted herein shall remain in effect until revoked” and instructed the State Board’s chairman to “designate a person or persons to serve in an ex-officio capacity on the [Association’s governing bodies].” App. 211. That same year, the State Board specifically approved the Association’s rules and regulations, while reserving the right to review future changes. Thus, on several occasions over the next 20 years, the State Board reviewed, approved, or reaffirmed its approval of the recruiting Rule at issue in this case. In 1996, however, the State Board dropped the original Rule 0520-1-2-.08 expressly designating the Association as regulator; it substituted a statement “recognizing] the value of participation in interscholastic athletics and the role of [the Association] in coordinating interscholastic athletic competition,” while “authorizing] the public schools of the state to voluntarily maintain membership in [the Association].” Id., at 220.
The action before us responds to a 1997 regulatory enforcement proceeding brought against petitioner, Brentwood Academy, a private parochial high school member of the Association. The Association’s board of control found that Brentwood violated a rule prohibiting “undue influence” in recruiting athletes, when it wrote to incoming students and their parents about spring football practice. The Association accordingly placed Brentwood’s athletic program on probation for four years, declared its football and boys’ basketball teams ineligible to compete in playoffs for two years, and imposed a $3,000 fine. When these penalties were imposed, all the voting members of the board of control and legislative council were public school administrators.
Brentwood sued the Association and its executive director in federal court under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1988, claiming that enforcement of the Rule was state action and a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court entered summary judgment for Brentwood and enjoined the Association from enforcing the Rule. 13 F. Supp. 2d 670 (MD Tenn. 1998). In holding the Association to be a state actor under § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment, the District Court found that the State had delegated authority over high school athletics to the Association, characterized the relationship between the Association and its public school members as symbiotic, and emphasized the predominantly public character of the Association’s membership and leadership. The court relied on language in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, 488 U. S. 179, 193, n. 13 (1988), suggesting that statewide interscholastic athletic associations are state actors, and on other federal eases in which such organizations had uniformly been held to be acting under color of state law.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. 180 F.3d 758 (1999). It recognized that there is no single test to identify state actions and state actors but applied three criteria derived from Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991 (1982), Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922 (1982), and Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982), and found no state action under any of them. It said the District Court was mistaken in seeing a symbiotic relationship between the State and the Association, it emphasized that the Association was neither engaging in a traditional and exclusive public function nor responding to state compulsion, and it gave short shrift to the language from Tarkanian on which the District Court relied. Rehearing en banc was later denied over the dissent of two judges, who criticized the panel decision for creating a conflict among state and federal courts, for being inconsistent with Tarkanian, and for lacking support in the “functional” analysis of private activity required by West v. Atkins, 487 U. S. 42 (1988), for assessing the significance of cooperation between public officials and a private actor. 190 F. 3d 705 (CA6 1999) (Merritt, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 1153 (2000), to resolve the conflict and now reverse.
II
A
Our cases try to plot a line between state action subject (however exceptionable) that is not. Tarkanian, supra, at 191; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 349 (1974). The judicial obligation is not only to “ ‘presence] an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law’ and avoi[d] the imposition of responsibility on a State for conduct it could not control,” Tarkanian, supra, at 191 (quoting Lugar, supra, at 936-937), but also to assure that constitutional standards are invoked “when it can be said that the State is responsible for the specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains,” Blum, supra, at 1004 (emphasis in original). If the Fourteenth Amendment is not to be displaced, therefore, its ambit cannot be a simple line between States and people operating outside formally governmental organizations, and the deed of an ostensibly private organization or individual is to be treated sometimes as if a State had caused it to be performed. Thus, we say that state action may be found if, though only if, there is such a “close nexus between the State and the challenged action” that seemingly private behavior “may be fairly treated as that of the State itself.” Jackson, supra, at 351.
What is fairly attributable is a matter of normative judgment, and the criteria lack rigid simplicity. From the range of circumstances that could point toward the State behind an individual face, no one fact can function as a necessary condition across the board for finding state action; nor is any set of circumstances absolutely sufficient, for there may be some countervailing reason against attributing activity to the government. See Tarkanian, 488 U. S., at 198, 196; Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312 (1981).
Our cases have identified a host of facts that can bear on the fairness of such an attribution. We have, for example, held that a challenged activity may be state action when it results from the State’s exercise of “coercive power,” Blum, 457 U. S., at 1004, when the State provides “significant encouragement, either overt or covert,” ibid., or when a private actor operates as a “willful participant in joint activity with the State or its agents,” Lugar, supra, at 941 (internal quotation marks omitted). We have treated a nominally private entity as a state actor when it is controlled by an “agency of the State,” Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, 353 U. S. 230, 231 (1957) (per curiam), when it has been delegated a public function by the State, cf., e. g., West v. Atkins, supra, at 56; Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 627-628 (1991), when it is “entwined with governmental policies,” or when government is “entwined in [its] management or control,” Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296, 299, 301 (1966).
Amidst such variety, examples may be the best teachers, and examples from our cases are unequivocal in showing that the character of a legal entity is determined neither by its expressly private characterization in statutory law, nor by the failure of the law to acknowledge the entity’s inseparability from recognized government officials.or agencies. Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374 (1995), held that Amtrak was the Government for constitutional purposes, regardless of its congressional designation as private; it was organized under federal law to attain governmental objectives and was directed and controlled by federal appointees. Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia, supra, held the privately endowed Girard College to be a state actor and enforcement of its private founder’s limitation of admission to whites attributable to the State, because, consistent with the terms of the settlor’s gift, the college’s board of directors was a state agency established by state law. Ostensibly the converse situation occurred in Evans v. Newton, supra, which held that private trustees to whom a city had transferred a park were nonetheless state actors barred from enforcing racial segregation, since the park served the public purpose of providing community recreation, and “the municipality remained] entwined in [its] management [and] control,” id., at 301.
These examples of public entwinement in the management and control of ostensibly separate trusts or corporations foreshadow this case, as this Court itself anticipated in Tarkanian. Tarkanian arose when an undoubtedly state actor, the University of Nevada, suspended its basketball coach, Tarkanian, in order to comply with rules and recommendations of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The coach charged the NCAA with state action, arguing that the state university had delegated its own functions to the NCAA, clothing the latter with authority to make and apply the university’s rules, the result being joint action making the NCAA a state actor.
To be sure, it is not the strict holding in Tarkanian that points to our view of this case, for we found no state action on the part of the NCAA. We could see, on the one hand, that the university had some part in setting the NCAA’s rules, and the Supreme Court of Nevada had gone so far as to hold that the NCAA had been delegated the university’s traditionally exclusive public authority over personnel. 488 U. S., at 190. But on the other side, the NCAA’s policies were shaped not by the University of Nevada alone, but by several hundred member institutions, most of them having no connection with Nevada, and exhibiting no color of Nevada law. Id., at 193. Since it was difficult to see the NCAA, not as a collective membership, but as surrogate for the one State, we held the organization’s connection with Nevada too insubstantial to ground a state-action claim. Id., at 193, 196.
But dictum in Tarkanian pointed to a contrary result on facts like ours, with an organization whose member public schools are all within a single State. “The situation would, of course, be different if the [Association’s] membership consisted entirely of institutions located within the same State, many of them public institutions created by the same sovereign.” Id., at 193, n. 13. To support our surmise, we approvingly cited two cases: Clark v. Arizona Interscholastic Assn., 695 F. 2d 1126 (CA9.1982), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 818 (1983), a challenge to a state high school athletic association that kept boys from playing on girls’ interscholastic volleyball teams in Arizona; and Louisiana High School Athletic Assn. v. St. Augustine High School, 396 F. 2d 224 (CA5 1968), a parochial school’s attack on the racially segregated system of interscholastic high school athletics maintained by the athletic association. In each instance, the Court of Appeals treated the athletic association as a state actor.
B
Just as we foresaw in Tarkanian, the “necessarily fact-bound inquiry,” Lugar, 457 U. S., at 939, leads to the conclusion of state action here. The nominally private character of the Association is overborne by the pervasive entwinement of public institutions and public officials in its composition and workings, and there is no substantial reason to claim unfairness in applying constitutional standards to it.
The Association is not an organization of natural persons acting on their own, but of schools, and of public schools to the extent of 84% of the total. Under the Association’s bylaws, each member school is represented by its principal or a faculty member, who has a vote in selecting members of the governing legislative council and board of control from eligible principals, assistant principals, and superintendents.
Although the findings and prior opinions in this case include no express conclusion of law that public school officials act within the scope of their duties when they represent their institutions, no other view would be rational, the official nature of their involvement being shown in any number of ways. Interscholastic athletics obviously play an integral part in the public education of Tennessee, where nearly every public high school spends money on competitions among schools. Since a pickup system of interscholastic games would not do, these public teams need some mechanism to produce rules and regulate competition. The mechanism is an organization overwhelmingly composed of public school officials who select representatives (all of them public officials at the time in question here), who in turn adopt and enforce the rules that make the system work. Thus, by giving these jobs to the Association, the 290 public schools of Tennessee belonging to it can sensibly be seen as exercising their own authority to meet their own responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, then, the record indicates that half the council or board meetings documented here were held during official school hours, and that public schools have largely provided for the Association’s financial support. A small portion of the Association’s revenue comes from membership dues paid by the schools, and the principal part from gate receipts at tournaments among the member schools. Unlike mere public buyers of contract services, whose payments for services rendered do not convert the service providers into public actors, see Rendell-Baker, 457 U. S., at 839-843, the schools here obtain membership in the service organization and give up sources of their own income to their collective association. The Association thus exercises the authority of the predominantly public schools to charge for admission to their games; the Association does not receive this money from the schools, but enjoys the schools’ moneymaking capacity as its own.
In sum, to the extent of 84% of its membership, the Association is an organization of public schools represented by their officials acting in their official capacity to provide an integral element of secondary public schooling. There would be no recognizable Association, legal or tangible, without the public school officials, who do not merely control but overwhelmingly perform all but the purely ministerial acts by which the Association exists and functions in practical terms. Only the 16% minority of private school memberships prevents this entwinement of the Association and the public school system from being total and their identities totally indistinguishable.
To complement the entwinement of public school officials with the Association from the bottom up, the State of Tennessee has provided for entwinement from top down. State Board members are assigned ex officio to serve as members of the board of control and legislative council, and the Association’s ministerial employees are treated as state employees to the extent of being eligible for membership in the state retirement system.
It is, of course, true that the time is long past when the close relationship between the surrogate association and its public members and public officials acting as such was attested frankly. As mentioned, the terms of the State Board’s Rule expressly designating the Association as regulator of interscholastic athletics in public schools were de-; leted in 1996, the year after a Federal District Court held that the Association was a state actor because its rules were “caused, directed and controlled by the Tennessee Board of Education,” Graham v. TSSAA, No. 1:96-CV-044,1995 WL 115890, *5 (ED Tenn., Feb. 20, 1995).
But the removal of the designation language from Rule 0520-1-2-.08 affected nothing but words. Today the State Board’s member-designees continue to sit on the Association’s committees as nonvoting members, and the State continues to welcome Association employees in its retirement scheme. The close relationship is confirmed by the Association’s enforcement of the same preamendment rules and regulations reviewed and approved by the State Board (including the recruiting Rule challenged by Brentwood), and by the State Board’s continued willingness to allow students to satisfy its physical education requirement by taking part in interscholastic athletics sponsored by the Association. The most one can say on the evidence is that the State Board once freely acknowledged the Association’s official character but now does it by winks and nods. The amendment to the Rule in 1996 affected candor but not the “momentum” of the Association’s prior involvement with the State Board. Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S., at 301. The District Court spoke to this point in finding that because of “custom and practice,” “the conduct of the parties has not materially changed” since 1996, “the connections between TSSAA and the State [being] still pervasive and entwined.” 13 F. Supp. 2d, at 681.
The entwinement down from the State Board is therefore unmistakable, just as the entwinement up from the member public schools is overwhelming. Entwinement will support a conclusion that an ostensibly private organization ought to be charged with a public character and judged by constitutional standards; entwinement to the degree shown here requires it.
C
Entwinement is also the answer to the Association’s several arguments offered to persuade us that the facts would not support a finding of state action under various criteria applied in other cases. These arguments are beside the point, simply because the facts justify a conclusion of state action under the criterion of entwinement, a conclusion in no sense unsettled merely because other criteria of state action may not be satisfied by the same facts.
The Association places great stress, for example, on the application of a public function test, as exemplified in Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830 (1982). There, an apparently private school provided education for students whose special needs made it difficult for them to finish high school. The record, however, failed to show any tradition of providing public special education to students unable to cope with a regular school, who had historically been cared for (or ignored) according to private choice. It was true that various public school districts had adopted the practice of referring students to the school and paying their tuition, and no one disputed that providing the instruction aimed at a proper public objective and conferred a public benefit. But we held that the performance of such a public function did not permit a finding of state action on the part of the school unless the function performed was exclusively and traditionally public, as it was not in that case. The Association argues that application of the public function criterion would produce the same result here, and we will assume, arguendo, that it would. But this case does not turn on a public function test, any more than Rendell-Baker had anything to do with entwinement of public officials in the special school.
For the same reason, it avails the Association nothing to stress that the State neither coerced nor encouraged the actions complained of. “Coercion” and “encouragement” are like “entwinement” in referring to kinds of facts that can justify characterizing an ostensibly private action as public instead. Facts that address any of these criteria are significant, but no one criterion must necessarily be applied. When, therefore, the relevant facts show pervasive entwinement to the point of largely overlapping identity, the implication of state action is not affected by pointing out that the facts might not loom large under a different test.
D
This is not to say that all of the Association’s arguments are rendered beside the point by the public officials’ involvement in the Association, for after application of the entwinement criterion, or any other, there is a further potential issue, and the Association raises it. Even facts that suffice to show public action (or, standing alone, would require such a finding) may be outweighed in the name of some value at odds with finding public accountability in the circumstances. In Polk County, 454 U. S., at 322, a defense lawyer’s actions were deemed private even though she was employed by the county and was acting within the scope of her duty as a public defender. Full-time public employment would be conclusive of state action for some purposes, see West v. Atkins, 487 U. S., at 50, accord, Lugar, 457 U. S., at 935, n. 18, but not when the employee is doing a defense lawyer’s primary job; then, the public defender does “not ac[t] on behalf of the State; he is the State’s adversary.” Polk County, supra, at 323, n. 13. The state-action doctrine does not convert opponents into virtual agents.
The assertion of such a countervailing value is the nub of each of the Association’s two remaining arguments, neither of which, however, persuades us. The Association suggests, first, that reversing the judgment here will somehow trigger an epidemic of unprecedented federal litigation. Brief for Respondents 35. Even if that might be counted as a good reason for a Polk County decision to call the Association’s action private, the record raises no reason for alarm here. Save for the Sixth Circuit, every Court of Appeals to consider a statewide athletic association like the one here has found it a state. actor. This majority view began taking shape even before Tarkanian, which cited two such decisions approvingly, see supra, at 298 (and this was six years after Blum, Rendell-Baker, and Lugar, on which the Sixth Circuit relied here). No one, however, has pointed to any explosion of § 1983 cases against interscholastic athletic associations in the affected jurisdictions. Not to put too fine a point on it, two District Courts in Tennessee have previously held the Association itself to be a state actor, see Graham, 1995 WL 115890, at *5; Crocker v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Assn., 735 F. Supp. 753 (MD Tenn. 1990), affirmance order, 908 F. 2d 972, 973 (CA6 1990), but there is no evident wave of litigation working its way across the State. A reversal of the judgment here portends nothing more than the harmony of an outlying Circuit with precedent otherwise uniform.
Nor do we think there is anything to be said for the Association’s contention that there is no need to treat it as a state actor since any public school applying the Association’s rules is itself subject to suit under § 1983 or Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 373, 20 U. S. C. §§ 1681-1688. Brief for Respondents 30. If Brentwood’s claim were pushing at the edge of the class of possible defendant state actors, an argument about the social utility of expanding that class would at least be on point, but because we are nowhere near the margin in this case, the Association is really asking for nothing less than a dispensation for itself. Its position boils down to saying that the Association should not be dressed in state clothes because other, concededly public actors are; that Brentwood should be kept out of court because a different plaintiff raising a different claim in a different case may find the courthouse open. Pleas for special treatment are hard to sell, although saying that does not, of course, imply anything about the merits of Brentwood’s complaint; the issue here is merely whether Brentwood properly names the Association as a §1983 defendant, not whether it should win on its claim.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
A number of other courts have held statewide athletic associations to be state actors. Griffin High School v. Illinois High School Assn., 822 F. 2d 671, 674 (CA7 1987); Clark v. Arizona Interscholastic Assn., 695 F. 2d 1126, 1128 (CA9 1982), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 818 (1988); In re United States ex rel. Missouri State High School Activities Assn., 682 F 2d 147, 151 (CA8 1982); Louisiana High School Athletic Assn. v. St. Augustine High School, 396 F. 2d 224, 227-228 (CA5 1968); Oklahoma High School Athletic Assn. v. Bray, 321 F 2d 269, 272-273 (CA10 1963); Indiana High School Athletic Assn. v. Carlberg, 694 N. E. 2d 222, 229 (Ind. 1997); Mississippi High School Activities Assn., Inc. v. Coleman, 631 So. 2d 768, 774-775 (Miss. 1994); Kleczek v. Rhode Island Interscholastic League, Inc., 612 A. 2d 734, 736 (R. I. 1992); see also Moreland v. Western Penn. Inter scholastic Athletic League, 572 F. 2d 121, 125 (CA3 1978) (state action conceded).
If a defendant’s conduct satisfies the state-action requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment, the conduct also constitutes action “under color of state law” for § 1983 purposes. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922, 935 (1982).
The District Court in Graham held that “[t]his delegation of authority to TSSAA by Tennessee, standing alone, is sufficient to make TSSAA a state actor” under the “state compulsion test,” which it understood to provide that a State could exercise such coercive power or provide such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice of the private actor must be deemed to be that of the State as a matter of law. 1995 WL 115890, at *4-*5 (citing Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004 (1982)).
The significance of winks and nods in state-action doctrine seems to be one of the points of the dissenters’ departure from the rest of the Court. In drawing the public-private action line, the dissenters would emphasize the formal clarity of the legislative action providing for the appointment of Girard College’s trustees, see supra, at 296-297; post, at 310, in preference to our reliance on the practical certainty in this case that public officials will control operation of the Association under its bylaws. Similarly, the dissenters stress the express formality of the special statute defining Amtrak’s ties to the Government, see supra, at 296; post, at 310, in contrast to the reality in this case that the Association’s organizers structured the Association’s relationships to the officialdom of public education. But if formalism were the sine qua non of state action, the doctrine would vanish owing to the ease and inevitability of its evasion, and for just that reason formalism has never been controlling. For example, a criterion of state action like symbiosis (which the dissenters accept, post, at 311) looks not to form but to an underlying reality.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Mb. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves a corporate reorganization under Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act, 52 Stat. 883, 11 U. S. C. §§501-676. In the most recent proceedings the District Court approved an amended plan of reorganization and discharged the petitioner Committee. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, 364 F. 2d 936 (1966). We granted certiorari, 387 U. S. 929 (1967), because this case presents important questions under the bankruptcy laws. Since we believe the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the decision of the District Court, we reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings consistent with the views expressed below.
I.
The debtor, TMT Trailer Perry, Inc., was incorporated in 1954. Its principal business is transporting freight between Florida and Puerto Rico. It pioneered “fishy-back” transport, the ocean-going equivalent of “piggyback” transport. Freight loaded into highway trailers is rolled on and off sea-going barges without rehandling. In its original operations TMT used rented tugs to tow converted Navy LST’s loaded with such trailers and other freight. Later it undertook to convert a self-propelled Navy LSD for use in its business. Substantial debts and losses arose from the unsuccessful conversion and consequent failure in service of this ship, dubbed the Carib Queen.
In addition, between 1954 and 1957, more than 4,000,000 shares of TMT common stock were issued, many of them acquired at low prices by persons close to the company and disposed of to the public at relatively high prices. As a result of these transactions and others, TMT became unable to meet its obligations, and a reorganization proceeding was initiated against it by involuntary petition in June 1957. The debtor consented to reorganization, and C. Gordon Anderson was appointed trustee. The motion of the holders of preferred ship mortgages on the debtor’s vessels (the Caplan mortgage) to foreclose their hens was denied by the trial court. On appeal from this order, it was pointed out that no plan of reorganization had yet been proposed, that the possibility of successful reorganization had not been explored, and that no evidence had been received to support any of the court’s orders. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded with instructions that the holders of the Caplan mortgage be permitted to foreclose unless adequate provision was made to protect their interests or unless they would not be prejudiced by further delay.
Upon remand the trial court held appropriate hearings. It was determined that the debtor was being operated in a manner which would produce substantial profits. A plan of reorganization was proposed which would have given the Caplan mortgage group all the common stock in the reorganized company, a substantial portion of the preferred stock, and control of the board of directors. In February 1959, without a hearing called for that purpose and solely on the basis of documents and records, the trial court declared the debtor insolvent and held that the original stockholders had no further interest in the reorganized corporation. In March 1959 the plan of reorganization was confirmed, and Anderson resigned as trustee to become president of the reorganized company. A new trustee was appointed, and he sought in effect to vacate the order confirming the plan. His petition alleged that the holders of the Caplan mortgage and Merrill-Stevens Dry Dock & Repair Co. (M-S), another substantial creditor, had entered into an undisclosed agreement in violation of § 221 of Chapter X, 52 Stat. 897, 11 U. S. C. § 621, an agreement according to which the Caplan mortgage group would pay M-S in order to procure its consent to the plan of reorganization. This petition was denied, the successor trustee was removed, and Anderson was reinstated as trustee.
The petitioner Committee appealed from the order confirming the reorganization plan. Objection was.made to the failure of the trial court to order an investigation into the claims of certain creditors and to the failure to conduct a hearing on insolvency. While that appeal was pending, the Caplan group, supported by Anderson, petitioned the trial court to consummate the confirmed plan. The Securities and Exchange Commission, however, filed a petition in the trial court seeking an investigation. It alleged that an investigation would disclose that the plan was unfair because it turned the corporation over to persons who had dealt extensively in the stock of the debtor in transactions which were probably illegal. It was agreed among the parties that an investigation should be made.
Anderson, in his re-established role as trustee, conducted the investigation. Fourteen days of hearings were held, 2,200 pages of testimony transcribed, and some 60 exhibits collected. Anderson’s report from this investigation covers 40 pages in the original record. He concluded that the debtor’s business had been “wrecked by gross mismanagement, by unwise and unsound expansion financed primarily through the sale of securities in disregard of the protective provisions of the Securities Act of 1933,” and that the debtor had substantial causes of action against holders of the Caplan mortgage. Upon the recommendation of Anderson, the trial court vacated its order confirming the 1959 plan, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
Early in 1962 two new plans of reorganization were proposed. The “internal plan,” recommended by Anderson, provided for reorganizing the debtor by issuing new common stock to creditors and involved “compromises” of the Caplan mortgage and M-S claims. The “cash plan” entailed similar “compromises” as well as selling the debtor’s assets for cash to persons unconnected with the company and distributing the cash to creditors. Neither plan provided for any participation by stockholders. The Committee, supported by the SEC, objected to the exclusion of stockholders from both plans, and opposed the internal plan because it contemplated that Anderson would become president of the reorganized company. After hearings on valuation, the District Court found the debtor insolvent and approved both plans as fair, equitable, and feasible. A majority of all classes of creditors other than the United States accepted the internal plan, and the District Court confirmed it in February 1963. The Committee appealed, supported by the SEC, arguing that the plan wrongly excluded stockholders and improperly contemplated that Anderson would become president. The Court of Appeals ruled, without reaching the other contentions, that it was permissible for the plan to contemplate that Anderson would become president, but it held in a separate appeal that the plan was defective for not giving priority to the Government’s nontax claims. The case was accordingly remanded to the District Court for determination of whether the plan would be feasible if the Government’s claims were given full priority.
On remand further hearings were held, the District Court found that if the Government’s nontax claims were given priority the plan would be feasible, and amendments were authorized which provided for immediate cash payment to the Government. The court regarded the failure of the Court of Appeals to reverse its other orders as in effect an affirmance of them, and it refused to consider again the contentions of the Committee and the SEC. The creditors accepted the amended plan and, over the objections of the Committee and the SEC that the plan was not fair or equitable, the District Court affirmed it. The Committee again appealed, and the Court of Appeals ruled that its earlier decision had left open all issues not in terms discussed and decided. Passing over the fact that the District Court had considered the case in erroneous legal perspective, and emphasizing that its obligation was to determine whether the trial judge had “abused his discretion” or reached conclusions which were “clearly erroneous,” the Court of Appeals refused to remand the case. Stating that “[t]his... litigation must at long last be brought to an end,” the Court of Appeals affirmed all judgments and orders of the District Court. The Committee, again supported by the SEC, has presented a number of questions on certiorari to this Court. Because of the view we take of this case, it is necessary to consider only the questions of whether it was error to affirm the District Court’s approval of compromises of substantial claims against the debtor, and whether it was error to affirm the District Court’s judgment that the debtor was insolvent, when that judgment was rendered without considering the future estimated earnings of the reorganized company.
II.
Compromises are “a normal part of the process of reorganization.” Case v. Los Angeles Lumber Prods. Co., 308 U. S. 106, 130 (1939). In administering reorganization proceedings in an economical and practical manner it will often be wise to arrange the settlement of claims as to which there are substantial and reasonable doubts. At the same time, however, it is essential that every important determination in reorganization proceedings receive the “informed, independent judgment” of the bankruptcy court. National Surety Co. v. Coriell, 289 U. S. 426, 436 (1933). The requirements of §§ 174 and 221 (2) of Chapter X, 52 Stat. 891, 897, 11 U. S. C. §§574, 621 (2), that plans of reorganization be both “fair and equitable,” apply to compromises just as to other aspects of reorganizations. Ashbach v. Kirtley, 289 F. 2d 159 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1961); Conway v. Silesian-American Corp., 186 F. 2d 201 (C..A. 2d Cir. 1950). The fact that courts do not ordinarily scrutinize the merits of compromises involved in suits between individual litigants cannot affect the duty of a bankruptcy court to determine that a proposed compromise forming part of a reorganization plan is fair and equitable. In re Chicago Rapid Transit Co., 196 F. 2d 484 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1952). There can be no informed and independent judgment as to whether a proposed compromise is fair and equitable until the bankruptcy judge has apprised himself of all facts necessary for an intelligent and objective opinion of the probabilities of ultimate success should the claim be litigated. Further, the judge should form an educated estimate of the complexity, expense, and likely duration of such litigation, the possible difficulties of collecting on any judgment which might be obtained, and all other factors relevant to a full and fair assessment of the wisdom of the proposed compromise. Basic to this process in every instance, of course, is the need to compare the terms of the compromise with the likely rewards of litigation. It is here that we must start in the present case.
The Caplan mortgage, consisting of preferred ship mortgages on the debtor’s vessels, bears a face amount of $330,000. The holders paid $280,500 for it. Under the proposed compromise, the holders would receive $280,500 paid in five annual cash installments, plus interest from the original due date. The claims filed against the debtor’s estate by M-S totaled $1,628,284, of which $574,580 was said to be secured by maritime liens on the debtor’s vessels. Under the terms of the compromise, these claims are to be allowed in full, after reducing them all to the status of unsecured claims.. As with other unsecured claims, they would be paid for by issuing common stock in the reorganized company. M-S would wind up holding approximately 40% of the stock in the new company. A glance at these terms makes it clear that the compromises involve substantial recognition of the claims filed by the Caplan group and M-S against the debtor. Whether compromising on these terms was fair and equitable to the debtor, the other creditors, and the stockholders depends upon the proper assessment of the claims which the debtor allegedly had against both the Caplan group and M-S.
The Caplan mortgage was the focal point of the 1960 investigation conducted by the trustee, Anderson. The mortgage was entered into shortly before the petition in bankruptcy was filed. It was needed to raise cash to meet payments due on the Carib Queen. After an extensive investigation, Anderson concluded that the mortgage was a fraudulent transfer not given for fair consideration. Anderson’s report succinctly stated the unfairness of the terms of the mortgage:
“The Caplan Group paid $280,500 cash for the mortgage to TMT which paid all of the expenses of the transaction. The mortgage was for $330,000 payable in seven months and is convertible into common stock at the option of the holders, one share of common for each $1.25 of principal amount of the mortgage. This gave the Caplan Group an effective interest rate of 30% per annum prior to maturity and an opportunity to straddle because of the conversion feature. If TMT prospered, they could convert the mortgage into common stock for which they would have paid little more than $1.00 per share; if TMT did not, the Caplan Mortgage was in a senior position and constituted a lien on TMT’s prime assets, absolutely necessary to the Company’s operation. Since the Carib Queen had broken down, the vessels encumbered by the mortgage were the main producers of income for the company.”
Anderson found that there was “ample evidence” to support this view of the mortgage, and that therefore the mortgage should be treated as null and void. So treating it would not release TMT from the obligation to repay the money received, but in claiming that amount the holders of the mortgage would have no higher status than general unsecured creditors.
In addition, Anderson’s report concluded that the principal holders of the Caplan mortgage, Abrams, Shaffer, and Erdman, had diverted corporate opportunities through the flagrant abuse of their control, fiduciary or inside positions, and should be made to account for the profits they had made. Nearly half of the roughly 4,000,000 shares of outstanding TMT common stock reached the public via purported private offerings through Abrams and Shaffer. These two men exercised a high degree of control over the affairs of the company, and Erdman went along with them and participated in many of their transactions. Anderson found that these three occupied a fiduciary relationship with TMT, at least insofar as issuance of capital stock to them was concerned. “They took advantage of their inside position to obtain stock for less than the market price which they sold to the public without any registration under the Securities Act and in apparent violation of the private offering exemption under which all of the stock was issued.” The activities of these three men substantially lessened TMT’s chances of obtaining financing from reputable financial institutions “and by the time the Caplan mortgage was executed they were in a position to dictate terms which TMT would be forced to accept.” Anderson’s report continued:
“It is the opinion of the trustee that persons such as Abrams, Shaffer and Erdman who come in as creditors of TMT under the Caplan Mortgage... should be barred in this equity proceeding from profiting at TMT’s expense. Their claims should be reduced by the profits they have made on sales of TMT stock which they acquired for private investment purposes, but which they sold in violation of the law at great profit to themselves. These profits are either admitted or readily ascertainable and should be returned to the company.”
Characterizing the conduct of Abrams, Shaffer, and Erd-man in acquiring unregistered TMT stock with no intention of holding it for investment as a “fraud,” Anderson indicated the possibility of liability under the SEC’s Rule 10b-5. Anderson said that at a minimum their claims should be subordinated to those of innocent creditors.
As a result of the report filed by trustee Anderson, the order confirming the 1959 plan of reorganization was vacated. Both the trustee and the SEC filed objections to the Caplan mortgage claim, grounded on the reasons presented in the report of the investigation. The District Court never held hearings on these objections. The mortgage was not set aside as a fraudulent transfer, nor was it decided to use the claims against Abrams, Shaffer, and Erdman as setoffs or as a means of subordinating the mortgage claims. Rather, the internal plan of reorganization was approved by the District Court, providing for a “compromise” of the Caplan mortgage along the lines already indicated. The holders of the mortgage were to receive in cash what they had put up for the mortgage, plus interest on the principal from the original due date.
Separate from the Caplan mortgage claims were the claims filed by M-S, the company in charge of converting the Navy LSD into the self-propelled trailership which TMT christened the Carib Queen. These claims totaled $1,628,284, of which over $1,000,000 was for the unpaid balance due for converting the Carib Queen. Maritime liens on other vessels owned by TMT allegedly secured $574,580 worth of these claims. The United States, in its position as a substantial creditor of TMT, filed objections to M-S claims, stating that none of them were entitled to status as secured claims “for the reason that they arose more than one year prior to the commencement of the reorganization proceedings herein.” It also contended that the claims had no status as secured lien claims, for “it is a recognized principle of Admiralty and Maritime law that claims for the construction or reconstruction of vessels do not give rise to Maritime hens.” Whether the portion of the claims for which M-S asserts secured status is actually entitled to that status has never been determined. The “compromise” of the M-S claims amounted to allowing them in their entirety as unsecured claims.
On the maiden voyage of the Carib Queen a series of boiler failures caused the vessel to break down and necessitated extensive repairs. In November 1958 the petitioner Committee notified the District Court that in its opinion the “series of catastrophes” which had befallen the Carib Queen was due to “faulty design, inadequate inspection, defective work on the remodeling and later repair of the ship, hasty and improper preparations for a hazardous sea voyage and utilization of the ship in a service for which she was not fitted and in an unsea-worthy condition.” The Committee thought that TMT had causes of action which could lead to the recovery of substantial sums of money. Although Anderson’s report on his subsequent investigation of the affairs of TMT dealt with causes of action other than those associated with the Caplan mortgage, it made no mention of any claims TMT might have against M-S. The SEC objected to the M-S claims, stating that there were grounds for disallowing them and that the matter should be referred to a special master for investigation. Trustee Anderson also sought reference of these claims to a special master. On September 1, 1961, the SEC filed detailed specifications of its objections to the M-S claims, based on its own investigation into them. The SEC stated that the debtor
“has meritorious defenses and an offset or counterclaim because M-S (a) did not properly convert the vessel; (b) did not comply with the terms of the contract; (c) did not properly repair the vessel; and (d) performed certain work for and furnished certain materials to TMT, with no agreement as to price; M-S has failed to establish the value of such work and materials.”
The SEC described with some particularity the facts which had led it to this conclusion. The most important of these related to the boiler failure which occurred shortly after M-S delivered the Carib Queen for its maiden voyage. Within 48 hours of sailing from Jacksonville, Florida, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, it was discovered that a boiler and several tubes were leaking. Tubes overheated, ruptured, and were distorted as a result of scale which had formed on their inner surfaces. The SEC attributed the scale to M-S’ negligence in running the boilers with raw water. The SEC also stated that the improper priming of the boilers that occurred on the first trip was due to installation of incorrect baffles by M-S. M-S had undertaken to make the required repairs, and the SEC stated that this repair work was performed negligently, leading to further tube failures. Part of the M-S claims was for unpaid charges for this repair work. M-S filed an answer on September 1 which admitted that when the Carib Queen was delivered it was suffering from “certain construction deficiencies,” but denied any liability. It contended that its asserted hen claims were secured and that it had performed the repair work in a proper manner.
Although the SEC and the trustee had sought reference of the M-S claims to a special master for a hearing, no such hearing was ever held. Instead, the trustee subsequently moved for the. summary allowance of the claims on the ground that there was only a “remote” possibility of materially reducing them by litigating the objections filed against them, and that such litigation would cause “unnecessary delay.” At the hearing during which the trustee presented his motion for allowing the M-S claims in full, no further explanation of this recommendation was provided. Counsel for the Committee protested that “this is not a report, this is a bare statement of conclusion.” The trial judge himself recognized the importance of the question. He said:
“I am concerned myself. I do know that whoever turned that vessel [the Carib Queen] loose with the boilers in it, somebody made a bad mistake. I don’t know who it was.”
The matter was put over, and subsequently the Committee, supported by the Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Caplan mortgage group, filed objections. Notwithstanding these objections, and the doubts that he had earlier expressed, the trial judge confirmed the claims in full as unsecured claims without further investigation of them. M-S, under the confirmed plan, is to receive 40% of the common stock of the reorganized company.
On July 11, 1962, the trial court filed its opinion and order approving both the internal and the cash plans of reorganization. The internal plan contained the provisions for “compromising” the Caplan mortgage and M-S claims. With regard to these sets of claims, the trial court stated that “it was apparent” that successful litigation of the claims TMT had against the holders of these claims “would take possibly years to conclude....” The court continued:
“It is the opinion of the court that these compromises are fair and equitable under the circumstances and they are hereby approved for inclusion in the Internal Plan. The court approves the opinion expressed by the attorney for the trustee that no better compromises can be obtained for the debtor, that the prospect of material reduction in the amount of these claims does not warrant the extensive litigation that would otherwise be required, and that the prospect of recoveries beyond the amount of the claims as urged by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Stockholders’ Committee is too remote for serious consideration.... The alternative to approval of these compromises is extensive litigation at heavy expense to the debtor and unnecessary delay in reorganization contrary to the intent and purpose of Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act.”
This statement constitutes the only, and the last, word that the trial court said on the merits of the compromises of the Caplan mortgage and M-S claims. Without reference to any of the objections that had been filed or to the substantial facts in the record tending to cast doubt upon the Caplan mortgage and M-S claims, the court accepted the bald conclusions of the trustee. This despite the fact that the trustee had once concluded that the Caplan mortgage was null and void and that TMT had sizeable setoffs against its holders. This despite the fact that the trustee had once sought reference of the M-S claims to a special master for investigation. This despite the fact that the trustee had never placed on the record any of the facts of his subsequent investigation and had never provided any explanation of why he had completely reversed his field on these claims. Although at this point in the proceedings it was clear that Anderson was to become president of the reorganized company, and though the trial court was understandably eager to wind up these protracted proceedings, there nowhere appears an adequate explanation for the trustee’s cursory, conclusory recommendation of these “compromises,” or the perfunctory, almost offhand, manner in which the court accepted that recommendation.
If the quoted statement of the trial court had been the result of an adequate and intelligent consideration of the merits of the claims, the difficulties of pursuing them, the potential harm to the debtor’s estate caused by delay, and the fairness of the terms of settlement, then it would without question have been justifiable to approve the proposed compromises. It is essential, however, that a reviewing court have some basis for distinguishing between well-reasoned conclusions arrived at after a comprehensive consideration of all relevant factors, and mere boiler-plate approval phrased in appropriate language but unsupported by evaluation of the facts or analysis of the law. Here there is no explanation of how the strengths and weaknesses of the debtor’s causes of action were evaluated or upon what grounds it was concluded that a settlement which allowed the creditor’s claims in major part was “fair and equitable.”Although we are told that the alternative to settlement was “extensive litigation at heavy expense” and “unnecessary delay,” there is no evidence that this conclusion was based upon an educated estimate of the complexity, expense, and likely duration of the litigation. Litigation and delay are always the alternative to settlement, and whether that alternative is worth pursuing necessarily depends upon a reasoned judgment as to the probable outcome of litigation. The complaint voiced by counsel for the petitioner Committee to the trustee’s report on the compromises, that “this is a bare statement of conclusion,” seems equally applicable to the trial court’s statement approving those compromises. In these circumstances it was error to affirm that aspect of the District Court’s judgment approving inclusion of the proposed compromises in the internal plan of reorganization.
The Court of Appeals dealt with the District Court’s approval of the compromises in five sentences. Noting that it was only the Committee and the SEC that were complaining, and remarking that it was unlikely that disallowance of the compromises would result in solvency, it felt that it was “significant that not a single creditor has ever complained of either compromise.” 364 F. 2d 936, 941. The question of insolvency will be returned to shortly. The argument that the compromises were properly approved because no creditors objected to them seems doubly dubious. When a bankruptcy court either fails adequately to investigate potential legal claims held by the debtor, or refuses to provide an adequate explanation of the basis for approving compromises, it is scarcely surprising that creditors fail to come forward with objections to the compromises. Moreover, this Court has held that a plan of reorganization which is unfair to some persons may not be approved by the court even though the vast majority of creditors have approved it.
The principal argument of the respondent supporting affirmance of the order approving the compromises is that “the district court had before it a thorough record concerning the facts and issues with respect to the compromises of these two claims.” Respondent’s Brief 38. With regard to the Caplan mortgage claim, respondent points out that the facts and circumstances surrounding it were thoroughly documented in Anderson’s report of his investigation. It is difficult to see how this strengthens respondent’s position, however, for the report carefully documented the conclusion that the Caplan mortgage was a fraudulent transfer and that claims against the individual holders of the mortgage could be used as setoffs. The District Court’s approval of the proposed compromise in the face of the facts and conclusions contained in the trustee’s report is more difficult to understand than would be approval entered on a blank slate. Respondent also points out that the trial court had before it an answer to Anderson’s report, the various objections filed to the mortgage claim, the claim itself, and the recommendations of the Creditors’ Committee, the trustee and the trustee’s counsel favoring the proposed settlement. The objections filed to the claim militate against the advisability of compromise, however, and the other matters referred to consist either of conclusory denials of liability or conclusory statements that the claims should be compromised. There is nothing in all these documents which could provide a sound basis for concluding that the claims against the mortgage and its holders were unmeritorious. If the trial court ever had before it facts which showed the claims against the Caplan mortgage and its holders to be without merit, or if the court ever discovered sound grounds for thinking that the delay incident to litigation or the unlikelihood of obtaining an adequate recovery, made compromise advisable, nothing in this record indicates it.
With regard to the M-S claims, respondent contends that the record contains “an abundance of pleadings and allegations” respecting them. Respondent’s Brief 33. To make an informed and independent judgment, however, the court needs facts, not allegations. Respondent also contends that there were sufficient facts in the record, and provides a long list of references to the places in the record where these facts can be found. If, indeed, the record contained adequate facts to support the decision of the trial court to approve the proposed compromises, a reviewing court would be properly reluctant to attack that action solely because the court failed adequately to set forth its reasons or the evidence on which they were based. The deficiency in this case, however, is not a merely formal one. The evidence referred to by respondent is analyzed at greater length in the margin. Here it is enough to say that to the extent that the record contains solid facts of the sort necessary for appraising the merits of the claims against M-S, virtually all of them point to the probable existence of valid and valuable causes of action. Balancing these facts are nothing but bald assertions to the contrary and general conclusions for which foundations nowhere appear. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that, despite frequent requests for an investigation, and notwithstanding the fact that the available evidence pointed to probably valid claims against M-S, no investigation of these matters was ever undertaken or ordered by the trial court. It is difficult to imagine how an informed and independent decision in favor of compromising the M-S claims in the full amount as unsecured claims could have been reached on the present state of the record.
The record before us leaves us completely uninformed as to whether the trial court ever evaluated the merits of the causes of actions held by the debtor, the prospects and problems of litigating those claims, or the fairness of the terms of compromise. More than this, the record is devoid of facts which would have permitted a reasoned judgment that the claims of actions should be settled in this fashion. In reaching this conclusion, however, it is necessary to emphasize that we intimate no opinion as to the merits of the debtor’s causes of action or as to the actual fairness of the proposed compromises. To the contrary, it is clear that the present record is inadequate for assessing either, and that a remand is necessary to permit further hearings to be held. Only after further investigation can it be determined whether, and on what terms, these claims should be compromised.
III.
Under §§ 174, 221 (2), of Chapter X, 52 Stat. 891, 897, 11 U. S. C. §§ 574, 621 (2), a bankruptcy court is not to approve' or confirm a plan of reorganization unless it is found to be “fair and equitable.” This standard incorporates the absolute priority doctrine under which creditors and stockholders may participate only in accordance with their respective priorities, and “in any plan of corporate reorganization unsecured creditors are entitled to priority over stockholders to the full extent of their debts....” SEC v. United States Realty & Improvement Co., 310 U. S. 434, 452 (1940). Since participation by junior interests depends upon the claims of senior interests being fully satisfied, whether a plan of reorganization excluding junior interests is fair and equitable depends upon the value of the reorganized company. In the present case the District Court excluded the stockholders from participation because of its finding that the debtor was insolvent. Since the determination of insolvency was not made in accordance with the proper standards of valuation, neither the approval nor the confirmation of the plan can stand.
The appropriate standard for valuing a company undergoing reorganization was set out at length in Con solidated Rock Products Co. v. Du Bois, 312 U. S. 510, 526 (1941):
“As Mr. Justice Holmes said in Galveston, H. & S. A. Ry. Co. v. Texas, 210 U. S. 217, 226, The commercial value of property consists in the expectation of income from it.’... Such criterion is the appropriate one here, since we are dealing with the issue of solvency arising in connection with reorganization plans involving productive properties.... The criterion of earning capacity is the essential one if the enterprise is to be freed from the heavy hand of past errors, miscalculations or disaster, and if the allocation of securities among the various claimants is to be fair and equitable.... Since its application requires a prediction as to what will occur in the future, an estimate, as distinguished from mathematical certitude, is all that can be made. But that estimate must be based on an informed judgment which embraces all facts relevant to future earning capacity and hence to present worth, including, of course, the nature and condition of the properties, the past earnings record, and all circumstances which indicate whether or not that record is a reliable criterion of future performance.”
In the present case the book value of the debtor’s assets on May 31, 1962, was $1,887,185.77. Claims against the debtor totaled $5,477,370.05. The actual fair value of the debtor’s total assets was $2,238,387.62 and their net value was $1,978,481.73. Although these figures show that liabilities far exceeded assets, they are not of controlling importance. The District Court recognized that going-concern value, not book or appraisal value, must govern determination of the fairness of the plans of reorganization, and respondent concedes that the value of TMT’s business depended “not on the inherent value of its assets but primarily on maintaining a high level of earnings.” Brief for Respondent 42.
At the valuation hearings the trustee stated that his analysis of the financial structure and business of the debtor resulted in a going-concern value of $2,031,403.72. A valuation expert presented by the trustee estimated the going-concern value at between $1,607,692 and $1,800,000. He arrived at his conclusion by multiplying his estimate of the future earnings of the company by 7.7, a figure based on the assumption that earnings would be 13% of value. The valuation expert presented by the Committee concluded that estimated future earnings after taxes would be $327,500, and multiplying this by a price-earnings ratio of 13.8, arrived at the conclusion that TMT had a value of $4,519,500. The trial judge took an intermediate position. By projecting current earnings of the debtor for the first five months of 1962 over the remainder of the year, he concluded that pre-tax earnings would be $568,000. Reduced by estimated income taxes and capitalized at 10%, this yielded a going-concern value of $2,780,000. Since this figure fell well below the $5,477,370.05 of outstanding claims, he concluded that the debtor was insolvent. On this basis the plan, was approved and confirmed.
When the Court of Appeals remanded to the District Court for determination of the feasibility of the reorganization plan after giving full priority to the Govern-merit’s claims, the District Court concluded that TMT was “more insolvent now than it was in 1962,” for earnings had declined from the high point of 1962, and the Court’s initial determination had been based on the projected earnings for that year. The decline in earnings had occurred even though the volume of business had grown substantially, for increased competition from large steamship lines serving Puerto Rico had forced TMT to lower its rates and thus its margin of profit. The District Court reaffirmed its finding of insolvency. On appeal, the Court of Appeals stated that it did not have to determine whether or not the District Court’s finding of insolvency was accurately computed, but merely whether it was “clearly erroneous.” On this basis the conclusion of insolvency was affirmed.
In a complex case of this nature it is not the province of this Court to attempt to retry issues of fact which have been fully litigated below. Indeed, as the Court of Appeals stated, much weight must be given to the long familiarity of the District Judge with the debtor and to his evaluation of the witnesses who testified in his presence. In the face of conflicting expert testimony as to the going-concern value of the debtor based on current earnings, the trial judge adopted a position in between. We are not disposed to dispute the conclusion
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether, when a shipper defends against a motor common carrier’s suit to collect tariff rates with the claim that the tariff rates were unreasonable, the court should proceed immediately to judgment on the carrier’s complaint without waiting for the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to rule on the reasonableness issue.
I
In many ways, this is a sequel to our decision in Maislin Industries, U. S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U. S. 116 (1990). The facts of the two cases follow a pattern that has been replicated many times in the era of “deregulation" following enactment of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, 94 Stat. 793: A motor carrier negotiates with a shipper rates less than the tariff rates that the Interstate Commerce Act (ICA), 49 U. S. C. § 10701 et seq., requires the carrier to “publish and file” with the ICC, 49 U. S. C. § 10762. After the shipments are delivered and paid for (sometimes years after), the carrier goes bankrupt and its trustee in bankruptcy sues the shipper to recover the difference between the negotiated rates and the tariff rates. Shippers’ standard defenses against such “undercharge” actions have been (1) that the carrier’s attempt to collect more than the agreed-upon rates is 'an “unreasonable practice” proscribed by the Act, see § 10701(a), and (2) that the tariff rates were unlawful because they were unreasonably high, see ibid. In 1989, the ICC announced a policy approving the first of these defenses. See NITL — Petition to Institute Rulemaking on Negotiated Motor Common Carrier Rates-, IS I. C. C. 2d 628 (1989); see álso NITL — Petition to Institute Rulemaking on Negotiated Motor Common. Carrier Rates:,, 3’ I. C. C. 2d 99 (1986); Mais-lin, 497 U. S., at 121-122'. Our decision in Maislin held that policy invalid under the ICA, because it would “rende[rj nugatory” the specific command of §10761 that the carrier charge the filed rate. Id., at 133. While Maislin thus eliminated the shippers’ “unreasonable practice” defense, it expressly noted that “[t]he issue of the reasonableness of the tariff rates is open for exploration on remand.” Id., at 129, n. 10. The present case presents a problem of timing that has arisen out of that issue.
The shippers here are petitioners California Consolidated Enterprises (CCE) and Peter Reiter. Between 1984 and 1986, they were engaged in the business of brokering motor carrier transportation, which essentially involves serving as a middleman between motor carriers and the shipping public. During that period, petitioners tendered shipments to Carolina Motor Express, Inc., which was operating as a certified motor carrier in interstate commerce subject to regulation by the ICC. Carolina and petitioners negotiated rates for several shipments that were lower than the applicable tariff rates on file with the ICC. (Petitioners believed that Carolina would publish these negotiated rates in its tariffs, but Carolina never did so.)
In 1986, Carolina filed for bankruptcy and respondent Langdon Cooper was appointed trustee. Respondent Mark & Associates of North Carolina was retained to conduct an audit of Carolina’s shipping bills, which revealed undercharges (below applicable tariff rates) in the amount of $58,793.03 on shipments made by CCE and $13,795.73 on shipments made by Reiter. Respondents brought adversary proceedings against petitioners in Bankruptcy Court to collect those amounts. Petitioners raised the standard “unreasonable practice” and “unreasonable rate” claims, and moved the Bankruptcy Court to stay proceedings and to refer those claims to the ICC. The Bankruptcy Court refused to do so and entered judgment for respondents. In re Carolina Motor Express, Inc., 84 B. R. 979 (WDNC 1988). In 1989 (prior to our decision in Maislin), the District Court reversed and held that the “unreasonable practice” defense should be referred to the ICC. The Court of Appeals, after holding respondents’ appeal in abeyance until our decision in Maislin, reversed the District Court. In re Carolina Motor Express, Inc., 949 F. 2d 107 (CA4 1991). It held that, in light of Maislin, there was no need to refer the “unreasonable practice” issue to the ICC, 949 F. 2d, at 109; and that the “unreasonable rate” claim was no obstacle to the carrier’s action, since even if the tariff rates were unreasonable the “filed rate” doctrine requires the shipper to pay them first and then seek relief in a separate action for damages under § 11705(b)(3), id., at 110-111. We granted certiorari. 504 U. S. 907 (1992).
II
The ICA requires carriers’ rates to be “reasonable,” § 10701(a), and gives shippers an express cause of action against carriers for damages (called “reparations” in the pre-codification version of the statute, see 49 U. S. C. §§304a(2), (5) (1976 ed.)) in the amount of the difference between the tariff rate and the rate determined to be reasonable by the ICC, § 11705(b)(3). Respondents argue, however, that the unreasonableness of a tariff rate may not be asserted as a “defense” to an action to recover charges based on that rate. That may be true in a technical sense, since § 11705(b)(3) provides a cause of action rather than a defense. But that does not establish that the “unreasonable rate” issue cannot be raised in the present suit, since a defendant having a cause of action against a plaintiff may — indeed, often must — assert that cause of action as a counterclaim. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 13; Southern Constr. Co. v. Pickard, 371 U. S. 57, 60 (1962). Petitioners’ claims under § 11705(b)(3) are certainly properly raised here, since they relate to the same shipments for which respondents seek to collect. And it makes no difference that petitioners may have mistakenly designated their counterclaims as defenses, since Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(c) provides that “the court on terms, if justice so requires, shall treat the pleading as if there had been a proper designation.” See also 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1275, pp. 459-460 (2d ed. 1990) (“Inasmuch as it is not clear whether set-offs and recoup-ments should be viewed as defenses or counterclaims, the court, by invoking the misdesignation provision in Rule 8(c), should treat matter of this type as if it had been properly designated by defendant, and should not penalize improper labelling”).
Under 49 U. S. C. § 11706(c)(2), a shipper “must begin a civil action to recover damages under [§ 11705(b)(3)] within two years after the claim accrues,” which occurs “on delivery or tender of delivery by the carrier,” § 11706(g). That limitation is not applicable here, however, since presented in response to the carrier’s suit petitioners’ claims seek merely “recoupment” — i. e., the setting off against asserted liability of a counterclaim arising out of the same transaction. Re-coupment claims are generally not barred by a statute of limitations so long as the main action is timely. See Bull v. United States, 295 U. S. 247, 262 (1935); 3 J. Moore, B. Ward, & J. Lucas, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 13.11 (1992). There is no reason not to apply this principle to suits under the ICA, and we have indeed already done so. In United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, 71 (1956), we held that an ICA limitation provision nearly identical to the one at issue here did not prohibit the shipper (the United States) from asserting “by way of defense” unreasonable-rate claims against a carrier seeking to collect on previous shipments. Respondents seek to distinguish Western Pacific on the ground that the United States has a unique statutory setoff right (now codified at 31 U. S. C. § 3726), allowing it to deduct from amounts due to a carrier prior overcharges by the carrier. That statute may well have been essential to the holding in the case, since some of the amounts withheld by the United States were not recoupments (they related to shipments other than those that were the subjects of the carriers’ suits). But the rationale of the case is the same as the rationale that permits recoupment here: “Only the clearest congressional language could force us to a result which would allow a carrier to recover unreasonable charges with impunity merely by waiting two years before filing suit.” 352 U. S., at 71. See Glama Dress Co. v. Mid-South Transports, Inc., 335 I. C. C. 586, 589 (1969). Courts of Appeals have understood Western Pacific as expressing not just a narrow holding based on the United States setoff statute, but a general principle of recoupment applicable in other contexts. See Distribution Services, Ltd. v. Eddie Parker Interests, Inc., 897 F. 2d 811, 813 (CA5 1990); In re Smith, 737 F. 2d 1549, 1554 (CA11 1984); 118 East 60th Owners, Inc. v. Bonner Properties, Inc., 677 F. 2d 200, 203 (CA2 1982); Luckenbach S. S. Co. v. United States, 312 F. 2d 645, 549, n. 3 (CA2 1963).
One major consequence does attach to the fact that an unreasonable-rate claim is technically a counterclaim rather than a defense: A defense cannot possibly be adjudicated separately from the plaintiff’s claim to which it applies; a counterclaim can be. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) permits a district court to enter separate final judgment on any claim or counterclaim, after making “an express determination that there is no just reason for delay.” See Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, 351 U. S. 427 (1956); Cold Metal Process Co. v. United Engineering & Foundry Co., 351 U. S. 445 (1956). This power is largely discretionary, see Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. General Electric Co., 446 U. S. 1, 10 (1980), to be exercised in light of “judicial administrative interests as well as the equities involved,” id., at 8, and giving due weight to “ ‘the historic federal policy against piecemeal appeals,’ ” ibid, (quoting Sears, supra, at 438).
Nothing in the ICA provides that, in an action by a carrier to collect undercharges, a § 11705(b)(3) counterclaim is not subject to the normally applicable provisions of the Federal Rules. Respondents contend that the so-called “filed rate doctrine” gives them absolute entitlement to judgment on their undercharge claims, without defense or counterclaim. We disagree. The filed rate doctrine embodies the principle that a shipper cannot avoid payment of the tariff rate by invoking common-law claims and defenses such as ignorance, estoppel, or prior agreement to a different rate. See Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Mugg, 202 U. S. 242, 245 (1906); Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Maxwell, 237 U. S. 94, 98 (1915); Pittsburgh, C., C. & S. L. R. Co. v. Fink, 250 U. S. 577, 581-582 (1919). It assuredly does not preclude avoidance of the tariff rate, however, through claims and defenses that are specifically accorded by the ICA itself. We can agree with respondents that this latter category does not include any “unreasonable rate defense,” derived from the general ICA requirement (now codified in § 10701(a)) that a carrier’s rates be “reasonable.” See T. I. M. E. Inc. v. United States, 359 U. S. 464, 468-472 (1959). But we cannot agree that the filed rate doctrine precludes shippers from asserting (by way of claim or counterclaim) the reparations rights explicitly conferred by § 11705(b)(3).
Contrary to respondents’ contention, the preclusive effect of the filed rate doctrine over reparations counterclaims is not established by our opinion in Crancer v. Lowden, 315 U. S. 631 (1942). There, shippers sued by a rail carrier for payment of tariff rates challenged them as unreasonable, and sought to stay the collection action until the ICC had an opportunity to rule on that issue. The District Court denied the stay and entered judgment for the carrier. But unlike the present petitioners, the shippers in Crancer had no counterclaim; they had already instituted an administrative reparations proceeding (as the ICA allowed for rail carriage) before they were sued in district court, see Reply Brief for Petitioners 13 and Brief for Respondents 18, in Crancer v. Lowden, O. T. 1941, No. 505, which precluded filing a reparations claim in district court. See 49 U. S. C. § 9 (1946 ed.). Moreover, all that Crancer held was that “there was no abuse of discretion by the trial judge,” since the equities balanced against waiting for the ICC’s determination. 315 U. S., at 636. Thus, Crancer held that the court was not required to stay the collection proceeding until the ICC ruled on the reasonableness of rates; not that the court was prohibited from doing so. That is entirely consistent with our holding here.
Ill
Respondents raise two arguments to the effect that petitioners’ § 11705(b)(3) counterclaims are not yet cognizable in court. First, respondents argue that there exists what they denominate as a “pay first” rule, whereby payment of the tariff rate is a “prerequisite to litigating the rate reasonableness issue.” Brief for Respondents 23. See also Milne Truck Lines, Inc. v. Makita U. S. A., Inc., 970 F. 2d 564, 572 (CA9 1992) (embracing similar theory). That argument would have merit if the holding in United States ex rel. Louisville Cement Co. v. ICC, 246 U. S. 638 (1918), were still good law. In that case, this Court held that a shipper’s cause of action for reparations did not accrue “until payment had been made of the unreasonable charges.” Id., at 644. The opinion noted that “if Congress had intended that the cause of action of the shipper to recover damages for unreasonable charges should accrue when the shipment was received, or when it was delivered by the carrier,... a simple and obvious form for expressing that intention would have been used.” Ibid. Within two years, Congress enacted a simple and obvious provision stating that any “cause of action in respect of a shipment of property shall... be deemed to accrue upon delivery or tender of delivery.” Transportation Act of 1920, § 424,41 Stat. 492. That provision survives in substantially the same form in text now codified at 49 U. S. C. § 11706(g). While it is theoretically possible for a statute to create a cause of action that accrues at one time for the purpose of calculating when the statute of limitations begins to run, but at another time for the purpose of bringing suit, we will not infer such an odd result in the absence of any such indication in the statute. We therefore hold that petitioners could assert a claim under § 11705(b)(3) before payment, but after their shipments were delivered.
Second, respondents contend that the doctrine of primary jurisdiction requires petitioners initially to present their unreasonable-rate claims to the ICC, rather than to a court. That reflects a mistaken understanding of primary jurisdiction, which is a doctrine specifically applicable to claims properly cognizable in court that contain some issue within the special competence of an administrative agency. It requires the court to enable a “referral” to the agency, staying further proceedings so as to give the parties reasonable opportunity to seek an administrative ruling. See Western Pacific, 352 U. S., at 63-64; Ricci v. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, 409 U. S. 289, 291, 302 (1973); Port of Boston Marine Terminal Assn. v. Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, 400 U. S. 62, 65, 68 (1970). Referral of the issue to the administrative agency does not deprive the court of jurisdiction; it has discretion either to retain jurisdiction or, if the parties would not be unfairly disadvantaged, to dismiss the case without prejudice. See Carnation Co. v. Pacific Westbound Conference, 383 U. S. 213, 222-223 (1966); Mitchell Coal & Coke Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 280 U. S. 247, 266-267 (1913); Jaffe, Primary Jurisdiction, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1037, 1056 (1964).
The result that respondents seek would be produced, not by the doctrine of primary jurisdiction, but by the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies. Where relief is available from an administrative agency, the plaintiff is ordinarily required to pursue that avenue of redress before proceeding to the courts; and until that recourse is exhausted, suit is premature and must be dismissed. See Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41, 50-51 (1938); Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602, 617, 619, and n. 12 (1984). That doctrine is inapplicable to petitioners’ reparations claims, however, because the ICC has long interpreted its statute as giving it no power to decree reparations relief. Shortly after enactment of the provision now codified at § 11705(b)(3), the ICC said that the law did not “grant the Commission any initial jurisdiction . . . with respect to the award of reparations”; rather, “shippers’ recourse must be to the courts,” which would “refer” the issue of rate reasonableness to the Commission. Informal Procedure for Determining Motor Carrier and Freight Forwarder Reparation, 335 I. C. C. 403, 413 (1969). The ICC continues to adhere to that view. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9, n. 6; NITL — Petition to Institute Rulemaking on Negotiated Motor Common Carrier Rates, 3 I. C. C. 2d, at 106-107; NITL — Petition to Institute Rulemaking on Negotiated Motor Common Carrier Rates, 5 I. C. C. 2d, at 625, 630-631. We find that to be at least a reasonable interpretation of the statute, and hence a binding one. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984).
Nor can we discern within the ICA an intent that, even though the ICC cannot decree relief, ICC determination of the reasonable-rate issue must be obtained before filing the civil action. Since the limitations period for filing actions under § 11705(b)(3) begins running at the time of delivery of the shipment, rather than at the time the ICC enters an order, compare §§ 11706(c)(2) and (g) with § 11706(e), the period could expire before the ICC acted. We are not disposed to find an implicit prior-agency-determination requirement that would have such consequences.
IV
Since we have concluded that petitioners’ unreasonable-rate claims are subject to the ordinary rules governing counterclaims, the judgment below must be reversed. Neither the Court of Appeals nor the District Court made the “express determination” required under Rule 54(b) for entry of a separate judgment on respondents’ claims, and we cannot say categorically that it would be an abuse of discretion either to grant or to deny separate judgment. In the ordinary case, where a carrier is solvent and has promptly initiated suit, the equities favor separate judgment on the principal claim: referral of the unreasonable-rate issue could produce substantial delay, and tariff rates not disapproved by the ICC are legal rates, binding on both the shipper and the carrier. See Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156, 163 (1922); Arizona Grocery Co. v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 284 U. S. 370, 384 (1932); Lowden v. Simonds-Shields-Lonsdale Grain Co., 306 U. S. 516, 520 (1939). The equities change, however, when the suing carrier is in bankruptcy. Indeed, we have previously held that even a “threat of insolvency” of the party seeking separate judgment is a factor weighing against it. See Curtiss-Wright, 446 U. S., at 12. Even so, we cannot say that insolvency is an absolute bar. Conceivably, a district court could determine that other equities favor separate judgment — for example, a threat that the shipper may become insolvent, which Rule 62(h) would allow a court to protect against by entering separate judgment for the carrier but staying enforcement on condition that the shipper deposit the amount of the judgment with the court. Id., at 13, n. 3.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Blackmun dissents.
Section 11705(b)(3) provides in relevant part:
“A common carrier providing transportation or service subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission ... is liable for damages resulting from the imposition of rates for transportation or service the Commission finds to be in violation of this subtitle.”
For purposes of applying the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governing counterclaims, it does not matter that this action arose in bankruptcy. Rules 8 and 54 are made fully applicable in adversary proceedings by Bankruptcy Rules 7008 and 7054, and Rule 13 is made applicable with only minor variation (not relevant here) by Bankruptcy Rule 7013. It is well settled, moreover, that a bankruptcy defendant can meet a plaintiff-debtor’s claim with a counterclaim arising out of the same transaction, at least to the extent that the defendant merely seeks recoupment. See In re B & L Oil Co., 782 F. 2d 155, 157 (CA10 1986); Lee v. Schweiker, 739 F. 2d 870, 876 (CA3 1984). Recoupment permits a determination of the “just and proper liability on the main issue,” and involves “no element of preference.” 4 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 553.03, p. 553-17 (15th ed. 1991).
“Referral” is sometimes loosely described as a process whereby a court refers an issue to an agency. See, e. g., 28 U. S. C. § 1336. But the ICA (like most statutes) contains no mechanism whereby a court can on its own authority demand or request a determination from the agency; that is left to the adversary system, the court merely staying its proceedings while the shipper files an administrative complaint under § 11701(b). See § 11706(c)(1) (second sentence). Use of the term “referral” to describe this process seems to have originated in Western Pacific, which asserted that, where issues within the special competence of an agency arise, “the judicial process is suspended pending referral of such issues to the administrative body for its views.” United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 362 U. S. 59, 64 (1956). At the conclusion of that passage, the Western Pacific Court cited General American Tank Car Corp. v. El Dorado Terminal Co., 308 U. S. 422, 433 (1940), which in turn cited Mitchell Coal & Coke Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 230 U. S. 247 (1913). Mitchell Coal spelled out the actual procedure contemplated, holding that further action by the district court should “be stayed so as to give the plaintiff a reasonable opportunity within which to apply to the Commission for a ruling as to the reasonableness of the practice,” id., at 267.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this original action we revisit the dispute among Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and the United States over water rights to the North Platte River. In 1945, this Court entered a decree establishing interstate priorities on the North Platte and apportioning the natural flow of one critical portion of the river during the irrigation season. Nebraska returned to the Court in 1986 seeking an order for enforcement of the decree and injunctive relief. A Special Master, appointed by the Court, has supervised pretrial proceedings and discovery since 1987. Before us now are the Special Master’s recommended dispositions of several summary judgment motions, together with exceptions filed to the Special Master’s reports.
I
The North Platte River rises in northern Colorado and flows through Wyoming into Nebraska, where it joins the South Platte River. The topology of the river and the history of its early development are described at length in the Court’s 1945 opinion. See Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U. S. 589, 592-599. In 1934, Nebraska, invoking this Court’s original jurisdiction under Article III, §2, of the Constitution, brought an action against Wyoming seeking an equitable apportionment of the North Platte. Colorado was impleaded as a defendant, and the United States intervened. After 11 years of litigation, the Court imposed restrictions on storage and diversion by the upstream States, 325 U. S., at 621-625, established priorities among federal storage reservoirs and certain canals, id., at 625-637, and apportioned the so-called “pivotal” reach of the North Platte between Whalen, Wyoming, and the Tri-State Dam. The natural irrigation-season flows in that section of the river were apportioned 75% to Nebraska and 25% to Wyoming. Id., at 637-654.
The Court directed the parties to formulate a decree to implement its decision. See id., at 657. The resulting decree included a “reopener” provision, Paragraph XIII, that states, in relevant part:
“Any of the parties may apply at the foot of this decree for its amendment or for further relief. The Court retains jurisdiction of this suit for the purpose of any order, direction, or modification of the decree, or any supplementary decree, that may at any time be deemed proper in relation to the subject matter in controversy. Matters with reference to which further relief may hereafter be sought shall include, but shall not be limited to, the following:
“(c) The question of the effect of the construction or threatened construction of storage capacity not now existing on tributaries entering the North Platte River between Pathfinder Reservoir and Guernsey Reservoir;
“(f) Any change in conditions making modification of the decree or the granting of further relief necessary or appropriate.” Id., at 671-672.
Paragraph XIII reflects the Court’s observation that the decree is designed to “deal with conditions as they obtain today” and that it “can be adjusted to meet. . . new conditions.” Id., at 620. The Court noted in more than one place in its opinion the need to retain jurisdiction to modify the decree in light of substantial changes in supply, threatened future development, or circumvention of the decree. See, e. g., id., at 622, 625, 628-629. Since it was entered, the decree already has been modified once, pursuant to the parties’ stipulation, to account for construction of a new reservoir. See Nebraska v. Wyoming, 345 U. S. 981 (1953).
In 1986, Nebraska petitioned the Court for relief under Paragraph XIII. Nebraska alleged that Wyoming was violating or threatening to violate the decree by virtue of developments on two North Platte tributaries, Deer Creek and the Laramie River. Nebraska also objected to certain actions taken by Wyoming with respect to the Inland Lakes in Nebraska. We granted Nebraska leave to file the petition. Wyoming answered and counterclaimed, arguing, essentially, that Nebraska was circumventing the decree by demanding and diverting water from above the Tri-State Dam for uses below Tri-State that are not recognized in the decree.
After we referred the matter to Special Master Owen Olpin, Wyoming moved for summary judgment. In his First Interim Report, the Master explained his decision to deny the motion but leave open the possibility of summary adjudication following further factual findings. See First Interim Report (June 14, 1989). An intensive period of discovery followed. All four parties then moved for summary judgment on one or more issues. A year later, the Special Master filed a Second Interim Report. See Second Interim Report on Motions for Summary Judgment and Renewed Motions for Intervention (Apr. 9, 1992) (hereinafter Second Interim Report). The Master recommended that the Court deny the intervention motions of certain amici. No exceptions have been filed to this recommendation, and we adopt it. The Master also recommended that the Court grant summary judgment to Nebraska and the United States on the Inland Lakes issue, grant partial summary judgment to Nebraska on a discrete question related to the below TriState issues, and deny summary judgment on the remaining issues. Exceptions have been filed by Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and amicus Basin Electric Power Cooperative (Basin). The United States has filed a brief opposing the exceptions. We agree with the Master's recommended dispositions of the summary judgment motions and accordingly overrule the exceptions.
II
At the outset we consider the legal principles governing the case. The parties do not challenge the summary judgment standards applied by the Special Master. The Master correctly observed that, although not strictly applicable, Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and our precedents construing that Rule serve as useful guides. See this Court’s Rule 17.2. Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(c). When the nonmoving party bears the burden of proof at trial, summary judgment is warranted if the nonmovant fails to “make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to [its] case.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U. S. 317, 322 (1986). In determining whether a material factual dispute exists, the Court views the evidence through the prism of the controlling legal standard. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 248 (1986).
The disagreement in this case centers on the applicable legal standards. The question is whether these proceedings involve an application for enforcement of rights already recognized in the decree, or whether Nebraska seeks a modification of the decree. According to Wyoming, although the Court has jurisdiction to modify the decree under Paragraph XIII, Nebraska obtained leave to file its petition on the assurance that the case would involve only enforcement of existing rights. In Wyoming’s view, Nebraska subsequently, and improperly, transformed the case into a request for recognition of new rights — in essence, into a request for another equitable apportionment. If Nebraska is allowed to argue for modification of the decree, Wyoming and amicus Basin maintain, the same high evidentiary threshold applicable to claims for new apportionments applies. Under that standard, Nebraska can prevail only upon proof “by clear and convincing evidence” of “some real and substantial injury or damage.” Idaho ex rel. Evans v. Oregon, 462 U. S. 1017, 1027 (1983). Accord, Colorado v. Kansas, 320 U. S. 383, 393 (1943); Connecticut v. Massachusetts, 282 U. S. 660, 669 (1931).
We do not read the pleadings as narrowly as does Wyoming. Nebraska’s petition and supporting briefs do contain ambiguous language. See, e. g., Petition for an Order Enforcing Decree and for Injunctive Relief 2 (Oct. 6, 1986) (hereinafter Petition) (alleging that Wyoming’s actions violate the apportionment already “established in the Decree”); Reply to Wyoming’s Brief in Opposition to Motion for Leave to File Petition 2 (Jan. 14, 1987) (“We do not propose to litigate anything new, but simply to protect what the Court has already decided”). But Nebraska also expressly invoked Paragraph XIII, and particularly subparagraphs (c) and (f). See Petition 3. As we have said, the Court in those sections retained jurisdiction to modify the decree to answer unresolved questions and to accommodate “change[s] in conditions” — a phrase sufficiently broad to encompass not only changes in water supply, see, e.g., Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U. S., at 620, but also new development that threatens a party’s interests. Furthermore, nothing would prevent Nebraska from submitting a new petition if we deemed the original one deficient. We therefore decline the invitation, at this late date, to restrict the scope of the litigation solely to enforcement of rights determined in the prior proceedings.
At the same time, we find merit in Wyoming’s contention that, to the extent Nebraska seeks modification of the decree rather than enforcement, a higher standard of proof applies. The two types of proceeding are markedly different. In an enforcement action, the plaintiff need not show injury. See, e. g., Wyoming v. Colorado, 309 U. S. 572, 581 (1940). When the alleged conduct is admitted, the only question is whether that conduct violates a right established by the decree. To be sure, the right need not be stated explicitly in the decree. As the Master recognized, when the decree is silent or unclear, it is appropriate to consider the underlying opinion, the Master’s Report, and the record in the prior proceedings to determine whether the Court previously resolved the issue. See, e. g., Wyoming v. Colorado, 286 U. S. 494, 506-508 (1932). The parties’ course of conduct under the decree also may be relevant. But the underlying issue primarily remains one of interpretation. In a modification proceeding, by contrast, there is by definition no pre-existing right to interpret or enforce. At least where the case concerns the impact of new development, the inquiry may well entail the same sort of balancing of equities that occurs in an initial proceeding to establish an equitable apportionment. See Nebraska v. Wyoming, supra, at 618 (listing equitable considerations).
As discussed below, we believe that the Inland Lakes question is fairly characterized as an enforcement issue. The claims regarding tributary development, however, raise questions not decided in the original proceedings and therefore may be best understood as requests for modification of the decree. The question remains what evidentiary standard applies to such claims. The Master evidently thought the high standard advocated by Wyoming inapplicable because this is not a case in which the Court is asked to interfere with state sovereign interests “in the first instance.” Second Interim Report 13.
We disagree with the Master to this extent. Paragraph XIII perhaps eases a plaintiff’s burden of establishing, as an initial matter, that a claim falling within its purview is “of that character and dignity which makes the controversy a justiciable one under our original jurisdiction.” Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U. S., at 610. After all, a variety of changed conditions may “promis[e] to disturb the delicate balance of the river” created by the decree. Id., at 625. But when the plaintiff essentially seeks a reweighing of equities and an injunction declaring new rights and responsibilities, we think the plaintiff still must make a showing of substantial injury to be entitled to relief. That is so not only because a new injunction would work a new infringement on sovereign prerogatives, but also because the interests of certainty and stability counsel strongly against reopening an apportionment of interstate water rights absent considerable justification. Cf. Arizona v. California, 460 U. S. 605, 615-628 (1983).
III
With these principles in mind, we turn to the summary judgment motions. To the extent that we agree with the Master, we have found it unnecessary to repeat in detail his careful evaluation of the voluminous evidence.
A
The Inland Lakes are four off-channel reservoirs in Nebraska served by the Interstate Canal, which diverts from the North Platte at Whalen, Wyoming. Both the Inland Lakes and the Interstate Canal are part of the North Platte Project, a series of reservoirs and canals operated by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau). Since 1913, the Bureau has diverted water through the Interstate Canal for storage in the Inland Lakes during nonirrigation months for release to Nebraska users during the irrigation season. Due to icing conditions on the Interstate Canal during the winter, the Bureau also temporarily has stored water destined for the Inland Lakes in the Guernsey and Glendo Reservoirs.
It appears that the Inland Lakes always have been operated with the December 6,1904, priority date that Wyoming recognizes for other original components of the North Platte Project, even though the Bureau never obtained a separate Wyoming storage permit for the Inland Lakes. In 1986, however, Wyoming sued the Bureau in Wyoming state court, seeking to enjoin the Bureau from storing water in the Inland Lakes without a state permit and out of priority with other Wyoming users. (The action was subsequently removed to Federal District Court and dismissed without prejudice.) As the Master indicated, there is some reason to think that Wyoming wished to establish a post-1986 priority date for the Inland Lakes in order to increase the amount of North Platte water available for the new project on Deer Creek. At any rate, Nebraska (which was not a party to the Wyoming lawsuit) challenged Wyoming’s actions in its petition to this Court.
Nebraska and the United States moved for summary judgment, seeking determinations that the decree entitles the Bureau to continue its longstanding diversion and storage practices and that the Inland Lakes have a-priority date of December 6, 1904. Wyoming moved for partial summary judgment that the Inland Lakes do not have storage rights under either state law or the decree. The Special Master recommended that we grant the motions of Nebraska and the United States and deny Wyoming’s motion. That the Bureau lacks a separate Wyoming permit for the Inland Lakes, he reasoned, is immaterial because the question of the Inland Lakes’ priority was determined in the original proceedings. The decree did not explicitly establish the Inland Lakes’ priority. But it is undisputed that the Court recognized a right to store 46,000 acre-feet of water in the Inland Lakes and, at Wyoming’s suggestion, counted that amount to reduce Nebraska’s requirement of natural flows in the pivotal reach. See Report of Michael J. Doherty, Special Master in Nebraska v. Wyoming, O. T. 1944, No. 4, pp. 60-61 (hereinafter Doherty Report); 325 U. S., at 646, 649, and n. 2. The Master therefore concluded that the Inland Lakes’ priority was a necessary predicate of the apportionment and should not be disturbed. He also suggested that Wyoming’s postdecree acquiescence in the Bureau’s administration of the Inland Lakes should prevent Wyoming from challenging the 1904 priority date now.
We think the evidence from the prior litigation supports the conclusion that the Inland Lakes’ priority was settled there. And even if the issue was not previously determined, we would agree with the Special Master that Wyoming’s arguments are foreclosed by its postdecree acquiescence. Cf. Ohio v. Kentucky, 410 U. S. 641, 648 (1973) (“[Proceedings under this Court’s original jurisdiction are basically equitable in nature, and a claim not technically precluded nonetheless may be foreclosed by acquiescence” (citation omitted)). Accordingly, we clarify today that the Inland Lakes share a December 6, 1904, priority date with other original components of the North Platte Project. Pursuant to that priority, the Bureau has a right to divert 46,000 acre-feet of water during the nonirrigation season months of October, November, and April for storage in the Inland Lakes. Although the practice of storing Inland Lakes water temporarily in the Guernsey and Glendo Reservoirs was not established in 1945, the United States contends, and Wyoming apparently does not dispute, that the practice is necessary to ensure the delivery of the 46,000 acre-feet of water envisioned in the apportionment. For that reason we hold that the temporary storage practice also is protected. Our conclusion does not otherwise affect the rights of the Guernsey and Glendo Reservoirs under the decree.
B
The Laramie River originates in Colorado and meets the North Platte in Wyoming in the pivotal reach. In its petition, Nebraska challenged two new developments on the Laramie near the North Platte confluence. The first, Grayrocks Project, was completed in 1980. Operated by amicus Basin, it consists of Grayrocks Reservoir and an electric power generating plant. The second, Corn Creek Project, is a proposed irrigation system for Wyoming farmland.
Wyoming and Nebraska both moved for summary judgment, taking diametrically opposed positions with respect to their rights to Laramie waters. Nebraska claimed that the equitable apportionment of the water in the pivotal reach includes Laramie flows that historically have reached the North Platte. Wyoming contended that the waters of the Laramie are completely apportioned between Colorado and Wyoming by virtue of this Court’s 1922 Laramie River decree, Wyoming v. Colorado, 259 U. S. 419, 496, modified, 260 U. S. 1, vacated and new decree entered, 353 U. S. 953 (1957), which the North Platte decree expressly left undisturbed.
Paragraph XII(d) of the North Platte decree does state that the decree “shall not affect... [t]he apportionment heretofore made by this Court between the States of Wyoming and Colorado of the waters of the Laramie River.” 325 U. S., at 671; see also id., at 592, n. 1 (Laramie decree “in no way affected” by North Platte decree). But we think the Master correctly concluded that Wyoming was not granted the right entirely to dewater the Laramie. The 1922 Laramie decree to which Paragraph XI 1(d) refers did not apportion all the waters of the Laramie; it dealt only with flows down to and including the Wheatland Project, a facility upstream of Grayrocks and Corn Creek. See Wyoming v. Colorado, 259 U. S., at 488.
There is a statement arguably to the contrary in a subsequent decision interpreting the 1922 decree. See Wyoming v. Colorado, 298 U. S. 573, 578 (1936) (decree establishes Wyoming’s right “to receive and divert . . . the remaining waters of the stream and its tributaries”). But we read that language to refer only to the waters actually apportioned in the earlier proceedings — that is, the waters down to and including Wheatland. There is also contrary language in the new Laramie decree entered on the joint motion of Wyoming and Colorado in 1957. See Wyoming v. Colorado, 353 U. S., at 953 (Wyoming “shall have the right to divert and use all water flowing and remaining in the Laramie river and its tributaries”). But the 1957 decree, entered without Nebraska’s participation, cannot affect our interpretation of the 1945 North Platte decree, since Paragraph XII(d) addresses only the Laramie apportionment “heretofore made” — in other words, the 1922 decree.
Further, the Court apparently expected that some Laramie water would contribute to the natural flows available for apportionment in the pivotal reach. See, e. g., Doherty Report 67, Table III (including Laramie inflows in calculation of natural flow in pivotal reach). But the Court did not affirmatively apportion Laramie flows to Nebraska, either. The decree did not restrict Wyoming’s use of the Laramie or require Wyoming regularly to deliver a specified amount of Laramie water to the North Platte confluence. Since 1945, Laramie flows that actually have reached the North Platte have been included in the equitable apportionment, but neither Nebraska nor the United States has requested that Wyoming account for diversions above the confluence. For these and other reasons given by the Special Master, we agree that the evidence, most fairly read, indicates that the Court did not decide the fate of the excess Laramie waters in 1945.
Because the North Platte decree gives Nebraska no rights to Laramie waters, affording Nebraska injunctive relief would constitute a modification of the decree. We turn, then, to the question of injury. In 1978, Nebraska entered into a settlement agreement with Basin and other parties (but not Wyoming) that limits Grayrocks’ consumption of water and requires Basin to release certain minimum flows. The agreement also provides for further depletions in the event that Corn Creek is constructed. See Wyoming’s App. to Brief in Opposition A-24 to A-32. At this juncture, Nebraska’s argument seems to be that it will be injured if Wyoming interferes with Basin’s mandatory minimum releases by allowing new Wyoming appropriators to divert from the Laramie between Grayrocks and the North Platte confluence.
Although Wyoming has declined to assure the Special Master that it will support Basin’s obligation to maintain the minimum flows, see Second Interim Report 66-68, it is undisputed that Wyoming is not currently interfering with those flows. Other than Corn Creek, Nebraska points to no proposed development that might deplete releases from Gray-rocks. Nor does Nebraska seem to argue that Gráyrocks otherwise threatens its interests. The Master recommends that Paragraph XIII of the decree be amended expressly to indicate that Nebraska or the United States may apply for relief if Wyoming, in the future, threatens to interfere with the releases provided for in the settlement agreement. Because we do not believe such an amendment would add to our authority under subparagraph (f), we do not adopt this proposal. The Master also proposes to hold a status conference concerning Corn Creek. We have no objection to such a conference. We emphasize, however, that unless Nebraska comes forward with evidence sufficient to establish that Corn Creek (or some other project on the Laramie) poses a threat of injury serious enough to warrant modification of the decree, summary judgment should be entered in favor of Wyoming. We express no view as to whether, upon a proper showing of injury, incorporation of the settlement agreement into the North Platte decree would be appropriate.
C
Deer Creek enters the mainstem of the North Platte in Wyoming between the Pathfinder and Guernsey Reservoirs, upstream of the pivotal reach. Nebraska’s petition challenged Wyoming’s proposed construction of a new storage reservoir on Deer Creek. As we have said, in Paragraph XIII(c) of the decree the Court expressly retained jurisdiction to consider requests for further relief with respect to the effect of threatened construction of new storage capacity on tributaries entering the North Platte between Pathfinder and Guernsey. See 325 U. S., at 671.
Wyoming moved for summary judgment on alternative grounds. It asserted that the primary function of the Deer Creek Project will be to furnish municipal water supplies (by exchange) to Wyoming communities. Accordingly, Wyoming claimed that, Paragraph XIII(c) notwithstanding, the project is exempt from challenge by virtue of Paragraph X of the decree, which provides:
“This decree shall not affect or restrict the use or diversion of water from the North Platte River and its 'tributaries in Colorado or Wyoming for ordinary and usual domestic, municipal and stock watering purposes and consumption.” Id., at 670.
Wyoming also contended that Nebraska had failed to make an adequate showing of injury.
Although admitting that Paragraph X “poses some mysteries,” Second Interim Report 79, the Special Master evidently agreed with Wyoming that the plain language of that provision permits Wyoming freely to divert North Platte water for ordinary and usual municipal uses and that the other provisions of the decree act only upon the water remaining after such diversions. The Master declined to recommend summary judgment on this ground, however, due to factual questions concerning the Deer Creek Project’s municipal character. The Master also recommended against summary judgment on the injury issue, based on an affidavit by H. Lee Becker, former state hydrologist for Nebraska. See Affidavit of H. Lee Becker ¶ 2 (Apr. 25, 1991) (stating that the project would cause reductions in the average year-end carryover storage of federal reservoirs on the North Platte and that “[s]uch reductions . .. could limit diversions in the [pivotal] reach in a series of dry years”), attached to Nebraska’s Response to Wyoming’s and Colorado’s Motions for Summary Judgment and to Basin Electric’s Memorandum in Support Thereof (Apr. 25, 1991).
Nebraska objects strenuously to the Master’s interpretation of Paragraph X. The United States has not filed exceptions but agrees that the Master’s interpretation is “problematic.” Brief for United States Opposing Exceptions 35 (Aug. 17, 1992) (hereinafter U. S. Brief). We, too, are troubled by Paragraph X. As the Master pointed out, the parties to the original proceedings fought mightily over small quantities of water. It is therefore unclear why they and the Court would have meant that the upstream States could make municipal diversions of any magnitude, in derogation of the careful system of interstate priorities established under the decree, without the opportunity for further review.
We nonetheless think it unnecessary to settle upon a definitive interpretation of Paragraph X at this time. The Special Master rightly observed that the Deer Creek Project may not qualify as an ordinary and usual municipal use. Although Wyoming recently has promised to operate the project solely for municipal purposes, both the Final Environmental Impact Statement prepared for the project — which describes a plan of operation that the project may be obliged to follow — and the state permit identify nonmunicipal uses. Nebraska also has presented evidence that the communities that the Deer Creek Project is to serve do not need additional municipal supplies, and that, even if they did, there are more cost-effective alternatives than the proposed reservoir.
In addition, Nebraska may be unable to prove that operation of the Deer Creek Project will cause it substantial injury. Such proof is necessary, as we have indicated, because the decree does not currently restrict Wyoming’s use of Deer Creek, and a new injunction would constitute a modification of the decree. Whether the project will injure Nebraska may depend on the way it is administered.
Wyoming has conceded that the Deer Creek Project will be operated in accordance with state law and in priority with the Glendo and Guernsey Reservoirs. It has not agreed, however, to operate the project junior to the Inland Lakes, perhaps because its position throughout the litigation has been that the Inland Lakes lack a priority date. In light of our recognition today that the decree establishes a 1904 priority date for the Inland Lakes, it is unclear whether Wyoming will persist in seeking to operate the Deer Creek Project out of priority. If the project is operated junior to the Inland Lakes, the evidence of injury to Nebraska appears to be diminished. See Affidavit of H. Lee Becker ¶¶4-6 (Aug. 12, 1988) (demonstrating that anticipated reductions in federal reservoirs’ carryover storage would be smaller if Inland Lakes’ priority were recognized), attached to Nebraska’s Response to Wyoming’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Aug. 22, 1988); Affidavit of David G. Wilde ¶ 89(b) (Aug. 15, 1988) (stating that, although Deer Creek would “substantially impac[t]” federal projects during an extended dry period, impacts would be “minimized” if Deer Creek were administered junior to the Inland Lakes), attached to Response of United States to Wyoming’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Aug. 23,1988). But Wyoming still may assert that Paragraph X permits it to divert for municipal uses out of priority with the Inland Lakes. In that event, we think the Wilde and Becker affidavits raise a genuine issue of material fact sufficient to defeat Wyoming’s summary judgment motion.
D
In its counterclaim, Wyoming alleged that Nebraska was violating the decree by demanding natural flows and storage water from sources above the Tri-State Dam and diverting those waters to uses below Tri-State that are not recognized in the decree. Wyoming also alleged that Nebraska was improperly demanding North Platte flows for diversion by canals at and above Tri-State Dam in excess of the irrigation requirements of the Nebraska lands entitled to water under the decree. Increased diversions by the Nebraska canals above Tri-State evidently benefit users below Tri-State because they create increased return flows.
Neither Wyoming nor Nebraska sought summary judgment on Wyoming’s counterclaim. Rather, both States and Colorado have sought a number of more limited rulings with respect to the below Tri-State issues. We agree with the Master that most of these claims are “Too theoretical and not sufficiently anchored to concrete pleadings or an adequately developed factual [rjecord’” to be susceptible of summary resolution at this time. Second Interim Report 92 (quoting Post-Argument Comments of United States 6 (July 29, 1991)). We further agree that one issue is sufficiently crystallized to warrant partial summary judgment for Nebraska.
Nebraska requested a determination that the decree does not impose absolute ceilings on diversions by canals taking in the pivotal reach. As the Master explained, the irrigation requirements of the lands the canals serve were calculated in the prior proceedings. But the requirements were calculated for the purpose of determining the appropriate apportionment of the pivotal reach, not to impose a cap on the canals’ total diversions, either individually or cumulatively. See Doherty Report 161 (“[TJhe findings herein as to requirements cannot, I think, be deemed a limitation upon individual canals or groups, in actual administration, either as to natural flow or storage water, nor do I think any such limitations can properly be imposed by the decree” (emphasis in original)). Paragraph V of the decree, which sets forth the apportionment, makes no mention of diversion ceilings and expressly states that Nebraska is free to allocate its share among its canals as it sees fit. See 325 U. S., at 667.
In Wyoming’s view, Paragraph IV of the decree requires a different result. The Master properly rejected this argument. Paragraph IV establishes the priority of Nebraska canals diverting in the pivotal reach relative to federal projects in Wyoming. See id., at 666-667. We agree with the United States that, although Paragraph IV “limits the extent to which the Nebraska canals may stop federal reservoirs from storing water, [it] does not place any ‘absolute ceilings’ or other restrictions on the quantities of water those canals may actually divert.” U. S. Brief 40, n. 21. Wyoming asks us to clarify that the federal reservoirs have no obligation to bypass natural flow to a senior Nebraska canal when the canal is making excessive calls for federal storage water. Because there is as yet inadequate factual development on the question whether Nebraska canals have in fact made excessive calls, we decline to do so.
> > — I
For the foregoing reasons, all of the exceptions filed to the Special Master’s reports are overruled. The summary judgment motions of Nebraska and the United States regarding the Inland Lakes’ priority date are granted, as is Nebraska’s partial summary judgment motion with respect to the issue of canal diversion limitations. All other summary judgment motions are denied.
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: | K | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: “[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”
During the summer of 1987, respondent Frank Dennis Felix operated a facility in Beggs, Oklahoma, at which he manufactured methamphetamine in violation of applicable federal statutes. In July, this facility was raided and shut down by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents. Felix thereupon ordered precursor chemicals and equipment for the manufacture of methamphetamine to be delivered to him at Joplin, Missouri. DEA agents observed the transfer of these items and arrested Felix shortly afterwards. He was charged and tried in the Western District of Missouri for the offense of attempting to manufacture the illegal drug between August 26 and August 31, 1987. This charge was based upon the delivery of the materials to him at Joplin. He was tried, found guilty, and his conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
In February 1989, Felix was charged in the Eastern District of Oklahoma with both conspiracy and substantive counts in connection with the operation of the facility at Beggs. He was tried and convicted, but the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed most of the counts on which he had been found guilty because of its view that trial on these counts constituted double jeopardy in violation of the Fifth Amendment. We hold that prosecution of a defendant for conspiracy, where certain of the overt acts relied upon by the Government are based on substantive offenses for which the defendant has been previously convicted, does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.
h — I
At Felix’s trial for attempting to manufacture methamphetamine in Missouri, the Government showed that on August 26, 1987, Felix asked to purchase chemicals and equipment needed for the manufacture of methamphetamine from George Dwinnells, a DEA informant. Felix made a down payment of $7,500 toward the purchase, and in later telephone conversations instructed Dwinnells to deliver the items to a Joplin, Missouri, hotel on August 31,1987. Dwin-nells met Felix at the hotel on that date with the merchandise. After Felix inspected the items and hitched his car to the trailer in which the items had been transported, Government officials arrested him.
Felix’s defense in the Missouri case was that “he never had criminal intent, but had been acting under the mistaken belief that he was working in a covert DEA operation.” United States v. Felix, 867 F. 2d 1068, 1074 (CA8 1989). In order to establish Felix’s criminal intent with respect to the items delivered in Missouri, the Government introduced evidence that Felix had manufactured methamphetamine in Oklahoma earlier in 1987. See Fed. Rule Evid. 404(b) (Evidence of prior acts is admissible to show “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident”). The evidence showed that during the spring of 1987, Felix had purchased precursor materials from Dwinnells and had furnished those items to Paul Roach in exchange for lessons on how to manufacture methamphetamine. Roach, who testified for the Government at Felix’s Missouri trial, stated that he and Felix had produced methamphetamine in a trailer near Beggs, Oklahoma. Government agents had seized the trailer, which was indeed being used as a methamphetamine lab, on July 13, 1987. The agents did not arrest Felix at that time, however; he later told Dwinnells that he had avoided arrest by hiding in the nearby woods. In accordance with Rule 404(b), the District Court instructed the jury that the evidence of the Oklahoma transactions was admissible only to show Felix’s state of mind with respect to the chemicals and equipment he attempted to purchase in Missouri. The jury convicted Felix, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 867 F. 2d, at 1070-1076.
The Government subsequently named Felix in 8 counts of an 11-count indictment filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. Count 1 charged that Felix and five others conspired, between May 1, 1987, and August 31, 1987, to manufacture, possess, and distribute methamphetamine. Felix was named in nine of the overt acts supporting the conspiracy charge; two of those nine overt acts were based on conduct that had been the subject of the earlier Missouri prosecution. Overt act 17 charged that “[o]n August 26, 1987, Frank Dennis Felix, while in Tulsa, Oklahoma, provided money for the purchase of chemicals and equipment necessary in the manufacture of methamphetamine.” Overt act 18 charged that “[o]n August 31,1987, Frank Dennis Felix, while at a location in Missouri, possessed chemicals and equipment necessary in the manufacture of methamphetamine.” Along with the conspiracy charge, Felix was named in seven substantive counts. Counts 2 through 5 alleged that on or about July 13, 1987, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma, Felix had manufactured methamphetamine, possessed methamphetamine with intent to distribute it, possessed methamphetamine oil with intent to manufacture methamphetamine, and manufactured pheny-lacetone, a methamphetamine precursor. Count 6 charged that, between June 1,1987, and July 13,1987, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma, Felix and a codefendant had maintained a methamphetamine manufacturing lab. Counts 9 and 10 charged that, on or about June 21, 1987, and July 13, 1987, Felix had traveled from Texas to the Eastern District of Oklahoma with the intent to promote the manufacture of methamphetamine and had thereafter attempted to promote that activity. At trial, the Government introduced much of the same evidence of the Missouri and Oklahoma transactions that had been introduced in the Missouri trial. The jury convicted Felix of all the crimes with which he was charged.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed Felix’s convictions on counts 1 through 6 of the Oklahoma indictment. The court began by quoting our statement in Grady v. Corbin, 495 U. S. 508 (1990), that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a subsequent prosecution where the government, ‘“to establish an essential element of an offense charged in that prosecution, will prove conduct that constitutes an offense for which the defendant has already been prosecuted.’ ” 926 F. 2d 1522, 1527 (1991) (quoting Grady v. Corbin, supra, at 521). With respect to count 1, the conspiracy charge, the court observed that in both the Missouri and Oklahoma trials, the Government proved that Felix had learned to make methamphetamine in Oklahoma, had thereafter manufactured the drug at the lab near Beggs, Oklahoma, and had sought to purchase more chemicals and equipment in Missouri after the raid on the Oklahoma lab. Based on the significant duplication of conduct proved in each trial, the court concluded that the Oklahoma conspiracy count was barred under the Double Jeopardy Clause because it charged “the same conduct for which he was previously convicted in Missouri.” 926 F. 2d, at 1530. With respect to the substantive offenses charged in counts 2 through 6, the court noted that the direct evidence supporting these charges — the fact that Felix had purchased chemicals and equipment during the spring of 1987, and had subsequently manufactured methamphetamine at the Beggs, Oklahoma, trailer — had been introduced at the previous Missouri trial to show intent. The court concluded that this duplication “subjected Felix to a successive trial for the same conduct,” and therefore reversed Felix’s convictions on counts 2 through 6. Id., at 1530-1531.
We granted certiorari, 502 U. S. 806 (1991), to consider whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the prosecution of Felix for these crimes. We hold that it does not, and so reverse.
II
We first consider whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars Felix’s prosecution on the substantive drug offenses contained in counts 2 through 6 of the Oklahoma indictment. The Court of Appeals held that the Government was foreclosed from prosecuting these charges, because it had presented evidence of the Oklahoma drug operation at the prior trial in order to help demonstrate Felix’s criminal intent with respect to the Missouri transaction.
At its root, the Double Jeopardy Clause forbids the dupli-cative prosecution of a defendant for the “same offence.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 5; see Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299 (1932). An examination of the indictments below shows that Felix was charged in the Missouri case only with attempting to manufacture methamphetamine in Missouri, in late August 1987. App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a-63a. In the five substantive drug counts of the Oklahoma indictment that are at issue here, Felix was charged with various drug offenses that took place in Oklahoma, in June and July 1987. Id., at 55a-57a. The crimes charged in the Oklahoma indictment were related to the operation of the methamphetamine lab near Beggs, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1987, while the crime charged in the Missouri indictment dealt solely with Felix’s attempt to purchase chemicals and equipment from Dwinnells in order to continue methamphetamine operations after the Beggs lab was raided. The actual crimes charged in each case were different in both time and place; there was absolutely no common conduct linking the alleged offenses. In short, none of the offenses for which Felix was prosecuted in the Oklahoma indictment is in any sense the “same offence” as the offence for which he was prosecuted in Missouri.
The Court of Appeals appears to have acknowledged as much, as it concentrated not on the actual crimes prosecuted in the separate trials, but instead on the type of evidence presented by the Government during the two trials. The court found it decisive that the Government had introduced evidence of Felix’s involvement in the Oklahoma lab to help show criminal intent for purposes of the Missouri trial. But it is clear that, no matter how much evidence of the Oklahoma transactions was introduced by the Government to help show Felix’s state of mind, he was not prosecuted in the Missouri trial for any offense other than the Missouri attempt offense with which he was charged. Thus, the Court of Appeals holding must rest on an assumption that if the Government offers in evidence in one prosecution acts of misconduct that might ultimately be charged as criminal offenses in a second prosecution, the latter prosecution is barred under the Double Jeopardy Clause.
But such an assumption is not supportable; our precedents hold that a mere overlap in proof between two prosecutions does not establish a double jeopardy violation. The Court of Appeals relied on the above-quoted language from our opinion in Grady v. Corbin, 495 U. S., at 521, in reaching its result. But we think that this is an extravagant reading of Grady, which disclaimed any intention of adopting a “ ‘same evidence’” test. Id., at 521, and n. 12; accord, Gavieres v. United States, 220 U. S. 338 (1911). Our decision two Terms ago in Dowling v. United States, 493 U. S. 342 (1990), drives home this point.
In that case, Dowling was charged with bank robbery. To help prove his identity at trial, the Government introduced evidence under, Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) concerning the unrelated robbery of a woman named Vena Henry. She testified that she had been robbed by a man wearing a knitted mask similar to the one used by the bank robber, and that she had been able to identify the intruder as Dowling after unmasking him during a struggle. We upheld the introduction of Henry’s testimony at the bank robbery trial, despite the fact that Dowling had previously been acquitted of the Henry charges. The primary ruling of that case was our conclusion that the collateral-estoppel component of the Double Jeopardy Clause offered Dowling no protection despite his earlier acquittal, because the relevance of evidence offered under Rule 404(b) was governed by a lower standard of proof than that required for a conviction. See 493 U. S., at 348-349 (citing Huddleston v. United States, 485 U. S. 681, 689 (1988)). But it is clear that we would not have had to reach the collateral-estoppel question if the mere introduction, pursuant to Rule 404(b), of evidence concerning the Henry robbery constituted a second prosecution of that crime for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Underlying our approval of the Henry evidence in Dowling is an endorsement of the basic, yet important, principle that the introduction of relevant evidence of particular misconduct in a case is not the same thing as prosecution for that conduct.
That principle is clearly applicable here. At the Missouri trial, the Government did not in any way prosecute Felix for the Oklahoma methamphetamine transactions; it simply introduced those transactions as prior acts evidence under Rule 404(b). The Government was therefore free to prosecute Felix in the trial below for the substantive drug crimes detailed in counts 2 through 6.
p — i H-H
We next examine whether the Court of Appeals erred m holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the prosecution of Felix for the conspiracy charge contained in count 1 of the indictment. Here, too, that court — with considerable justification — relied upon language from our Grady opinion to support its conclusion. There is no doubt that the conspiracy charge presents a more difficult question than the substantive drug offenses dealt with in Part II above, because with respect to it there exists more than a mere overlap in evidence. Of the nine overt acts supporting the conspiracy charge against Felix, two were based on the conduct for which he had been previously prosecuted in Missouri. But we hold that because of long established precedent in this area, which was not questioned in Grady, Felix’s claim of double jeopardy fails.
Felix contends, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that language from Grady bars the conspiracy prosecution. There we said that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a prosecution where the Government, “to establish an essential element of an offense charged in that prosecution, will prove conduct that constitutes an offense for which the defendant has already been prosecuted.” 495 U. S., at 521. Taken out of context, and read literally, this language supports the defense of double jeopardy. But we decline to read the language so expansively, because of the context in which Grady arose and because of difficulties which have already arisen in its interpretation.
Grady involved a defendant who had driven his car across the median line of a two-way highway and struck an oncoming car, killing one of the occupants. The State charged the defendant with driving while intoxicated and with failing to keep right of the median, and the defendant pleaded guilty to those two traffic violations. Two months later, the State prosecuted the defendant on homicide and assault charges arising from the accident, and the defendant argued that this was a violation of his rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause. In our decision, we recognized our previous holdings that the traditional Blockburger test governing double jeopardy claims bars a subsequent prosecution if one of the two offenses is a lesser included offense of the other. See Grady v. Corbin, supra, at 519 (citing Brown v. Ohio, 432 U. S. 161 (1977); Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U. S. 682 (1977)). Although the traffic offenses involved in Grady were not technically lesser included offenses of the homicide and assault charges, we analogized the case to the situation we had previously confronted in Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U. S. 410 (1980). There, the State sought to prosecute the defendant for involuntary manslaughter after a car accident. We stated, in dicta, that if the State found it necessary to rely on a previous failure to reduce speed conviction to sustain the manslaughter charge, the Double Jeopardy Clause might protect the defendant. See id., at 420. Despite the fact that neither offense was technically a lesser included offense of the other, we observed that, in such a circumstance, the failure to slow offense might be viewed as a “species of lesser-included offense.” Ibid. In Grady, the State sought to rely on the two previous traffic offense convictions to sustain the homicide and assault charges, presenting the situation about which we had speculated in Vitale. In concluding that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the subsequent homicide and assault prosecutions, we simply adopted the suggestion we had previously made in dicta in Vitale. Grady v. Corbin, supra, at 521.
But long antedating any of these cases, and not questioned in any of them, is the rule that a substantive crime and a conspiracy to commit that crime are not the “same offence” for double jeopardy purposes.
For example, in United States v. Bayer, 331 U. S. 532 (1947), a military officer had been convicted in court-martial proceedings of discrediting the military service by accepting payments in return for transferring soldiers to noncombat units. We held that his subsequent prosecution in federal court on charges of conspiring to defraud the Government of his faithful services was not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause, despite the fact that it was based on the same underlying incidents, because the “essence” of a conspiracy offense “is in the agreement or confederation to commit a crime.” Id., at 542. In language applicable here, we pointedly stated that “the same overt acts charged in a conspiracy count may also be charged and proved as substantive offenses, for the agreement to do the act is distinct from the act itself.” Ibid.; see also Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, 643 (1946) (“[T]he commission of the substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses ... [a]nd the plea of double jeopardy is no defense to a conviction for both offenses”). We have continued to recognize this principle over the years. See Iannelli v. United States, 420 U. S. 770, 777-779 (1975); Garrett v. United States, 471 U. S. 773, 778 (1985) (“[Conspiracy is a distinct offense from the completed object of the conspiracy”); cf. id., at 793 (“[I]t does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause ... to prosecute [a continuing criminal enterprise] offense after a prior conviction for one of the predicate offenses”).
In a related context, we recently cautioned against “ready transposition of the ‘lesser included offense’ principles of double jeopardy from the classically simple situation presented in Brown [v. Ohio] to the multilayered conduct, both as to time and to place, involved in [continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) prosecutions].” Id., at 789. The great majority of conspiracy prosecutions involve similar allegations of multilayered conduct as to time and place; the conspiracy charge against Felix is a perfect example. Reliance on the lesser included offense analysis, however useful in the context of a “single course of conduct,” is therefore much less helpful in analyzing subsequent conspiracy prosecutions that are supported by previously prosecuted overt acts, just as it falls short in examining CCE offenses that are based on previously prosecuted predicate acts. Id., at 788-789.
Faced with the necessity of reconciling this longstanding authority with our language in Grady, we choose to adhere to the Bayer-Pinkerton line of cases dealing with the distinction between conspiracy to commit an offense and the offense itself. These are separate offenses for double jeopardy purposes. The majority in the Court of Appeals below essentially read Grady as substituting for the “same offence” language of the Double Jeopardy Clause a test based on whether the two prosecutions involve the “same conduct.” The dissenting judge in the Court of Appeals thought that this was an oversimplification, pointing to the fact that the word “conduct” in the previously quoted sentence from Grady is modified by the phrase “ ‘that constitutes an offense for which the defendant has already been prosecuted.’ ” 926 F. 2d, at 1532 (Anderson, J., dissenting) (quoting Grady v. Corbin, 495 U. S., at 521). The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in United States v. Calderone, 917 F. 2d 717 (1990), upheld a claim of double jeopardy by a divided vote, with each judge on the panel writing an opinion interpreting the crucial language from Grady differently. That court decided that the “conduct” at issue in a conspiracy prosecution is not the agreement itself, but the conduct from which the Government asks the jury to infer that there was an agreement. 917 F. 2d, at 721. Judge Newman filed a concurring opinion, concluding that Grady bars a subsequent prosecution only when previously prosecuted conduct will be used to establish the entirety of an element of the second crime. See 917 F. 2d, at 723-725 (Newman, J., concurring). Other Courts of Appeals, as described in more detail in n. 2, supra, have rejected double jeopardy claims in similar situations. It appears that while Grady eschewed a “same evidence” test and Garrett rejected a “‘single transaction’” test, Garrett v. United States, supra, at 790, the line between those tests and the “same conduct” language of Grady is not easy to discern.
We think it best not to enmesh in such subtleties the established doctrine that a conspiracy to commit a crime is a separate offense from the crime itself. Thus, in this case, the conspiracy charge against Felix was an offense distinct from any crime for which he had been previously prosecuted, and the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar his prosecution on that charge.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
The Court of Appeals affirmed Felix’s convictions on counts 9 and 10 of the indictment, which charged unlawful interstate travel. The court concluded that the conduct alleged in those counts was not sufficiently related to the conduct proved in the earlier Missouri trial to require their dismissal under the Double Jeopardy Clause. 926 F. 2d, at 1531.
The Courts of Appeals have differed in applying Grady to successive prosecutions for offenses arising out of a continuing course of conduct, such as the conspiracy prosecution in this case. In United States v. Calderone, 917 F. 2d 717 (1990), the Second Circuit held that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred a conspiracy prosecution where the defendant had been previously prosecuted for a “broader” conspiracy that entirely encompassed the actions alleged in the second, “narrower” conspiracy. The court based its decision on our language in Grady, concluding that the “conduct” at issue in a conspiracy prosecution is not the agreement itself, but the conduct from which the Government asks the jury to infer an agreement. See id., at 721-722. The Second Circuit later followed that reasoning in holding that a conspiracy prosecution is barred if certain overt acts supporting the conspiracy charge involve substantive offenses for which the defendant has been previously prosecuted. United States v. Gambino, 920 F. 2d 1108 (1990). The Tenth Circuit agreed with that position in upholding Felix’s double jeopardy claim below. 926 F. 2d 1522 (1991).
On the other hand, two Courts of Appeals have concluded that the Government is not barred from bringing a successive conspiracy prosecution, even where it seeks to base the conspiracy offense on previously prosecuted conduct. United States v. Rivera-Feliciano, 930 F. 2d 951 (CA1 1991); United States v. Clark, 928 F. 2d 639 (CA4 1991).
There is an obvious distinction between Dowling and this case, but one that makes no difference for purposes of our analysis here. In Dowling, the defendant was first prosecuted for the Henry robbery, and evidence concerning that robbery was subsequently admitted for Rule 404(b) purposes at a second prosecution. In this case, evidence of the Oklahoma drug transactions was first admitted for Rule 404(b) purposes at the Missouri trial, and Felix was subsequently prosecuted for the Oklahoma drug transactions. The first situation might raise collateral-estoppel concerns as a result of an initial acquittal, concerns we confronted in Dowling, while the latter situation would not. But both situations would be equally affected by a rule that the admission of evidence concerning a crime under Rule 404(b) constitutes prosecution Tor that crime; under such a rule, the Double Jeopardy Clause would have barred the subsequent admission of the Henry evidence in Dowling, and it would bar the subsequent prosecution of the Oklahoma drug crimes in this case. We decline to adopt such a rule.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 is an income tax controversy growing out of the following facts as shown by findings of the Tax Court. In 1937 two taxpayers, petitioners here, decided to liquidate and divide the proceeds of a corporation in which they had equal stock ownership. Partial distributions made in 1937, 1938, and 1939 were followed by a final one in 1940. Petitioners reported the profits obtained from this transaction, classifying them as capital gains. They thereby' paid less income tax than would have been required had the income been attributed to ordinary business transactions for profit. About the propriety of these 1937-1940 returns, there is no dispute. But in 1944 a judgment was rendered against the old corporation and against Erederick R. Bauer, individually. The two taxpayers were required to and did pay the judgment for the corporation, of whose assets they were transferees. See Phillips-Jones Corp. v. Parmley, 302 U. S. 233, 235-236. Cf. I. R. C., § 311 (a). Classifying the loss as an ordinary business one, each took a tax deduction for 100% of the amount paid. Treatment of the loss as a capital one would have allowed deduction of a much smaller amount. See I. R. C., § 117 (b), (d) (2) and (e). The Commissioner viewed the 1944 payment as part of the original liquidation transaction requiring classification as a capital loss, just as the taxpayers had treated the original dividends as capital gains. Disagreeing with the Commissioner the Tax Court classified the 1944 payment as an ordinary business loss. 15 T. C. 876. Disagreeing with the Tax Court the Court of Appeals reversed, treating the loss as “capital.” 193 F. 2d 734. This latter holding conflicts with the Third Circuit’s holding in Commissioner v. Switlik, 184 F. 2d 299. Because of this conflict, we granted certiorari. 343 U. S. 976.
I. R. C., § 23 (g) treats losses from sales or exchanges of capital assets as “capital losses” and I. R. C., § 115 (c) requires that liquidation distributions be treated as exchanges. The losses here fall squarely within the definition of “capital losses” contained in these sections. Taxpayers were required to pay the judgment because of liability imposed on them as transferees of liquidation distribution assets. And it is plain that their liability as transferees was not based on any ordinary business transaction of theirs apart from the liquidation proceedings. It is not even denied that had this judgment been paid after liquidation, but during the year 1940, the losses would have been properly treated as capital ones. For payment during 1940 would simply have reduced the amount of capital gains taxpayers received during that year.
It is contended, however, that this payment which would have been a capital transaction in 1940 was transformed into an ordinary business transaction in 1944 because of the well-established principle that each taxable year is a separate unit for tax accounting purposes. United States v. Lewis, 340 U. S. 590; North American Oil v. Burnet, 286 U. S. 417. But this principle is not breached by considering all the 1937-1944 liquidation transaction events in order properly to classify the nature of the 1944 loss for tax purposes. Such an examination is not an attempt to reopen and readjust the 1937 to 1940 tax returns, an action that would be inconsistent with the annual tax accounting principle.
The petitioner Bauer’s executor presents an argument for reversal which applies to Bauer alone. He was liable not only by reason of being a transferee of the corporate assets. He was also held liable jointly with the original corporation, on findings that he had secretly profited because of a breach of his fiduciary relationship to the judgment creditor. Trounstine v. Bauer, Pogue & Co., 44 F. Supp. 767, 773; 144 F. 2d 379, 382. The judgment was against both Bauer and the corporation. For this reason it is contended that the nature of Bauer’s tax deduction should be considered on the basis of his liability as an individual who sustained a loss in an ordinary business transaction for profit. We agree with the Court of Appeals that this contention should not be sustained. While there was a liability against him in both capacities, the individual judgment against him was for the whole amount. His payment of only half the judgment indicates that both he and the other transferee were paying in their capacities as such. We see no reason for giving Bauer a preferred tax position.
Affirmed.
At dissolution the corporate stock was owned by Frederick P. Bauer and the executor of Davenport Pogue’s estate. The parties here now are Pogue’s widow, Bauer’s widow, and the executor of Bauer’s estate.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 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.
The Town of Hempstead has enacted an ordinance regulating dredging and pit excavating on property within its limits. Appellants, who engaged in such operations prior to the enactment of the ordinance, claim that it in effect prevents them from continuing their business and therefore takes their property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court held that the ordinance was a valid exercise of the town's police power, 19 Misc. 2d 176, 189 N. Y. S. 2d 577, and the Appellate Division affirmed, 9 App. Div. 2d 941, 196 N. Y. S. 2d 573. The New York Court of Appeals in a divided opinion affirmed. 9 N. Y. 2d 101, 172 N. E. 2d 562. We noted probable jurisdiction, 366 U. S. 942, and having heard argument we now affirm the judgment.
Appellant Goldblatt owns a 38-acre tract within the Town of Hempstead. At the time of the present litigation appellant Builders Sand and Gravel Corporation was mining sand and gravel on this lot, a use to which the lot had been put continuously since 1927. Before the end of the first year the excavation had reached the water table leaving a water-filled crater which has been widened and deepened to the point that it is now a 20-acre lake with an average depth of 25 feet. The town has expanded around this excavation, and today within a radius of 3,500 feet there are more than 2,200'homes and four public schools with a combined enrollment of 4,500 pupils.
The present action is but one of a series of steps undertaken by the town in an effort to regulate mining excavations within its limits. A 1945 ordinance, No. 16, provided that such pits must be enclosed by a wire fence and comply with certain berm and slope requirements. Although appellants complied with this ordinance, the town sought an injunction against further excavation as being violative of a zoning ordinance. This failed because appellants were found to be “conducting a prior non-conforming use on the premises . . . 135 N. Y. L. J., issue 52, p. 12 (1956). The town did not appeal.
In 1958 the town amended Ordinance No. 16 to prohibit any excavating below the water table and to impose an affirmative duty to refill any excavation presently below that level. The new amendment also made the berm, slope, and fence requirements more onerous.
In 1959 the town brought the present action to enjoin further mining by the appellants on the grounds that they had not complied with the ordinance, as amended, nor acquired a mining permit as required by it. Appellants contended, inter alia, that the ordinance was unconstitutional because (1) it was not regulatory of their business but completely prohibitory and confiscated their property without compensation, (2) it deprived them of the benefit of the favorable judgment arising from the previous zoning litigation, and (3) it constituted ex post facto legislation. However, the trial court did not agree, and the appellants were enjoined from conducting further operations on the lot until they had obtained a permit and had complied with the new provisions of Ordinance No. 16.
Concededly the ordinance completely prohibits a beneficial use to which the property has previously been devoted. However, such a characterization does not tell us whether or not the ordinance is unconstitutional. It is an oft-repeated truism that every regulation necessarily speaks as a prohibition. If this ordinance is otherwise a valid exercise of the town’s police powers, the fact that it deprives the property of its most beneficial use does not render it unconstitutional. Walls v. Midland Carbon Co., 254 U. S. 300 (1920); Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915); Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171 (1915); Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887); see Laurel Hill Cemetery v. San Francisco, 216 U. S. 358 (1910). As pointed out in Mugler v. Kansas, supra, at 668-669:
“[T]he present case must be governed by principles that do not involve the power of eminent domain, in the exercise of which property may not be taken for public use without compensation. A prohibition simply upon the use of property for purposes that are declared, by valid legislation, to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot, in any just sense, be deemed a taking or an appropriation of property for the public benefit. Such legislation does not disturb the owner in the control or use of his property for lawful purposes, nor restrict his right to dispose of it, but is only a declaration by the State that its use by any one, for certain forbidden purposes, is prejudicial to the public interests. . . . The power which the States have of prohibiting such use by individuals of their property as will be prejudicial to the health, the morals, or the safety of the public, is not — and, consistently with the existence and safety of organized society, cannot be — burdened with the condition that the State must compensate such individual owners for pecuniary losses they may sustain, by reason of their not being permitted, by a noxious use of their property, to inflict injury upon the community.”
Nor is it of controlling significance that the “use” prohibited here is of the soil itself as opposed to a “use” upon the soil, cf. United States v. Central Eureka Mining Co., 357 U. S. 155 (1958), or that the use prohibited is arguably not a common-law nuisance, e. g., Reinman v. Little Rock, supra.
This is not to say, however, that governmental action in the form of regulation cannot be so onerous as to constitute a taking which constitutionally requires compensation. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393 (1922); see United States v. Central Eureka Mining Co., supra. There is no set formula to determine where regulation ends and taking begins. Although a comparison of values before and after is relevant, see Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, supra, it is by no means conclusive, see Hadacheck v. Sebastian, supra, where a diminution in value from $800,000 to $60,000 was upheld. How far regulation may go before it becomes a taking we need not now decide, for there is no evidence in the present record which even remotely suggests that prohibition of further mining will reduce the value of the lot in question. Indulging in the usual presumption of constitutionality, infra, p. 596, we find no indication that the prohibitory effect of Ordinance No. 16 is sufficient to render it an unconstitutional taking if it is otherwise a valid police regulation.
The question, therefore, narrows to whether the prohibition of further excavation below the water table is a valid exercise of the town’s police power. The term “police power” connotes the time-tested conceptional limit of public encroachment upon private interests. Except for the substitution of the familiar standard of “reasonableness,” this Court has generally refrained from announcing any specific criteria. The classic statement of the rule in Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, 137 (1894), is still valid today:
“To justify the State in . . . interposing its authority in behalf of the public, it must appear, first, that the interests of the public . . . require such interference; and, second, that the means are reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose, and not unduly oppressive upon individuals.”
Even this rule is not applied with strict precision, for this Court has often said that “debatable questions as to reasonableness are not for the courts but for the legislature . . . .” E. g., Sproles v. Binford, 286 U. S. 374, 388 (1932).
The ordinance in question was passed as a safety measure, and the town is attempting to uphold it on that basis. To evaluate its reasonableness we therefore need to know such things as the nature of the menace against which it will protect, the availability and effectiveness of other less drastic protective steps, and the loss which appellants will suffer from the imposition of the ordinance.
A careful examination of the record reveals a dearth of relevant evidence on these points. One fair inference arising from the evidence is that since a few holes had been burrowed under the fence surrounding the lake it might be attractive and dangerous to children. But there was no indication whether the lake as it stood was an actual danger to the public or whether deepening the lake would increase the danger. In terms of dollars or some other objective standard, there was no showing how much, if anything, the imposition of the ordinance would cost the appellants. In short, the evidence produced is clearly indecisive on the reasonableness of prohibiting further excavation below the water table.
Although one could imagine that preventing further deepening of a pond already 25 feet deep would have a de minimis effect on public safety, we cannot say that such a conclusion is compelled by facts of which we can take notice. Even if we could draw such a conclusion, we would be unable to say the ordinance is unreasonable; for all we know, the ordinance may have a de minimis effect on appellants. Our past cases leave no doubt that appellants had the burden on “reasonableness.” E. g., Bibb v. Navajo Freight Lines, 359 U. S. 520, 529 (1959) (exercise of police power is presumed to be constitutionally valid); Salsburg v. Maryland, 346 U. S. 545, 553 (1954) (the presumption of reasonableness is with the State); United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 154 (1938) (exercise of police power will be upheld if any state of facts either known or which could be reasonably assumed affords support for it). This burden not having been met, the prohibition of excavation on the 20-acre-lake tract must stand as a valid police regulation.
We now turn our attention to the remainder of the lot, the 18 acres surrounding the present pit which have not yet been mined or excavated. Appellants themselves contend that this area cannot be mined. They say that this surface space is necessary for the processing operations incident to mining and that no other space is obtainable. This was urged as an important factor in their contention that upholding the depth limitation of the ordinance would confiscate the entire mining utility of their property. However, we have upheld the validity of the prohibition even on that supposition. If the depth limitation in relation to deepening the existing pit is valid, it follows a fortiori that the limitation is constitutionally permissible as applied to prevent the creation of new pits. We also note that even if appellants were able to obtain suitable processing space the geology of the 18-acre tract would prevent any excavation. The water table, appellants admit, is too close to the ground surface to permit commercial mining in the face of the depth restrictions of the ordinance. The impossibility of further mining makes it unnecessary for us to decide to what extent the berm and slope of such excavation could be limited by the ordinance.
Appellants’ other contentions warrant only a passing word. The claim that rights acquired in previous litigation are being undermined is completely unfounded. A successful defense to the imposition of one regulation does not erect a constitutional barrier to all other regulation. The first suit was brought to enforce a zoning ordinance, while the present one is to enforce a safety ordinance. In fact no relevant issues presented here were decided in the first suit. We therefore do not need to consider to what extent such issues would have come under the protective wing of due process.
Appellants also contend that the ordinance is unconstitutional because it imposes under penalty of fine and imprisonment such affirmative duties as refilling the existing excavation and the construction of a new fence. This claim is founded principally on the constitutional prohibitions against bills of attainder and ex post facto legislation. These provisions are severable, both in nature and by express declaration, from the prohibition against further excavation. Since enforcement of these provisions was not sought in the present litigation, this Court under well-established principles will not at this time undertake to decide their constitutionality. E. g., Ohio Tax Cases, 232 U. S. 576, 594 (1914); cf. United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17 (1960). That determination must await another day. We pass only on the provisions of the ordinance here invoked, not on probabilities not now before us, and to that extent the judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Specifically the ordinance provides that “[n]o excavation shall be made below two feet above the maximum ground water level at the site.”
Under the ordinance the town may deny a permit if the proposed excavation will violate any of the provisions of the ordinance.
There is a similar scarcity of evidence relative to the value of the processing machinery in the event mining operations were shut down.
Although it was adjudicated that at that time appellants had made substantial improvements on the lot, this fact would not be indicative of the loss appellants would 'presently suffer if the mine were closed; perhaps the improvements are commercially salable.
The appellee asserts that these grounds were not properly preserved below. Due to our disposition of these arguments, it is unnecessary to reach this question.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the Sixth Amendment right of an indigent defendant charged with a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment, fine, or both, to the assistance of court-appointed counsel. Two prior decisions control the Court’s judgment. First, in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972), this Court held that defense counsel must be appointed in any criminal prosecution, “whether classified as petty, misdemeanor, or felony,” id., at 37, “that actually leads to imprisonment even for a brief period,” id., at 33. Later, in Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, 373-374 (1979), the Court drew the line at “actual imprisonment,” holding that counsel need not be appointed when the defendant is fined for the charged crime, but is not sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
Defendant-respondent LeReed Shelton, convicted of third-degree assault, was sentenced to a jail term of 30 days, which the trial court immediately suspended, placing Shelton on probation for two years. The question presented is whether the Sixth Amendment right to appointed counsel, as delineated in Argersinger and Scott, applies to a defendant in Shelton’s situation. We hold that a suspended sentence that may “end up in the actual deprivation of a person’s liberty” may not be imposed unless the defendant was accorded “the guiding hand of counsel” in the prosecution for the crime charged. Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40 (internal quotation marks omitted).
I
After representing himself at a bench trial in the District Court of Etowah County, Alabama, Shelton was convicted of third-degree assault, a class A misdemeanor carrying a maximum punishment of one year imprisonment and a $2,000 fine, Ala. Code §§13A-6-22, 13A-5-7(a)(l), 13A-5-12(a)(l) (1994). He invoked his right to a new trial before a jury in Circuit Court, Ala. Code § 12-12-71 (1995), where he again appeared without a lawyer and was again convicted. The court repeatedly warned Shelton about the problems self-representation entailed, see App. 9, but at no time offered him assistance of counsel at state expense.
The Circuit Court sentenced Shelton to serve 30 days in the county prison. As authorized by Alabama law, however, Ala. Code § 15-22-50 (1995), the court suspended that sentence and placed Shelton on two years’ unsupervised probation, conditioned on his payment of court costs, a $500 fine, reparations of $25, and restitution in the amount of $516.69.
Shelton appealed his conviction and sentence on Sixth Amendment grounds, and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. That court initially held that an indigent defendant who receives a suspended prison sentence has a constitutional right to state-appointed counsel and remanded for a determination whether Shelton had “made a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of his right.” App. 7. When the case returned from remand, however, the appeals court reversed course: A suspended sentence, the court concluded, does not trigger the Sixth Amendment right to appointed counsel unless there is “evidence in the record that the [defendant] has actually been deprived of liberty.” Id., at 13. Because Shelton remained on probation, the court held that he had not been denied any Sixth Amendment right at trial. Id., at 14.
The Supreme Court of Alabama reversed the Court of Criminal Appeals in relevant part. Referring to this Court’s decisions in Argersinger and Scott, the Alabama Supreme Court reasoned that a defendant may not be “sentenced to a term of imprisonment” absent provision of counsel. App.'37. In the Alabama high court’s view, a suspended sentence constitutes a “term of imprisonment” within the meaning of Argersinger and Scott even though incarceration is not immediate or inevitable. And because the State is constitutionally barred from activating the conditional sentence, the Alabama court concluded, “ ‘the threat itself is hollow and should be considered a nullity.’ ” App. 37 (quoting United States v. Reilley, 948 F. 2d 648, 654 (CA10 1991)). Accordingly, the court affirmed Shelton’s conviction and the monetary portion of his punishment, but invalidated “that aspect of his sentence imposing 30 days of suspended jail time.” App. 40. By reversing Shelton’s suspended sentence, the State informs us, the court also vacated the two-year term of probation. See Brief for Petitioner 6.
Courts have divided on the Sixth Amendment question presented in this case. Some have agreed with the decision below that appointment of counsel is a constitutional prerequisite to imposition of a conditional or suspended prison sentence. See, e. g., Reilley, 948 F. 2d, at 654; United States v. Foster, 904 F. 2d 20, 21 (CA9 1990); United States v. White, 529 F. 2d 1390, 1394 (CA8 1976). Others have rejected that proposition. See, e. g., Cottle v. Wainwright, 477 F. 2d 269, 274 (CA5), vacated on other grounds, 414 U. S. 895 (1973); Griswold v. Commonwealth, 252 Va. 113, 116-117, 472 S. E. 2d 789, 791 (1996); State v. Hansen, 273 Mont. 321, 325, 903 P. 2d 194, 197 (1995). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 532 U. S. 1018 (2001).
II
Three positions are before us in this case. In line with the decision of the Supreme Court of Alabama, Shelton argues that an indigent defendant may not receive a suspended sentence unless he is offered or waives the assistance of state-appointed counsel. Brief for Respondent 5-27. Alabama now concedes that the Sixth Amendment bars activation of a suspended sentence for an uncounseled conviction, but maintains that the Constitution does not prohibit imposition of such a sentence as a method of effectuating probationary punishment. Reply Brief 4-13. To assure full airing of the question presented, we invited an amicus curiae (ami-cus) to argue in support of a third position, one Alabama has abandoned: Failure to appoint counsel to an indigent defendant “does not bar the imposition of a suspended or probationary sentence upon conviction of a misdemeanor, even though the defendant might be incarcerated in the event probation is revoked.” 534 U. S. 987 (2001).
A
In Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 344-345 (1963), we held that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to state-appointed counsel, firmly established in federal-court proceedings in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938), applies to state criminal prosecutions through the Fourteenth Amendment. We clarified the scope of that right in Arger-singer, holding that an indigent defendant must be offered counsel in any misdemeanor case “that actually leads to imprisonment.” 407 U. S., at 33. Seven Terms later, Scott confirmed Argersinger’s “delimitation],” 440 U. S., at 373. Although the governing statute in Scott authorized a jail sentence of up to one year, see id., at 368, we held that the defendant had no right to state-appointed counsel because the sole sentence actually imposed on him was a $50 fine, id., at 373. “Even were the matter res nova,” we stated, “the central premise of Argersinger — that actual imprisonment is a penalty different in kind from fines or the mere threat of imprisonment — is eminently sound and warrants adoption of actual imprisonment as the line defining the constitutional right to appointment of counsel” in nonfelony cases. Ibid.
Subsequent decisions have reiterated the Argersinger-Scott “actual imprisonment” standard. See, e. g., Glover v. United States, 531 U. S. 198, 203 (2001) (“any amount of actual jail time has Sixth Amendment significance”); M. L. B. v. S. L. J., 519 U. S. 102, 113 (1996); Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 746 (1994) (constitutional line is “between criminal proceedings that resulted in imprisonment, and those that did not”); id., at 750 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment) (“The Court in Scott, relying on ArgersingerQ drew a bright line between imprisonment and lesser criminal penalties.”); Lassiter v. Department of Social Servs. of Durham Cty., 452 U. S. 18, 26 (1981). It is thus the controlling rule that “absent a knowing and intelligent waiver, no person may be imprisoned for any offense... unless he was represented by counsel at his trial.” Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 37.
B
Applying the “actual imprisonment” rule to the case before us, we take up first the question we asked amicus to address: Where the State provides no counsel to an indigent defendant, does the Sixth Amendment permit activation of a suspended sentence upon the defendant’s violation of the terms of probation? We conclude that it does not. A suspended sentence is a prison term imposed for the offense of conviction. Once the prison term is triggered, the defendant is incarcerated not for the probation violation, but for the underlying offense. The uncounseled conviction at that point “result[s] in imprisonment,” Nichols, 511 U. S., at 746; it “end[s] up in the actual deprivation of a person’s liberty,” Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40. This is precisely what the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted in Argersinger and Scott, does not allow.
Amicus resists this reasoning primarily on two grounds. First, he attempts to align this case with our decisions in Nichols and Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778 (1973). See Brief for Amicus Curiae by Invitation of the Court 11-18 (hereinafter Fried Brief). We conclude that Shelton’s case is not properly bracketed with those dispositions.
Nichols presented the question whether the Sixth Amendment barred consideration of a defendant’s prior uncoun-seled misdemeanor conviction in determining his sentence for a subsequent felony offense. 511 U. S., at 740. Nichols pleaded guilty to federal felony drug charges. Several years earlier, unrepresented by counsel, he was fined but not incarcerated for the state misdemeanor of driving under the influence (DUI). Including the DUI conviction in the federal Sentencing Guidelines calculation allowed the trial court to impose a sentence for the felony drug conviction “25 months longér than if the misdemeanor conviction had not been considered.” Id., at 741. We upheld this result, concluding that “an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction, valid under Scott because no prison term was imposed, is also valid when used to enhance punishment at a subsequent conviction.” Id., at 749. In Gagnon, the question was whether the defendant, who was placed on probation pursuant to a suspended sentence for armed robbery, had a due process right to representation by appointed counsel at a probation revocation hearing. 411 U. S., at 783. We held that counsel was not invariably required in parole or probation revocation proceedings; we directed, instead, a “case-by-case approach” turning on the character of the issues involved. Id., at 788-791.
Considered together, amicus contends, Nichols and Gagnon establish this principle: Sequential proceedings must be analyzed separately for Sixth Amendment purposes, Fried Brief 11-18, and only those proceedings “resulting] in immediate actual imprisonment” trigger the right to state-appointed counsel, id., at 13 (emphasis added). Thus, the defendant in Nichols had no right to appointed counsel in the DUI proceeding because he was hot immediately imprisoned at the conclusion of that proceeding. The uncounseled DUI, valid when imposed, did not later become invalid because it was used to enhance the length of imprisonment that followed a separate and subsequent felony proceeding. Just so here, amicus contends: Shelton had no right to appointed counsel in the Circuit Court because he was not incarcerated immediately after trial; his conviction and suspended sentence were thus valid and could serve as proper predicates for actual imprisonment at a later hearing to revoke his probation. See Fried Brief 14, 23-24.
Gagnon and Nichols do not stand for the broad proposition amicus would extract from them. The dispositive factor in those cases was not whether incarceration occurred immediately or only after some delay. Rather, the critical point was that the defendant had a recognized right to counsel when adjudicated guilty of the felony offense for which he was imprisoned. See Nichols, 511 U. S., at 743, n. 9 (absent waiver, right to appointed counsel in felony cases is absolute). Unlike this case, in which revocation of probation would trigger a prison term imposed for a misdemeanor of which Shelton was found guilty without the aid of counsel, the sentences imposed in Nichols and Gagnon were for felony convictions — a federal drug conviction in Nichols, and a state armed robbery conviction in Gagnon — for which the right to counsel is unquestioned. See Nichols, 511 U. S., at 747 (relevant sentencing provisions punished only “the last offense committed by the defendant,” and did not constitute or “change the penalty imposed for the earlier” uncounseled misdemeanor); Gagnon, 411 U. S., at 789 (distinguishing “the right of an accused to counsel in a criminal prosecution” from “the more limited due process right of one who is a probationer or parolee only because he has been convicted of a crime”).
Thus, neither Nichols nor Gagnon altered or diminished Argersinger’s command that “no person may be imprisoned for any offense... unless he was represented by counsel at his trial,” 407 U. S., at 37 (emphasis added). Far from supporting amicus’ position, Gagnon and Nichols simply highlight that the Sixth Amendment inquiry trains on the stage of the proceedings corresponding to Shelton’s Circuit Court trial, where his guilt was adjudicated, eligibity for imprisonment established, and prison sentence determined.
Nichols is further distinguishable for the related reason that the Court there applied a “less exacting” standard “consistent with the traditional understanding of the sentencing process.” 511 U. S., at 747. Once guilt has been established, we noted in Nichols, sentencing courts may take into account not only “a defendant’s prior convictions, but... also [his] past criminal behavior, even if no conviction resulted from that behavior.” Ibid. Thus, in accord with due process, Nichols “could have been sentenced more severely based simply on evidence of the underlying conduct that gave rise” to his previous conviction, id., at 748 (emphasis added), even if he had never been charged with that conduct, Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241 (1949), and even if he had been acquitted of the misdemeanor with the aid of appointed counsel, United States v. Watts, 519 U. S. 148, 157 (1997) (per curiam). That relaxed standard has no application in this case, where the question is whether the defendant may be jailed absent a conviction credited as reliable because the defendant had access to “the guiding hand of counsel,” Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 40 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Amicus also contends that “practical considerations clearly weigh against” the extension of the Sixth Amendment appointed-counsel right to a defendant in Shelton’s situation. Fried Brief 23. He cites figures suggesting that although conditional sentences are commonly imposed, they are rarely activated. Id., at 20-22; Tr. of Oral Arg. 20-21 (speculating that “hundreds of thousands” of uncounseled defendants receive suspended sentences, but only “thousands” of that large number are incarcerated upon violating the terms of their probation). Based on these estimations, ami- cus argues that a rule requiring appointed counsel in every case involving a suspended sentence would unduly hamper the States’ attempts to impose effective probationary punishment. A more “workable solution,” he contends, would permit imposition of a suspended sentence on an uncounseled defendant and require appointment of counsel, if at all, only at the probation revocation stage, when incarceration is imminent. Fried Brief 18, 23-24.
Amicus observes that probation is “now a critical tool of law enforcement in low level cases.” Id., at 22. Even so, it does not follow that preservation of that tool warrants the reduction of the Sixth Amendment’s domain that would result from the regime amicus hypothesizes. Amicus does not describe the contours of the hearing that, he suggests, might precede revocation of a term of probation imposed on an uncounseled defendant. See id., at 24 (raising, but not endeavoring to answer, several potential questions about the nature of the revocation hearing amicus contemplates). In Alabama, however, the character of the probation revocation hearing currently afforded is not in doubt. The proceeding is an “informal” one, Buckelew v. State, 48 Ala. App. 418, 421, 265 So. 2d 202, 205 (Crim. App. 1972), at which the defendant has no right to counsel, and the court no obligation to observe customary rules of evidence, Martin v. State, 46 Ala. App. 310, 311, 241 So. 2d 339, 340 (Crim. App. 1970).
More significant, the sole issue at the hearing — apart from determinations about the necessity of confinement, see Ala. Code § 15-22-54(d)(4) (1975) — is whether the defendant breached the terms of probation. See Martin, 46 Ala. App., at 312, 241 So. 2d, at 341 (“All that is required in a hearing of this character is that the evidence be such as to reasonably satisfy the judge in the exercise of his sound discretion that the defendant has violated a valid condition upon which the sentence was suspended.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). The validity or reliability of the underlying conviction is beyond attack. See Buckelew, 48 Ala. App., at 421, 265 So. 2d, at 205 (“a probation hearing cannot entertain a collateral attack on a judgment of another circuit”).
We think it plain that a hearing so timed and structured cannot compensate for the absence of trial counsel, for it does not even address the key Sixth Amendment inquiry: whether the adjudication of guilt corresponding to the prison sentence is sufficiently reliable to permit incarceration. Deprived of counsel when tried, convicted, and sentenced, and unable to challenge the original judgment at a subsequent probation revocation hearing, a defendant in Shelton’s circumstances faces incarceration on a conviction that has never been subjected to “the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing,” United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 656 (1984). The Sixth Amendment does not countenance this result.
In a variation on amicus’ position, the dissent would limit review in this case to the question whether the imposition of Shelton’s suspended sentence required appointment of counsel, answering that question “plainly no” because such a step “does not deprive a defendant of his personal liberty.” Post, at 676. Only if the sentence is later activated, the dissent contends, need the Court “ask whether the procedural safeguards attending the imposition of [Shelton’s] sentence comply with the Constitution.” Ibid.
Severing the analysis in this manner makes little sense. One cannot assess the constitutionality of imposing a suspended sentence while simultaneously walling off the procedures that will precede its activation. The dissent imagines a set of safeguards Alabama might provide at the probation revocation stage sufficient to cure its failure to appoint counsel prior to sentencing, including, perhaps, “complete retrial of the misdemeanor violation with assistance of counsel,” post, at 677. But there is no cause for speculation about Alabama’s procedures; they are established by Alabama statute and decisional law, see supra, at 666 and this page, and they bear no resemblance to those the dissent invents in its effort to sanction the prospect of Shelton’s imprisonment on an uncounseled conviction. Assessing the issue before us in light of actual circumstances, we do not comprehend how the procedures Alabama in fact provides at the probation revocation hearing could bring Shelton’s sentence within constitutional bounds.
Nor do we agree with amicus or the dissent that our holding will “substantially limit the states’ ability” to impose probation, Fried Brief 22, or encumber them with a “large, new burden,” post, at 680. Most jurisdictions already provide a state-law right to appointed counsel more generous than that afforded by the Federal Constitution. See Nichols, 511 U. S., at 748-749, n. 12. All but 16 States, for example, would provide counsel to a defendant in Shelton’s circumstances, either because he received a substantial fine or because state law authorized incarceration for the charged offense or provided for a maximum prison term of one year. See Ala. Code §§ 13A-6-22,13A-5-7(a)(l), 13A-5-12(a)(l) (1994). There is thus scant reason to believe that a rule conditioning imposition of a suspended sentence on provision of appointed counsel would affect existing practice in the large majority of the States. And given the current commitment of most jurisdictions to affording court-appointed counsel to indigent misdemeanants while simultaneously preserving the option of probationary punishment, we do not share amicus’ concern that other States may lack the capacity and resources to do the same.
Moreover, even if amicus is correct that “some courts and jurisdictions at least [canjnot bear” the costs of the rule we confirm today, Fried Brief 23, those States need not abandon probation or equivalent measures as viable forms of punishment. Although they may not attach probation to an imposed and suspended prison sentence, States unable or unwilling routinely to provide appointed counsel to misde-meanants in Shelton’s situation are not without recourse to another option capable of yielding a similar result.
That option is pretrial probation, employed in some form by at least 23 States. See App. to Reply Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae 1a-2a (collecting state statutes). Under such an arrangement, the prosecutor and defendant agree to the defendant’s participation in a pretrial rehabilitation program, which includes conditions typical of post-trial probation. The adjudication of guilt and imposition of sentence for the underlying offense then occur only if and when the defendant breaches those conditions. Ibid.; see, e. g., Conn. Gen. Stat. § 54-56e (2001); Pa. Rules Crim. Proc. 310-320, 316 (2002) (“The conditions of the [pretrial rehabilitation] program may be such as may be imposed with respect to probation after conviction of a crime.”); N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 170.55(3) (McKinney Supp. 2001) (pretrial “adjournment in contemplation of dismissal” may require defendant “to observe certain specified conditions of conduct”).
Like the regime urged by amicus, this system reserves the appointed-counsel requirement for the “small percentage” of cases in which incarceration proves necessary, Fried Brief 21, thus allowing a State to “supervise a course of rehabilitation” without providing a lawyer every time it wishes to pursue such a course, Gagnon, 411 U. S., at 784. Unlike amicus’ position, however, pretrial probation also respects the constitutional imperative that “no person may be imprisoned for any offense... unless he was represented by counsel at his trial,” Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 37.
C
Alabama concedes that activation of a suspended sentence results in the imprisonment of an uncounseled defendant “for a term that relates to the original offense” and therefore “crosses the line of ‘actual imprisonment’” established in Argersinger and Scott. Reply Brief to Amicus Curiae Professor Charles Fried 8. Shelton cannot be imprisoned, Alabama thus acknowledges, “unless the State has afforded him 'the right to assistance of appointed counsel in his defense,” Scott, 440 U. S., at 374; see Reply Brief 9. Alabama maintains, however, that there is no constitutional barrier to imposition of a suspended sentence that can never be enforced; the State therefore urges reversal of the Alabama Supreme Court’s judgment insofar as it vacated the term of probation Shelton was ordered to serve.
In effect, Alabama invites us to regard two years’ probation for Shelton as a separate and independent sentence, which “the State would have the same power to enforce [as] a judgment of a mere fine.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 6. Scott, Alabama emphasizes, squarely held that a fine-only sentence does not trigger a right to court-appointed counsel, Tr. of Oral Arg. 6; similarly, Alabama maintains, probation uncoupled from a prison sentence should trigger no immediate right to appointed counsel. Seen as a freestanding sentence, Alabama further asserts, probation could be enforced, as a criminal fine or restitution order could, in a contempt proceeding. See Reply Brief 11-12; Reply Brief to Amicus Curiae Professor Charles Fried 10-13; Tr. of Oral Arg. 7.
Alabama describes the contempt proceeding it envisions as one in which Shelton would receive “the full panoply of due process,” including the assistance of counsel. Reply Brief 12. Any sanction imposed would be for “post-conviction wrongdoing,” not for the offense of conviction. Reply Brief to Amicus Curiae Professor Charles Fried 11. “The maximum penalty faced would be a $100 fine and five days’ imprisonment,” Reply Brief 12 (citing Ala. Code § 12-11-30(5) (1995)), not the 30 days ordered and suspended by the Alabama Circuit Court, see sufra, at 658.
There is not so much as a hint, however, in the decision of the Supreme Court of Alabama, that Shelton’s probation term is separable from the prison term to which it was tethered. Absent any prior presentation of the position the State now takes, we resist passing on it in the first instance. Our resistance to acting as a court of first view instead of one of review is heightened by the Alabama Attorney General’s acknowledgment at oral argument that he did not know of any State that imposes, postconviction, on a par with a fine, a term of probation unattached to a suspended sentence. Tr. of Oral Arg. 8. The novelty of the State’s current position is further marked by the unqualified statement in Alabama’s opening brief that, “[b]y reversing Shelton’s suspended sentence, the [Supreme Court of Alabama] correspondingly vacated the two-year probationary term.” Brief for Petitioner 6.
In short, Alabama has developed its position late in this litigation and before the wrong forum. It is for the Alabama Supreme Court to consider before this Court does whether the suspended sentence alone is invalid, leaving Shelton’s probation term freestanding and independently effective. See Hortonville Joint School Dist. No. 1 v. Hortonville Ed. Assn., 426 U. S. 482, 488 (1976) (“We are, of course, bound to accept the interpretation of [the State’s] law by the highest court of the State.”). We confine our review to the ruling the Alabama Supreme Court made in the case as presented to it: “[A] defendant who receives a suspended or probated sentence to imprisonment has a constitutional right to counsel.” App. 40 (emphasis added); see Brief for Petitioner 6. We find no infirmity in that holding.
* * *
Satisfied that Shelton is entitled to appointed counsel at the critical stage when his guilt or innocence of the charged crime is decided and his vulnerability to imprisonment is determined, we affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama.
It is so ordered.
Shelton also appealed on a number of state-law grounds. The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected all but one of those challenges, concluding that most had been procedurally defaulted in the trial court. See App. 14-25. On one such challenge, the court remanded for further proceedings, id, at 23, but affirmed after the trial court ruled against Shelton on remand, id, at 29.
Justice Maddox dissented, stating that Shelton was not constitutionally entitled to counsel because he “received only a suspended sentence and was not incarcerated.” App. 41. Justice Maddox also construed the trial record as establishing Shelton’s waiver of any right to appointed counsel he might have enjoyed. Ibid.
Shelton also urges this Court to overrule Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972), and Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), to the extent those cases do not guarantee a right to counsel “in all cases where imprisonment is an authorized penalty.” Brief for Respondent 27-31. We do not entertain this contention, for Shelton first raised it in his brief on the merits. “We would normally expect notice of an intent to make so far-reaching an argument in the respondent’s opposition to a petition for certiorari, cf. this Court’s Rule 15.2, thereby assuring adequate preparation time for those likely affected and wishing to participate.” South Central Bell Telephone Co. v. Alabama, 526 U. S. 160, 171 (1999).
Charles Fried, a member of the Bar of this Court, accepted our invitation and has well fulfilled his assigned responsibility.
In any event, the dissent is simply incorrect that our decision today effectively “deprive[s] the State of th[e] option” of placing an uncounseled defendant on probation, with incarceration conditioned on a guilty verdict following a trial de novo. Post, at 677. That option is the functional equivalent of pretrial probation, as to which we entertain no constitutional doubt. See infra, at 670-672, and n. 12.
Regarding the dissent’s suggestion that other “means of retesting (with assistance of counsel) the validity of the original conviction” might suffice, post, at 678, n. 3, we doubt that providing counsel after the critical guilt adjudication stage “[would] be of much help to a defendant,” for “the die is usually cast when judgment is entered on an uncounseled trial record.” Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 41 (Burger, C. J., concurring in result). “[A] large number of misdemeanor convictions take place in police or justice courts which are not courts of record. Without a drastic change in the procedures of these courts, there would be no way” for the defendant to demonstrate error in the original proceeding or reconstruct evidence lost in the intervening period. Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 748 (1994). But we need not here decide whether or what procedural safeguards “short of complete retrial” at the probation revocation stage could satisfy the Sixth Amendment, post, at 678; the minimal procedures Alabama does provide are plainly insufficient.
Charging that we have “miraculously divined how the Alabama justices would resolve a constitutional question,” post, at 676, the dissent forgets that this case is here on writ of certiorari to the Alabama Supreme Court. That court ruled in the decision under review that Shelton’s sentence violates the Sixth Amendment. The Alabama Supreme Court has thus already spoken on the issue we now address, and in doing so expressed not the slightest hint that revocation-stage procedures — real or imaginary— would affect the constitutional calculus.
See N. J. Stat. Ann. §2A:158A-5.2 (1985); State v. Hermanns, 278 N. J. Super. 19, 29, 650 A. 2d 360, 366 (1994); N. C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-451(a)(1) (1999); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, §5201 (1998).
See Alexander v. Anchorage, 490 P. 2d 910, 913 (Alaska 1971) (interpreting Alaska Const., Art. I, § 11, to provide counsel when punishment may involve incarceration); Tracy v. Municipal Court for Glendale Judicial Dist., 22 Cal. 3d 760, 766, 587 P. 2d 227, 230 (1978) (Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 686 (West 1985) affords counsel to misdemeanor defendants); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 29, §4602 (1997); D. C. Code Ann. §11-2602 (West 2001); Haw. Rev. Stat. §802-1 (1999); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 725, §113-3 (1992); Brunson v. State, 182 Ind. App. 146, 149, 394 N. E. 2d 229, 231 (1979) (right to counsel in misdemeanor proceedings guaranteed by Ind. Const., Art. I, §13); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§31.100(4)(b), 31.110(1) (West 1999); La. Const., Art. I, §13; Mass. Rule Crim. Proc. 8 (2001); Minn. Rule Crim. Proc. 5.02(1) (2001); Neb. Rev. Stat. §29-3902 (1995); N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 170.10(3)(c) (West 1993); Okla. Stat., Tit. 22, § 1355.6.A (West Supp. 2002); Ore. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 135.050(4) (Supp. 1998); Tenn. Sup. Ct. Rule 13(d)(1) (2001); Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 26.04(b)(3) (Vernon Supp. 2002); Va. Code Ann. §§19.2-159, 19.2-160 (2000); Wash. Super. Ct. Crim. Rule 3.1(a) (2002); W. Va. Code §50-4-3 (2000); Wis. Stat. §967.06 (1998); Wyo. Stat. Ann. §7-6-102 (2001).
See Idaho Code §§ 19-851(d)(2), 19-852(a)(l) (1997); Iowa Rule Crim. Proc. 26 (2002); Wright v. Denato, 178 N. W. 2d 339, 341-342 (Iowa 1970); Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27A, §§ 2(h)(2), 4(b)(2) (1997 and Supp. 2000); Nev. Rev. Stat. §§178.397, 193.120 (2001); N. H. Stat. Ann. §§ 604-A:2(I), 625:9(IV)(a)(l) (West Supp. 2001); N. M. Stat. Ann
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The present controversy once again brings before the Court the troublesome question of where lies the line between permissible and federally preempted state regulation of union activities.
I.
Petitioners (“Hanna”) are four corporations whose integrated fleet of Great Lakes vessels carries cargo in interstate and foreign commerce and is operated by one of the four, the Hanna Mining Company. The respondent District 2, Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (“MEBA”) represented the licensed marine engineers in Hanna’s fleet under a collective bargaining agreement terminating on July 15,1962. According to Hanna, while negotiations for a new contract continued during August 1962, a majority of the marine engineers informed Hanna by written petitions that they did not wish to be represented by MEBA. Hanna then declined to negotiate further until MEBA’s majority status was established by a secret ballot. Without acquiescing in this proposal or questioning any of the employee signatures on the petitions, MEBA responded on September 12, 1962, by picketing one of Hanna’s ships unloading at a dock in Duluth, Minnesota, with signs giving the ship’s name, stating that Hanna unfairly refused to negotiate with MEBA, and indicating that no dispute existed with any other employer. Because of the continued picketing, dock workers refused day after day to unload the ship. From September 12 until shipping ended for the winter, MEBA similarly picketed Hanna ships at other Great Lakes ports, including Superior, Wisconsin.
Hanna turned first to the National Labor Relations Board. On September 12, it petitioned the Regional Director at Cleveland, Ohio, to hold a representation election among Hanna’s engineers to prove or disprove MEBA’s majority status. The petition was dismissed at the end of September on the stated ground that the engineers were “supervisors” under §2(11) of the National Labor Relations Act,' and automatically excluded from the Act’s definition of “employees” under § 2 (3), so election proceedings under § 9 were not warranted; giving the same reason, the Board in November declined to overturn this decision. As a second measure, Hanna on September 15, 1962, filed charges with the Regional Director in Minneapolis, Minnesota, alleging that MEBA had violated § 8 (b) (4) (B) of the Act, by inducing work stoppages among dockers at Duluth through improper secondary pressure. In October, the Regional Director dismissed the charges and the General Counsel sustained the dismissal in December, stating that MEBA’s conduct at Duluth and at other sites investigated did not exceed the bounds of lawful picketing under the Board’s standards. Hanna’s third and last appeal to the Board came on September 27, 1962, when it filed charges with the Regional Director in Cleveland, Ohio, accusing MEBA of organizational or recognitional picketing improper under § 8 (b)(7) of the Act. The Regional Director dismissed the charge in October and in the next two months the General Counsel affirmed the dismissal because in seeking to represent “supervisors” rather than “employees” MEBA fell outside the section.
Winter brought an end to both shipping and picketing for several months but when the navigation season opened in the spring of 1963 MEBA pickets once more appeared. After picketing occurred at Superior, Wisconsin, Hanna filed suit on June 24, 1963, in a Wisconsin circuit court. The complaint and affidavits alleged that MEBA was picketing Hanna’s vessels at the docks of the Great Northern Railway Company at Superior in the same manner as the 1962 picketing and with the same improper aim of forcing its representation on unwilling engineers; Hanna stated that workers of other employers were refusing to render service to Hanna’s vessels and it prayed for injunctive relief against further picketing of the vessels and the docks where they berthed and against any other attempt of MEBA to impose representation on Hanna engineers. The Circuit Court dismissed the suit in July for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter. In April 1964 the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the decision. 23 Wis. 2d 433,127 N. W. 2d 393. While agreeing that the picketing could be deemed illegal under Wisconsin law, that court held that the picketing arguably violated §§ 8 (b) (4) (B) and 8 (b) (7) of the federal labor Act and so fell within the Board’s exclusive jurisdiction marked out in San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236. In light of other language in Garmon the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the General Counsel’s dismissal of charges under §§ 8 (b)(4)(B) and 8 (b)(7) did not foreclose the possibility of a preempting violation, even assuming the 1963 picketing in Superior mirrored the 1962 picketing in Duluth. We invited the views of the United States, 379 U. S. 942, granted certiorari, 380 U. S. 941, and now reverse and remand.
I — I t — l
The ground rules for preemption in labor law, emerging from our Garmon decision, should first be briefly summarized: in general, a State may not regulate conduct arguably “protected by § 7, or prohibited by § 8” of the National Labor Relations Act, see 359 U. S., at 244-246; and the legislative purpose may further dictate that certain activity “neither protected nor prohibited” be deemed privileged against state regulation, cf. 359 U. S., at 245. For the reasons that follow, we believe the Board's decision that Hanna engineers are supervisors removes from this case most of the opportunities for preemption.
When in 1947 the National Labor Relations Act was amended to exclude supervisory workers from the critical definition of “employees,” § 2 (3), it followed that many provisions of the Act employing that pivotal term would cease to operate where supervisors were the focus of concern. Most obviously, § 7 no longer bestows upon supervisory employees the rights to engage in self-organization, collective bargaining, and other concerted activities under the umbrella of § 8 of the Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (1964 ed.). See Labor Board v. Budd Mfg. Co., 169 F. 2d 571. Accordingly, activity designed to secure organization or recognition of supervisors cannot be protected by § 7 of the Act, arguably or otherwise. Compare Labor Board v. Drivers Local Union, 362 U. S. 274, 279. Correspondingly, the situations in which that same activity can be prohibited by the Act, even arguably, are fewer than would be the case if employees were being organized or seeking recognition. There can be no breach of §8 (b)(7), curtailing organizational or recognitional picketing, because there cannot exist the forbidden objective of requiring representation of “employees” by the picketing organization. Nor could one even advance the argument unsuccessfully urged in Drivers Local Union that § 8 (b) (1)(A), 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b)(1)(A) (1964 ed.), condemns the picketing as restraint or coercion of employees exercising their § 7 right not to organize or bargain collectively.
Even though such efforts to unionize supervisors are not protected by the Act, or in the respects immediately relevant prohibited by it, the question arises whether Congress nonetheless desired that in their peaceful facets these efforts remain free from state regulation as well as Board authority. Compare Teamsters Union v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, 258-260. Arguing that the States are indeed powerless in this respect, MEBA pitches its case chiefly on the 1947 amendment of the “employee” definition and on the concurrent enactment of § 14 (a) of the Act, 61 Stat. 151, 29 U. S. C. § 164 (a) (1964 ed.), which provides in relevant part that “[n]othing herein shall prohibit any individual employed as a supervisor from becoming or remaining a member of a labor organization . . . It is contended that the amendment and this section signify a federal policy of laissez faire toward supervisors ousting state as well as Board authority and, more particularly, that to allow the Wisconsin injunction would obliterate the opportunity for supervisor unions that Congress expressly reserved.
This broad argument fails utterly in light of the legislative history, for the Committee reports reveal that Congress’ propelling intention was to relieve employers from any compulsion under the Act and under state law to countenance or bargain with any union of supervisory employees. Whether the legislators fully realized that their method of achieving this result incidentally freed supervisors’ unions from certain limitations under the newly enacted § 8 (b) is not wholly clear, but certainly Congress made no considered decision generally to exclude state limitations on supervisory organizing. As to the portion of § 14 (a) quoted above, some legislative history suggests that it was not meant to immunize any conduct at all but only to make it “clear that the amendments to the act do not prohibit supervisors from joining unions . . . .” S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 28; H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 60 (“[T]he first part of this provision [§ 14 (a)] was included presumably out of an abundance of caution.”). However, even assuming that § 14 (a) itself intended also to make it clear that state law could not prohibit supervisors from joining unions, the section would have no application to the present facts; for picketing by a minority union to extract recognition by force of such pressures is decidedly not a sine qua non of collective bargaining, as indeed its limitation by § 8 (b)(7) in nonsupervisor situations attests.
The remaining question in this phase of the case is whether the supervisory status of Hanna's engineers has been settled “with unclouded legal significance,” Garmon, 359 U. S., at 246, so as to preclude arguable application of the Act in the respects discussed. We hold that the Board’s statement accompanying its refusal to order a representation election does resolve the question with the clarity necessary to avoid preemption. While MEBA does not contend that the Board erred in its determination, an abstract difficulty arises from the lack of a statutory channel for judicial review of such a Board decision. Compare Hotel Employees v. Leedom, 358 U. S. 99 (equity action to obtain election). However, the usual deference to Board expertise in applying statutory terms to particular facts assures that its decision would in any event be respected in a high percentage of instances, and so diminished a risk of interference with federal labor policy does not justify use of the preemption doctrine to thwart state regulation bound to be legitimate on this score in almost all cases.
III.
A further basis for preemption, urged by MEBA and adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, is that the picketing at Superior exerted secondary pressure arguably violating § 8 (b)(4)(B). The argument appears to be that a state injunction banishing the pickets inevitably impinges upon the Board’s authority to regulate facets of the picketing that might exceed “primary” picketing and violate § 8 (b) (4) (B) — facets never specified by MEBA but presumably those that ignore the Board’s limitations on time, location, and manner of common situs picketing. See Sailors’ Union of the Pacific (Moore Dry Dock), 92 N. L. R. B. 547. However, as will appear, no arguable violation exists if Hanna’s proof lives up to its allegations; further, even assuming a violation, federal interests normally justifying preemption are absent from this case.
Hanna’s claim that there is no arguable violation rests, of course, on the finding made by the Regional Director and the General Counsel in declining to issue a complaint under § 8 (b)(4)(B) with respect to MEBA’s 1962 picketing. The Wisconsin' Supreme Court refused to credit this finding because of this Court’s comment in Garmon that the “refusal of the General Counsel to file a charge” is one of those dispositions “which does not define the nature of the activity with unclouded legal significance.” 359 U. S., at 245-246. This language allows more than one interpretation, but we take it not to apply to those refusals of the General Counsel which are illuminated by explanations that do squarely define the nature of the activity. The General Counsel has statutory “final authority, on behalf of the Board, in respect of the investigation of charges and issuance of complaints,” § 3 (d) of the Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 139, 29 U. S. C. § 153 (d) (1964 ed.), and his pronouncements in this context are entitled to great weight. The usual inability of the charging party to contest the General Counsel’s adverse decision in the courts, see Hourihan v. Labor Board, 91 U. S. App. D. C. 316, 201 F. 2d 187, does to be sure create a slight risk if state courts may proceed on this basis, but in the context of this case we believe the risk is too minimal to deserve recognition.
Even taking the General Counsel’s ruling at face value, MEBA stresses that the § 8 (b)(4)(B) charge by Hanna concerned picketing in Duluth in September 1962 while the picketing before the Wisconsin court occurred at Superior in spring 1963. Yet Hanna accompanied the 1962 charge with information as to the 1962 picketing in several ports including Superior. The Regional Director is said to have conducted an investigation in Superior as well as in Duluth, and the General Counsel’s letter on the § 8 (b)(4)(B) charge appeared to state that activity at the sites other than Duluth also did not violate the Act. See n. 7, supra. And while some months intervened between the fall 1962 picketing at Superior and its resumption at that port in spring 1963, Hanna has offered to prove that the picketing remained the same in all significant respects including the picket signs employed, the location of the pickets, and the pickets’ general behavior. If this proof is furnished, the chance that the picketing sought to be enjoined conceals a § 8 (b) (4)(B) violation seems remote indeed.
Additionally, even if a §8 (b)(4)(B) violation were present, central interests served by the Garmon doctrine are not endangered by a state injunction when, in an instance such as this, the Board has established that the workers sought to be organized are outside the regime of the Act. Cf. Ineres S. S. Co. v. Maritime Workers, 372 U. S. 24. Most importantly, the Board’s decision on the supervisory question determines, as we have already shown, that none of the conduct is arguably protected nor does it fall in some middle range impliedly withdrawn from state control. Consequently, there is wholly absent the greatest threat against which the Garmon doctrine guards, a State’s prohibition of activity that the Act indicates must remain unhampered.
Nor is this a case in which the presence of arguably prohibited activity may permit the Board to afford complete protection to the legitimate interests advanced by the State. Since Hanna as the primary employer is present at the picketed situs, the primary picketing proviso of §8 (b)(4)(B) severely inhibits the Board’s use of that section to reach the volatile core of the conduct, the impact on secondary employers that follows from the mere presence of the pickets at a common situs. Section 8 (b) (7) which might provide full relief is rendered inapplicable by the supervisor ruling. Thus, so far as Garmon may proceed on the view that the opportunity belongs to the Board wherever it and the State offer duplicate relief, it has limited application to the present facts.
In concluding that the Act does not preempt the State’s authority to quench the picketing said to have occurred in this case, we do not retreat from Garmon, Rather, we consider that neither the terms nor the policies of that decision justify its extension to the present facts, an extension producing untoward results noted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court itself. 23 Wis. 2d 433, 446, 127 N. W. 2d 393, 399.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is reversed and the case is remanded to that court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The remaining respondents are officers, agents, and representatives of MEBA, and what is said of it in this opinion applies equally to them.
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, § 2 (11), 61 Stat. 138, 29 U. S. C. § 152 (11) (1964 ed.), gives a functional definition of the term “supervisor.”
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, §2 (3), 61 Stat. 137, 29 U. S. C. § 152 (3) (1964 ed.), provides in relevant part that the “term ‘employee’ . . . shall not include . . . any individual employed as a supervisor
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, § 9, 61 Stat. 143, 29 U. S. C. § 159 (1964 ed.), pertinently provides in subsection (c) that petitions may be entertained and elections ordered to determine “the representative defined in subsection (a) of this section”; and subsection (a) pertinently provides that “[Representatives designated or selected ... by the majority of the employees in a unit . . . shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit” for collective bargaining purposes.
In relevant part the Board’s letter stated that as the “appeal makes no affirmative claim that a majority of the 'employees’ as distinguished from 'supervisors’ are sought to be represented in an appropriate unit and as a unit of supervisors is otherwise inappropriate, no question concerning representation in an appropriate unit exists.” While this pronouncement could be clearer, the parties do not dispute that it affirms or refuses to disturb the Regional Director’s explicit finding.
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, §8 (b)(4)(B), 73 Stat. 542, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b)(4)(B) (1964 ed.), provides in relevant part that 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 . . . transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services . . . where ... an object thereof is—
“(B) forcing or requiring any person to cease . . . 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 . . . certified .... Provided, That nothing contained in this clause (B) shall be construed to make unlawful, where not otherwise unlawful, any primary strike or primary picketing.”
The letter from the General Counsel's office stated in part: “[T]he evidence revealed that the picketing by MEBA at the common situs herein conformed to Moore Dry Dock standards . . . . Furthermore, MEBA's activity at other sites did not evince an unlawful object on the part of the Union inconsistent with the ostensibly primary object of the picketing at the situs of the dispute.”
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, §8 (b)(7), 73 Stat. 544, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (7) (1964 ed.), provides, excluding portions and exceptions not here relevant, that it is an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents to picket any employer with an object of forcing “an -employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees, or forcing or requiring the employees of an employer to accept or select such labor organization” as their bargaining agent unless such labor organization is certified or seeks certification.
A second, clarifying letter from the General Counsel’s office stated in part: “Our disposition of this case was predicated solelj' on our conclusion that the supervisory status of the licensed engineers precluded a finding that the Union’s picketing and other activity was for an object proscribed by Section 8 (b) (7) of the Act.”
See Vogt, Inc. v. International Brotherhood, 270 Wis. 321a, 74 N. W. 2d 749, aff’d sub nom. Teamsters Union v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284.
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, § 7, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U. S. C. § 157 (1964 eel.), provides that “employees” shall have the right to engage in, or in general to refrain from, the mentioned activities.
Summarizing the impact of the new measure on supervisory personnel, the Senate Report stated: “[T]he bill does not prevent anyone from organizing nor does it prohibit any employer from recognizing a union of foremen. It merely relieves employers who are subject to the national act free from any compulsion by this National Board or any local agency to accord to the front line of management the anomalous status of employees.” S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 5. See also H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 13-17.
By contrast, sometimes offensive conduct may be restrained by a state remedy that has no impact at all on related activity arguably within the Board’s exclusive province. See, e. g., Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131, upholding a state injunction against violence but setting it aside so far as it reached peaceful picketing.
Aside from the §14 (a) line of argument already answered, we do not find at all apposite Teamsters Union v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, holding a State powerless to award damages against a striking union for requesting a secondary employer to cease business with the struck employer. While in Morton preemption was premised on the fact that the secondary pressure did not come within the ban fixed by § 8 (b) (4) (B) and adopted by § 303 (a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, as amended, 73 Stat. 545, 29 U. S. C. § 187 (a) (1964 ed.), the conduct there occurred in the context of a peaceful economic strike by employees, a sphere in which the federal interest is especially pervasive. By contrast the present case, involving secondary pressure wielded to impose representation on unwilling supervisors, finds itself at that far comer of labor law where, as we have shown, federal occupation is at a minimum and state power at a peak.
Hattiesburg Unions v. Broome Co., 377 U. S. 126, cited to us by MEBA, may illustrate this concern. There, the union’s organizational picketing at a common situs was enjoined by the State because its objective violated state law. In urging that the picketing’s possible violation of § 8 (b) (4) (B) preempted state authority, the Solicitor General suggested that it may also have been “lawful picketing” outside the State’s reach so far as not prohibited by the section. Memorandum, p. 6, n. 7. See also Michelman, State Power To Govern Concerted Employee Activities, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 641, 652-653 (1961) (citations omitted): “[A] state generally may not enjoin conduct thought to be a federal unfair labor practice. The reason is that, despite the state court’s contrary belief, the conduct may, as a matter of federal law, be privileged.”
In Marine Engineers v. Interlake Co., 370 U. S. 173, we overturned a state ban on picketing arguably violating § 8 (b) (4) (B); and to the counterargument that the picketing group was not a “labor organization” subject to § 8 (b), we pointed out that this decision was for the Board. Unlike the present case, in Interlake the § 8 (b) (4)(B) remedy had not been tried; but quite apart from that consideration, had the Board held the union a “labor organization” and also held those being organized to be “employees” — another point not recently decided by the Board — complete relief against the picketing might well have been available under § 8 (b) (7). See 370 U. S., at 182-183.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a case brought under § 9 (a) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, 40 Stat. 411, as amended, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1 et seq., to recover property vested by the Alien Property Custodian. The District Court granted the Government’s motion to dismiss, holding that plaintiff, while not “resident within” Germany within the meaning of § 2 of the Act, , and thus “not an enemy” for the purposes of § 9 (a), was precluded from recovering by § 39 which provides that “No property ... of Germany, Japan, or any national of either such country vested in . . . the Government . . . pursuant to the provisions of this Act, shall be returned to former owners thereof . ...” . 62 Stat. 1240, 1246, 50 U. S. C. App. (Supp. IV, 1946) § 39. 89 F. Supp. 344. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. 88 U. S. App. D. C. 383, 191 F. 2d 639. We brought the case here for clarification of the restrictions imposed by and the remedies open under the Trading with the Enemy Act. 342 U. S. 810.
Accepting the allegations' as true for the purpose of dealing with the legal issues raised by the motions to dismiss, the situation before-us may be briefly stated. Guessefeldt, a German citizen, lived continuously in Hawaii from 1896 to 1938. In April of that year he took his family to Germany for a vacation. After the outbreak of war, he was unable to secure passage home before March, 1940, when his re-entry permit expired. When the United States entered the war,, he was involuntarily detained in Germany, first by the Germans and after 1945 by the Russians, until July, 1949, when he returned to this country. During that time he did nothing directly or indirectly to aid the war effort of the enemy.
The first question to be decided is whether the claimant was “resident within” the territory of a nation with which this country was at war within the meaning of §§ 2 and 9 (a) of the Trading with the Enemy Act. He was physically within the enemy’s territory. He contends, however, that the meaning conveyed by “resident within” ■is something more than mere presence; at the least a. domiciliary connotation, if not domicile, is implied. '
Legislative history leaves the meaning shrouded. Some use of the term “domicile” as the touchstone of enemy status is to be found in the Congressional hearings and reports. But on the floor, Representative Montague, one of the managers of the bill, unequivocally stated underdose questioning that the statutory language was intended to cover much more than those domiciled in enemy nations. Yet prisoners of war, expeditionary forces arid “sojourners”, were not, he said, intended to be included. 55 Cong. Rec. 4922.
Guessefeldt retained his American domicile. Moreover, if anything more than mere physical presence in enemy territory is required, it would seem clear that he was not an “enemy” within the meaning of § 2. His stay before the war, as a matter of choice, was short. The circumstances negative any desire for a permanent or long-term connection with Germany. He intended, and indeed attempted, to leave there before this country en~, tered the war. Being there under physical constraint, he is almost literally within the excepted class as authoritatively indicated by Mr. Montague. To hold that “resident within” enemy territory implies something more than mere physical presence and something less than domicile is consistent with the emanations of Congressional purpose manifested in the entire Act, and the relevant extrinsic light, including the decisions of lower' courts on this issue, which we note without specifically approving any of them. See McGrath v. Zander, 85 U. S. App. D. C. 334, 177 F. 2d 649; Josephberg v. Markham, 152 F. 2d 644; Stadtmuller v. Miller, 11 F. 2d 732; Vowinckel v. First Federal Trust Co., 10 F. 2d 19; Sarthou v. Clark, 78 F. Supp. 139.
Guessefeldt has the further obstacle of § 39 to clear before he can succeed. Congress in 1948, so the Govern-merit’s argument runs, adopted' a “policy of nonreturn,” and prohibited the restoration of vestéd property to a “national” of Germany. A citizen is a national, and Guessefeldt is a German citizen. Thus, even though he may, before the enactment of § 39, have been entitled to bring suit as a nonenemy under § 9' (a), that privilege has since been cut off. ‘ To which Guessefeldt counters that § 39 must be construed harmoniously with § 9 (a); the term “national” in the new section must accordingly be taken to mean only those German and Japanese citizens who could not theretofore have enforced the return of their property as of right. Section 39, in the .context of its legislative history and in the light of the scheme and background of the statute, makes the Government’s contention unpersuasive.
It is clear that the Custodian can lawfully vest under § 5 a good deal more than he can hold against a § 9 (a) action. Central Union Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U. S. 554; Clark v. Uebersee Finanz-Korp., 332 U. S. 480. Thus Congress had to make provision for the disposal of two classes of vested property. Nonenemy property, lawfully vested under § 5, was recoverable in a suit against the Custodian. § 9 (a); see Becker Steel Co. v. Cummings, 296 U. S. 74. The second class, property owned by “enemies” and therefore not subject to recovery under § 9 (a), was reserved for disposition “[a]fter the end of the war ... as Congress shall direct.” 40 Stat. 411, 423, 50 U. S. C. App. § 12.
After both wars, Congress did adopt measures to dispose of this property. The Treaty of Berlin, 42 Stat. 1939, 1940, at the end of World War I, confirmed the possession of vested enemy property by the United States. Junkers v. Chemical Foundation, Inc., 287 F. 597; Lange v. Wingrave, 295 F. 565; Klein v. Palmer, 18 F. 2d 932. For present purposés it does not matter whether this action was taken simply to secure claims of American citizens against Germany or was regarded as the rightful withholding of spoils of war. In the Settlement of War Claims Act of 1928, 45 Stat. 254, 270, 50 U. S. C. App. §§ 9 (b)(12), (13), (14), (16), 9 (m), Congress provided for the return to admittedly enemy owners of 80% of their vested property. See Cummings v. Deutsche Bank, 300 U. S. 115. Section 32 of the Trading with the Enemy Act, 60 Stat. 50, as amended, 50 U. S. C. App. (Supp. IV, 1946) § 32, enacted after World War II, provided for administrative returns of property to certain classes of “technical” enemies who were ineligible to bring suit under §9 (a). Thus, if § 39 is treated as. dealing only with property not otherwise subject to recovery, the consistency of the pattern of enactment is preserved. On the other hand, if the significant language of the section is regarded as requiring the retention of property which would otherwise be recoverable in a suit under § 9 (a), it would mark the first departure from what appears to be a heretofore consistent Congressional policy.
Section 39 was passed as part of a measure establishing a commission on the problem of compensating American prisoners of war, internees and others who suffered personal injury or property damage at the hands of World War II enemies. Congressional attention was focused on the nature and extent of these claims and methods of adjudicáting them. -The issues involved in § 39 were of peripheral concern. Réading the legislative history in this light, it lends support to the view that § 39 was conceived as dealing with property not otherwise subject to return. Senate hearings opened with detailed testimony analyzing the value of assets which would be left after payments for administration and liquidation, returns under § 32, and disbursements in satisfaction of judgments in suits brought under § 9 (a). Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 4044, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 12-21. See also id., at 44, and Hearings before the House Committee bn Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H. R. 873, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 264. It seems clear that the legislation looks to the disposition of this fund, and the conclusion is reinforced by the provision of the section that “The net' proceeds remaining upon the completion of administration, liquidation, and disposition pursuant to the provisions of this Act of any such property or interest therein shall be covered into the Treasury at the earliest practicable date.”
Thé tenor of the hearings demonstrates no purpose to change the existing scope of § 9 (a). The only reason a proviso to that effect was not included in § 39 as passed. seems to be an assumption — unwarranted in the light of other .evidence before the committees discussed below — that a national of any enemy nation had no rights under § 9 (a) in any case. Indeed, the terms “enemy,” “enemy alien,” “enemy national,” and “German or Japanese national” are used interchangeably in the hearings, not only by committee members but by witnesses from the Office of Alien Property, without regard to precise shades of meaning in the context of the Trading with the Enemy Act.
By § 39 Congress was manifesting its “firm resolve not to permit the recurrence of events which after the close of World War I led to the return of enemy property to their former owners.” H. R. Rep. No. 976, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 2. Those events, as we have seen, culminated in the Settlement of War Claims Act of 1928 permitting enemies as defined in § 2 of the Trading with the Enemy Act to recover 80% of their vested assets. The major controversy on § 39 was whether this reversal of post-World War I policy was justifiable as a matter of international law or appropriate as a course of action for the United States. Opponents of the section considered the “policy of nonreturn” as applied to admitted enemies illegal, or at least unjust, confiscation of private property. To this point — and not to the issue before the Court in' this case — were directed the references in the reports, H. R. Rep. No. 976, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 2, and debate, 94 Cong. Rec. 550-551, on which the Government relies.
On the other hand, both Senate and House committees had before them testimony calling attention to the very problem now in issue. Hearings before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, supra, at 265; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, supra, at 197, 254. And one witness presented a draft substitute for the section,, complex to be sure, which would expressly have saved cases like Guessefeldt’s from the operation of the bill. Id., at 233-236. This suggestion was not acted upon by the committee. Yet taken as a whole, the testimony on this issue was meagre and unimpressive. It was largely in written form, and therefore less likely to have been seen by or to have had impact bn the committee members or to reflect their views. These considerations, taken together with the peripheral character of the problem from the committees’ point pf view, the consistent failure to appreciate the technical significance of the term “enemy, national” in the framework of the Act, and the fact that the matters raised by this testimony were not touched upon in floor debate — all go far to. overcome any presumption that the claimant’s situation was considered by Congress and rejected.
. Moreover, a decision for the Government would require us to decide debatable constitutional questions. In 1 suits by United States citizens, § 9 (a) has been construed, over the Government’s objection, to require repayment of just compensation when the Custodian has liquidated the vested assets. Becker Steel Co. v. Cummings, supra; Henkels v. Sutherland, 271 U. S. 298; see Central Union Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U. S. at 566; Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U. S. 239, 245. Such a construction, it' is said, is necessary to preserve the Act from constitutional doubt. It is clear too that friendly aliens are protected by the Fifth Amendment requirement of just compensation. Russian Volunteer Fleet v. United States, 282 U. S. 481. The question which remains is whether a citizen in Guessefeldt’s position of a nation with which this country-is at war is deemed a friendly alien. More broadly, is any national of an enemy country within the reach of constitutional protection? The thrust of the Government’s argument is that § 39 bars any such claimant on the mere showing of his citizenship. Ex parte Kawato, 317 U. S. 69, holds that as a matter of common law as well as interpretation of the Trading with the Enemy Act, a resident enemy national, even though interned, must be permitted access to American cpurts. And The Venus, 8 Cranch 253, seems to say that at common and international law, in the absence of hostile acts, enemy status, at least for the purpose of trade, follows location and not nationality. Cf. Miller v. United States, 11 Wall. 268, 310-311.
On the other side is Mr.-Justice (then Judge) Cardoza’s careful opinion in Techt v. Hughes, 229 N. Y. 222, 128 N. E. 185, holding that a national of an enemy country, wherever resident, is an enemy alien and that any mitigation of the rigors of that status, as in the right to sue, is a matter of grace. He suggests, however, that “enemy alien” for the purpose of trade with the enemy may be something different than for other purposes, but he had, of course, no occasion to consider whether this difference attained constitutional dimensions. In Klein v. Palmer, supra, a suit by two resident German citizens, one proclaimed a dangerous enemy alien during World War I, against, the Alien- Property Custodian for damages and equitable relief, Judges Hough, L. Hand and Mack held that "the government was. under no constitutional prohibition from confiscating the property of the enemy’s nationals,, whether resident or nonresident.” Id., at 934. It was the court’s view that the class of nonenemies for the purpose of § 2 of the Trading with the Enemy Act was broader than the class entitled to just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
Certáinly, the constitutional problem is not imaginary, and the claim not frivolous which would have to be rejected to decide in the Government’s favor. Considering that confiscation is not easily to be assumed, a construction that avoids it and is not barred by a fair reading of the legislation is invited.
The concern of the Trading with the Enemy Act is with . problems at once; complicated and far-reaching in their * repercussions. Instead of á carefully matured enactment, the legislation was a makeshift patchwork. Such legis- • lation strongly counsels against literalness of application. It favors a wise latitude of construction in enforcing its purposes. Cf. Clark v. Uebersee Fihanz-Korp., 332 U. S. 480; Markham v. Cabell, 326 U. S. 404; Silesian-American Corp. v. Clark, 332 U. S. 469.
None of the considerations we have canvassed standing' alone is conclusive in favor of the claimant! Perhaps none, by itself, would Justify a decision in his favor. The cumulative effect, however, places such a decision well within the bounds of reasonable construction. We have said enough to show that the question is not free from doubt. On the balance, however, we think § 39 is properly construed as applying only to those German and Japanese nationals otherwise ineligible to bring suit under §9 (a).
The judgment below is
• Reversed.
Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Sec. 2. “The word 'enemy/ as used herein, shall be deemed to mean, for the purposes of such trading and of this Aet—
“(a) Any individual, partnership, or other body of individuals, of any nationality, resident within the territory (including that occupied by the military and naval forces) of any nation with which the United States is at war, or resident outside the United States and doing business within such territory, and any corporation incorporated within such territory of any nation with which the United States is at war or incorporated within any country other than the United States and doing business within such territory.”
Sec. 9. “(a) Any person not an enemy . . . claiming any interest, right, or title in any money or other property which may have been conveyed, transferred, assigned, delivered, or paid to the Alien Property Custodian or seized by him hereunder and held by him or by the Treasurer of the United States, . . . may file with the said custodian a notice of his claim under oath and in such form and containing such particulars as the said custodian shall require; . . . [S]aid claimant may institute a suit in equity in the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia or in the district court of the United States for the district in which such claimant resides, or, if a corporation, where it has its principal place of business (to which suit the Alien Property Custodian or the Treasurer of the United States; as the case may be, shall be made a party defendant), to establish the interest, right, title, or debt so claimed, and if so established the court shall order the payment, conveyance, transfer, assignment, or delivery to said claimant of the money or other property so held . \ . or the interest therein to which the court shall determine said claimant is entitled.” 50 U. S. C. App. §§ 2, 2 (a), 9 (a).
“Sec. 39. No property or interest therein of Germany, Japan, or any national of either such country vested in or transferred to any officer or agency of the Government at any time after December 17, 1941, pursuant to the provisions of this Act, shall be returned to former owners thereof or their successors in interest, and the United States shall not pay compensation for any such property or interest therein. The net proceeds remaining upon the completion of administration, liquidation, and disposition pursuant to the provisions of this Act of any such property or interest therein shall be covered into the Treasury at the earliest practicable date. Nothing in this section shall be construed to repeal or otherwise affect the operation of the provisions of section 32 of this Act or of the Philippine Property Act of 1946.”
See Statement of Hon. Robert Lansing, Secretary, of State, Hearings before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H. R. 4704, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. 3, 4. But see id., at 9. Assistant Attorney General Charles Warren, principal draftsman of the bill, testified that it had no application to Germans “domiciled” in this country. Id., at 34. And the House Report speaks of enemy status as being determined “not so much ... by the nationality or allegiance of the individual, ... as by his .. . commercial domicile or residence in enemy territory. The enemy domiciled or residing in the United States is not included . . . .” H. R. Rep. No. 85, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. 2.
The validity of this construction is additionally suggested by, the explanation in the Senate report of the parallel term of § 2, “doing business within such territory.”' According to the report that meant “having a branch or agency actively conducting business within that country.” S. Rep. No. 111, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. 4. That is to say, hot “domiciled” in enemy territory by American corporation law standards, but having a substantial, not casual or transitory connection with it. See also Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce on H. R. 4960, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. 136-137.
H. R. Rep. No. 976, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 2.
The Resolution of July 2, 1921, terminating the state of war .with Germany, provided that “All property of the Imperial German Government . . . and of all German nationals which . . . has . . . come into the possession or.under control of . . the United States . . . shall be retained ■. . . and no disposition thereof made, except as shall have been heretofore or specifically heteafter shall be' provided by law.” 42 Stat. 105, 106. By the Treaty bf Versailles, art. 297 (d), “all the exceptional war measures, or measures of transfer . ... shall - be considered as final and binding upon all persons.” In art. 297 (i)., Germany undertook “to compensate her nationals in respect of the, sale or retention of their property, rights or interests in Allied’or Associated States.” The Treaty of Berlin, 42 Stat. 1939, 1940, incorporated these provisions of the Versailles Treaty, together with appendices' defining “exceptional war measures” and cutting off the right of suit by German nationals against American officials on account’ of wartime action. An agreement of August 10, 1922, 42 Stat. 2200, established a- Mixed tílaims Commission to adjudicate claims of American nationals against Germany. Provisions for the return of ■ vested property were made by successive amendments to § 9. Finally, in the Settlement of War Claims Act, 45 Stat. 254, 270, Congress provided for the return of 80% of their vested property to German enemies who would waive their claims to the remaining 20%. Germany in a debt funding agreement of June 23, 1930, deposited bonds with the United States, payments on which were to. be applied to the settlement of awards of the Mixed Claims Commission. When Germany defaulted on these payments, Congress, by Public Resolution No. 53 of June 27, 1934; 48 Stat. 1267, suspended all deliveries of property under the Settlement of War Claims Act to German nationals until Germany should clear up the arrears.
As it passed the House, the bill contained a provision suspending the payment out of vested assets of debts owed by enemies to citizens. In the Senate hearings, Representative Beckworth, who had sponsored that provision, urged the Senate to go further and suspend the payment of so-called “title claims” as well. He presented a draft amendment for the Senate committee’s consideration which provided that “no property . . . shall be returned to former owners- -. . . except as directed by a court under § 9 (a) of the act.” This was to be an addition to the provision which became § 30. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 4044, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 124. Both of these provisions were ■ omitted from’ the bill reported by the Senate. Although this bit of legislative history reveals a certain amount of confusion about the operation of the Act, it is tolerably clear from it that the operation of § 9 (a) was not intended to be affected by the legislation.
Other than those, here for review, six district court cases have in volved construction of § 39. The Government contends that five of • these' have accepted' the position it urges in- this case. Schill v. McGrath, 89 F. Supp. 339; Lippmann v. McGrath, 94 F. Supp. 1016; Bellman v. Clark, Civ. No. 47-229 (S. D. N. Y. Nov. 8, 1948); Mittler v. McGrath, Civ. No. 3276-48 (D. D. C. Mar. 31, 1950); Janner v. McGrath, Civ. No. 3685-49 (D. D. C. Mar. 31, 1950). Even if this were true, it .would present no such-settled'liffe of adjudication^ -to give pause to this'Court in upsetting it. But at least three of these cases present no conflict with a decision .in favor: of theclaimant here. In Mittler, Janner and Lippman, plaintiffs are enemies within § 2, thus- ineligible under § 9 (a), and because they are also citizens of Germany must be barred by § 39 whatever the meaning ascribed to the term “national” in that section. The same is possibly true of Schill, since the plaintiff there was interned as a dangerous enemy alien during the war. It might also be added that in McGrath v. Zander, supra, decided after the enactment-of § 39, the Government apparently made no contention that the section would bar the suit, although on the Government’s theory that result would clearly follow. Thus, analysis of the cases shows no such near unanimity in its favor as the Government contends.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Talmudic sages believed that judges who accepted bribes would be punished by eventually losing all knowledge of the divine law. The Federal Government, dealing with many public officials who are not judges, and with at least some judges for whom this sanction holds no terror, has constructed a framework of human laws and regulations defining various sorts of impermissible gifts, and punishing those who give or receive them with administrative sanctions, fines, and incarceration. One element of that framework is 18 U. S. C. § 201(c)(1)(A), the “illegal gratuity statute,” which prohibits giving “anything of value” to a present, past, or future public official “for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such public official.” In this ease, we consider whether conviction under the illegal gratuity statute requires any showing beyond the fact that a gratuity was given because of the recipient’s official position.
I
Respondent is a trade association that engaged in marketing and lobbying activities on behalf of its member cooperatives, which were owned by approximately 5,000 individual growers of raisins, figs, walnuts, prunes, and hazelnuts. Petitioner United States is represented by Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz, who, as a consequence of his investigation of former Secretary of Agriculture Michael Espy, charged respondent with, inter alia, making illegal gifts to Espy in violation of § 201(c)(1)(A). That statute provides, in relevant part, that anyone who
“otherwise than as provided by law for the proper discharge of official duty . . . directly or indirectly gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any public official, former public official, or person selected to be a public official, for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such public official, former public official, or person selected to be a public official... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both.”
Count One of the indictment charged Sun-Diamond with giving Espy approximately $5,900 in illegal gratuities: tickets to the 1993 U. S. Open Tennis Tournament (worth $2,295), luggage ($2,427), meals ($665), and a framed print and crystal bowl ($524). The indictment alluded to two matters in which respondent had an interest in favorable treatment from the Secretary at the time it bestowed the gratuities. First, respondent’s member cooperatives participated in the Market Promotion Plan (MPP), a grant program administered by the Department of Agriculture to promote the sale of U. S. farm commodities in foreign countries. The cooperatives belonged to trade organizations, such as the California Prune Board and the Raisin Administrative Committee, which submitted overseas marketing plans for their respective commodities. If their plans were approved by the Secretary of Agriculture, the trade organizations received funds to be used in defraying the foreign marketing expenses of their constituents. Each of respondent’s member cooperatives was the largest member of its respective trade organization, and each received significant MPP funding. Respondent was understandably concerned, then, when Congress in 1998 instructed the Secretary to promulgate regulations giving small-sized entities preference in obtaining MPP funds. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1998, Pub. L. 103-66, § 1302(b)(2)(A), 107 Stat. 330-331. If the Secretary did not deem respondent’s member cooperatives to be small-sized entities, there was a good chance they would no longer receive MPP grants. Thus, respondent had an interest in persuading the Secretary to adopt a regulatory definition of “small-sized entity” that would include its member cooperatives.
Second, respondent had an ernment’s regulation of methyl bromide, a low-cost pesticide used by many individual growers in respondent’s member cooperatives. In 1992, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to promulgate a rule to phase out the use of methyl bromide in the United States. The indictment alleged that respondent sought the Department of Agriculture’s assistance in persuading the EPA to abandon its proposed rule altogether, or at least to mitigate its impact. In the latter event, respondent wanted the Department to fund research efforts to develop reliable alternatives to methyl bromide.
Although describing these two matters before the Secretary in which respondent had an interest, the indictment did not allege a specific connection between either of them— or between any other action of the Secretary — and the gratuities conferred. The District Court denied respondent’s motion to dismiss Count One because of this omission. 941 F. Supp. 1262 (DC 1996). The court stated:
“[T]o sustain a charge under the gratuity statute, it is not necessary for the indictment to allege a direct nexus between the value conferred to Secretary Espy by Sun-Diamond and an official act performed or to be performed by Secretary Espy. It is sufficient for the indictment to allege that Sun-Diamond provided things of value to Secretary Espy because of his position.” Id., at 1265.
At trial, the District Court instructed the jury along these same lines. It read § 201(c)(1)(A) to the jury twice (along with the definition of “official act” from § 201(a)(3)), but then placed an expansive gloss on that statutory language, saying, among other things, that “[i]t is sufficient if Sun-Diamond provided Espy with unauthorized compensation simply because he held public office,” and that “[t]he government need not prove that the alleged gratuity was linked to a specific or identifiable official act or any act at all.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 85a, 87a. The jury convicted respondent on, inter alia, Count One (the only subject of this appeal), and the District Court sentenced respondent on this count to pay a fine of $400,000.
The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction on Count One and remanded for a new trial, stating:
“Given that the Tor or because of any official act’ language in § 201(c)(1)(A) means what it says, the jury instructions invited the jury to convict on materially less evidence than the statute demands — evidence of gifts driven simply by Esp/s official position.” 138 F. 3d 961, 968 (CADC 1998).
In rejecting respondent’s attack on the indictment, however, the court stated that the Government need not show that a gratuity was given “for or because of” any particular act or acts: “That an official has an abundance of relevant matters on his plate should not insulate him or his benefactors from the gratuity statute — as long as the jury is required to find the requisite intent to reward past favorable acts or to make future ones more likely.” Id., at 969.
We granted certiorari. 525 U. S. 961 (1998).
II.
Initially, it will be helpful to place § 201(c)(1)(A) within the context of the statutory scheme. Subsection (a) of § 201 sets forth definitions applicable to the section — including a definition of “official act,” § 201(a)(3). Subsections (b) and (c) then set forth, respectively, two separate crimes — or two pairs of crimes, if one counts the giving and receiving of unlawful gifts as separate crimes — with two different sets of elements and authorized punishments. The first crime, described in § 201(b)(1) as to the giver, and § 201(b)(2) as to the recipient, is bribery, which requires a showing that something of value was corruptly given, offered, or promised to a publie official (as to the giver) or corruptly demanded, sought, received, accepted, or agreed to be received or accepted by a public official (as to the recipient) with intent, inter alia, “to influence any official act” (giver) or in return for “being influenced in the performance of any official act” (recipient). The second crime, defined in § 201(c)(1)(A) as to the giver, and in § 201(c)(1)(B) as to the recipient, is illegal gratuity, which requires a showing that something of value was given, offered, or promised to a publie official (as to the giver), or demanded, sought, received, accepted, or agreed to be received or accepted by a publie official (as to the recipient), “for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such public official.”
The distinguishing feature of each ment. Bribery requires intent “to influence” an official act or “to be influenced” in an official act, while illegal gratuity requires only that the gratuity be given or accepted “for or because of” an official act. In other words, for bribery there must be a quid pro quo — a specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act. An illegal gratuity, on the other hand, may constitute merely a reward for some future act that the public official will take (and may already have determined to take), or for a past act that he has already taken. The punishments prescribed for the two offenses reflect their relative seriousness: Bribery may be punished by up to 15 years’ imprisonment, a fine of $250,000 ($500,000 for organizations) or triple the value of the bribe, whichever is greater, and disqualification from holding government office. See 18 U. S. C. §§ 201(b) and 3571. Violation of the illegal gratuity statute, on the other hand, may be punished by up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 ($500,000 for organizations). See §§ 201(e) and 3571.
in this case, in differentiating between a bribe and an illegal gratuity, correctly noted that only a bribe requires proof of a quid pro quo. The point in controversy here is that the instructions went on to suggest that § 201(c)(1)(A), unlike the bribery statute, did not require any connection between respondent’s intent and a specific official act. It would be satisfied, according to the instructions, merely by a showing that respondent gave Secretary Espy a gratuity because of his official position— perhaps, for example, to build a reservoir of goodwill that might ultimately affect one or more of a multitude of unspecified acts, now and in the future. The United States, represented by the Independent Counsel, and the Solicitor General as amicus mriae, contend that this instruction was correct. The Independent Counsel asserts that “section 201(c)(1)(A) reaches any effort to buy favor or generalized goodwill from an official who either has been, is, or may at some unknown, unspecified later time, be in a position to act favorably to the giver’s interests.” Brief for United States 22 (emphasis added). The Solicitor General contends that § 201(e)(1)(A) requires only a showing that a “gift was motivated, at least in part, by the recipient’s capacity to exercise governmental power or influence in the donor’s favor” without necessarily showing that it was connected to a particular official act. Brief for United States Dept, of Justice as Amicus Curiae 17 (emphasis added).
In our view, this interpretation with die statutory text, which prohibits only gratuities given or received “for or because of any official act performed or to be performed” (emphasis added). It seems to us that this means “for or because of some particular official act of whatever identity” — just as the question “Do you like any composer?” normally means “Do you like some particular composer?” It is linguistically possible, of course, for the phrase to mean “for or because of official acts in general, without specification as to which one” — -just as the question “Do you like any composer?” could mean “Do you like all composers, no matter what their names or music?” But the former seems to us the more natural meaning, especially given the complex structure of the provision before us here. Why go through the trouble of requiring that the gift be made “for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such public official,” and then defining “official act” (in § 201(a)(3)) to mean “any decision or action on any question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy, which may at any time be pending, or which may by law be brought before any public official, in such official’s official capacity,” when, if the Government’s interpretation were correct, it would have sufficed to say “for or because of such official’s ability to favor the donor in executing the functions of his office”? The insistence upon an “official act,” carefully defined, seems pregnant with the requirement that some particular official act be identified and proved.
Besides thinking that this is the more § 201(c)(1)(A), we are inclined to believe it correct because of the peculiar results that the Government’s alternative reading would produce. It would criminalize, for example, token gifts to the President based on his official position and not linked to any identifiable act — such as the replica jerseys given by championship sports teams each year during ceremonial White House visits, see, e. g., Gibson, Masters of the Game, Lexington Herald-Leader, Nov. 10,1998, p. Al. Similarly, it would criminalize a high school principal’s gift of a school baseball cap to the Secretary of Education, by reason of his office, on the occasion of the latter’s visit to the school. That these examples are not faneiful is demonstrated by the fact that counsel for the United States maintained at oral argument that a group of farmers would violate § 201(c)(1)(A) by providing a complimentary lunch for the Secretary of Agriculture in conjunction with his speech to the farmers concerning various matters of USDA policy— so long as the Secretary had before him, or had in prospect, matters affecting the farmers. Tr. of Oral Arg. 26-27. Of course the Secretary of Agriculture always has before him or in prospect matters that affect farmers, just as the President always has before him or in prospect matters that affect college and professional sports, and the Secretary of Education matters that affect high schools.
It might be said in reply to this that the more narrow interpretation of the statute can also produce some peculiar results. In fact, in the above-given examples, the gifts could easily be regarded as having been conferred, not only because of the official’s position as President or Secretary, but also (and perhaps principally) “for or because of” the official acts of receiving the sports teams at the White House, visiting , the high school, and speaking to the farmers about USDA policy, respectively. The answer to this objection is that those actions — while they are assuredly “official acts” in some sense — are not “official acts” within the meaning of the statute, which, as we have noted, defines “official act” to mean “any decision or action on any question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy, which may at any time be pending, or which may by law be brought before any public official, in such official’s official capacity, or in such official’s place of trust or profit.” 18 U. S. C. § 201(a)(3). Thus, when the violation is linked to a particular “official act,” it is possible to eliminate the absurdities through the definition of that term. When, however, no particular “official act” need be identified, and the giving of gifts by reason of the recipient’s mere tenure in office constitutes a violation, nothing but the Government’s discretion prevents the foregoing examples from being prosecuted.
The Government insists that only one that gives effect to all of the statutory language. Specifically, it claims that the “official position” construction is the only way to give effect to § 201(c)(l)(A)’s forward-looking prohibition on gratuities to persons who have been selected to be public officials but have not yet taken office. Because, it contends, such individuals would not know of specific matters that would come before them, the only way to give this provision effect is to interpret “official act” to mean “official position.” But we have no trouble envisioning the application of § 201(c)(1)(A) to a selectee for federal office under the more narrow interpretation. If, for instance, a large computer company that has planned to merge with another large computer company makes a gift to a person who has been chosen to be Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and who has publicly indicated his approval of the merger, it would be quite possible for a jury to find that the gift was made “for or because of” the person’s anticipated decision, once he is in office, not to challenge the merger. The uncertainty of future action seems to us, in principle, no more an impediment to prosecution of a selectee with respect to some future official act than it is to prosecution of an officeholder with respect to some future official act.
Our refusal to read given by reason of the donee’s office is supported by the fact that when Congress has wanted to adopt such a broadly prophylactic criminal prohibition upon gift giving, it has done so in a more precise and more administrable fashion. For example, another provision of Chapter 11 of Title 18, the chapter entitled “Bribery, Graft, and Conflicts of Interest,” criminalizes the giving or receiving of any “supplementation” of an Executive offlciars salary, without regard to the purpose of the payment. See 18 U. S. C. § 209(a). Other provisions of the same chapter make it a crime for a bank employee to give a bank examiner, and for a bank examiner to receive from a bank employee, “any loan or gratuity,” again without regard to the purpose for which it is given. See §§212-213. A provision of the Labor Management Relations Act makes it a felony for an employer to give to a union representative, and for a union representative to receive from an employer, anything of value. 29 U. S. C. § 186 (1994 ed. and Supp. III). With clearly framed and easily administrable provisions such as these on the books imposing gift-giving and gift-receiving prohibitions specifically based upon the holding of office, it seems to us most implausible that Congress intended the language of the gratuity statute — “for or because of any official act performed or to be performed” — to pertain to the office rather than (as the language more naturally suggests) to particular official acts.
a prohibition is more compatible with the fact that § 201(c)(1)(A) is merely one strand of an intricate web of regulations, both administrative and criminal, governing the acceptance of gifts and other self-enriching actions by public officials. For example, the provisions following §201 in Chapter 11 of Title 18 make it a crime to give any compensation to a federal employee, or for the employee to receive compensation, in consideration of his representational assistance to anyone involved in a proceeding in which the United States has a direet and substantial interest, §203; for a federal employee to act as “agent or attorney” for anyone prosecuting a claim against the United States, § 205(a)(1); for a federal employee to act as “agent or attorney” for anyone appearing before virtually any Government tribunal in connection with a matter in which the United States has a direct and substantial interest, § 205(a)(2); for various types of federal employees to engage in various activities after completion of their federal service, §207; for an Executive employee to participate in any decision or proceeding relating to a matter in which he has a financial interest, §208; for an employee of the Executive Branch or an independent agency to receive “any contribution to or supplementation of salary . . . from any source other than the Government of the United States,” §209; and for a federal employee to accept a gift in connection with the “compromise, adjustment, or cancellation of any farm indebtedness,” §217. A provision of the Internal Revenue Code makes it criminal for a federal employee to accept a gift for the “compromise, adjustment, or settlement of any charge or complaint” for violation of the revenue laws. 26 U. S. C. § 7214(a)(9).
And the tory iceberg. In 5 U. S. C. § 7353, which announces broadly that no “employee of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch shall solicit or accept anything of value from a person . . . whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the individual’s official duties,” § 7353(a)(2), Congress has authorized the promulgation of ethical rules for each branch of the Federal Government, § 7353(b)(1). Pursuant to that provision, each branch of Government regulates its employees’ acceptance of gratuities in some fashion. See, e. g., 5 CFR § 2635.202 et seq. (1999) (Executive employees); Rule XXXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, Senate Manual, S. Doe. No. 104-1 (rev. July 18, 1995) (Senators and Senate Employees); Rule XXVI of the Rules of the House of Representatives, 106th Cong. (rev. Jan. 7, 1999) (Representatives and House employees); 1 Research Papers of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline & Removal, Code of Conduct for U. S. Judges, Canon 5(C)(4), pp. 925-927 (1993) (federal judges).
All of the regulations, and some of the statutes, described above contain exceptions for various kinds of gratuities given by various donors for various purposes. Many of those exceptions would be snares for the unwary, given that there are no exceptions to the broad prohibition that the Government claims is imposed by § 201(c)(1). In this regard it is interesting to consider the provisions of 5 CFR §2635.202 (1999), issued by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and binding on all employees of the Executive Branch and independent agencies. The first subsection of that provision, entitled “General prohibitions,” makes unlawful approximately (if not precisely) what the Government asserts § 201(c)(1)(B) makes unlawfiil: acceptance of a gift “[f]rom a prohibited source” (defined to include any person who “[h]as interests that may be substantially affected by performance or nonperformance of the employee’s official duties,” 5 CFR § 2635.203(d)(4) (1999)) or “[gjiven because of the employee’s official position,” § 2635.202(a)(2). The second subsection, entitled “Relationship to illegal gratuities statute,” then provides:
“Unless accepted in violation of paragraph (c)(1) of this section [banning acceptance of a gift ‘in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act’], a gift accepted under the standards set forth in this sub-part shall not constitute an illegal gratuity otherwise prohibited by 18 U.S.C. §201(c)(1)(B).” §2635.202(b) (emphasis added).
We are unaware of any law empowering OGE to decriminalize acts prohibited by Title 18 of the United States Code. Yet it is clear that many gifts “accepted under the standards set forth in [the relevant] subpart” will violate 18 U. S. C. § 201(c)(1)(B) if the interpretation that the Government urges upon us is accepted. The subpart includes, for example — as § 201(c)(1)(B) does not — exceptions for gifts of $20 or less, aggregating no more than $50 from a single source in a calendar year, see 5 CFR § 2635.204(a) (1999), and for certain public-service or achievement awards and honorary degrees, see § 2635.204(d). We are frankly not sure that even our more narrow interpretation of 18 U. S. C. § 201(e)(1)(B) will cause OGE’s assurance of nonviolation if the regulation is complied with to be entirely accurate; but the misdirection, if any, will be infinitely less.
More important for present purposes, regulation, and the numerous other regulations and statutes littering this field, demonstrate that this is an area where precisely targeted prohibitions are commonplace, and where more general prohibitions have been qualified by numerous exceptions. Given that reality, a statute in this field that can linguistically be interpreted to be either a meat axe or a scalpel should reasonably be taken to be the latter. Absent a text that clearly requires it, we ought not expand this one piece of the regulatory puzzle so dramatically as to make many other pieces misfits. As discussed earlier, not only does the text here not require that result; its more natural reading forbids it.
Ill
As an alternative means of preserving the jury’s verdict on Count One, the Government contends that the District Court’s mistaken instruction concerning the scope of § 201(c)(1)(A) constituted harmless error. As described earlier, the District Court twice read the text of §§ 201(c)(1)(A) and 201(a)(3), but it then incorrectly explained the meaning of that statutory language by essentially substituting the term “official position” for “official act.” More specifically, the court instructed the jury as follows:
“The essence of the crime is the official’s position [as] the receiver of the payment not whether the official agrees to do anything in particular, that is, not whether the official agrees to do any particular official act in return. Therefore ... to prove that a gratuity offense has been committed, it is not necessary to show that the payment is intended for a particular matter then pending before the official. It is sufficient if the motivating factor for the payment is just to keep the official happy or to create a better relationship in general with the official.
“It is sufficient if Sun-Diamond provided Espy with unauthorized compensation simply because he held public office.
“In order for you to convict Sun-Diamond of violating the gratuity statute, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that Sun-Diamond gave the gifts to Mr. Espy for or because of Mr. Espy’s official government position and not solely for reasons of friendship or social purpose.
'With respect to official acts, the government has to prove that Sun-Diamond Growers of California gave knowingly and willingly Secretary Espy things of value while it had issues before the United States Department of Agriculture.
“Now, the government must prove that the gratuity was knowingly and willingly given for or because of an official act performed or to be performed by the Secretary of Agriculture, Michael Espy. That means that the government must prove that Sun-Diamond Growers of California . .. knowingly and willingly gave the gratuities, at least in part, because of the Secretary’s position in appreciation of Sun-Diamond Growers of California’s relationship with him as a public official or in anticipation of the continuation of its relationship with him as a public official. The government need not prove that the alleged gratuity was linked to a specific or identifiable official act or any act at all” App. to Pet. for Cert. 84a-86a, 87a~88a.
The Government contends pursuant to these instructions necessarily included a finding that respondent’s gratuities were given and received “for or because of” an official act or acts. Upon closer examination, however, this argument is revealed to be nothing more than a restatement of the same flawed premise that permeated the instructions themselves and that we have just rejected: “By returning a guilty verdict, the jury necessarily rejected respondent’s theory of defense and found beyond a reasonable doubt that the gifts were motivated by the fact that the Secretary of Agriculture exercised regulatory authority over respondent’s business.” Brief for United States 44. The Court of Appeals tersely rejected this claim of harmless error, 138 F. 3d, at 968, and we do the same.
* * *
We hold that, in order to establish a violation of 18 U. S. C. § 201(c)(1)(A), the Government must prove a link between a thing of value conferred upon a public' official and a specific “official act” for or because of which it was given. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, which remanded the case to the District Court for a new trial on Count One. Our decision today casts doubt upon the lower courts’ resolution of respondent’s challenge to the sufficiency of the indictment on Count One — an issue on which certiorari was neither sought nor granted. We leave it to the District Court to determine whether that issue should be reopened on remand.
It is so ordered.
Respondent was also sentenced to serve five years’ probation on this and the other counts of which it stood convicted. Insofar as that element of the sentence was concerned, the Court of Appeals remanded for resen-tencing because the probation included impermissible reporting requirements. 138 F. 3d 961, 977 (CADC 1998). 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 SCALIAdelivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV.
We consider whether Medicaid providers can sue to enforce § (30)(A) of the Medicaid Act. 81 Stat. 911 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A)).
I
Medicaid is a federal program that subsidizes the States' provision of medical services to "families with dependent children and of aged, blind, or disabled individuals, whose income and resources are insufficient to meet the costs of necessary medical services." § 1396-1. Like other Spending Clause legislation, Medicaid offers the States a bargain: Congress provides federal funds in exchange for the States' agreement to spend them in accordance with congressionally imposed conditions.
In order to qualify for Medicaid funding, the State of Idaho adopted, and the Federal Government approved, a Medicaid "plan," § 1396a(a), which Idaho administers through its Department of Health and Welfare. Idaho's plan includes "habilitation services"-in-home care for individuals who, "but for the provision of such services... would require the level of care provided in a hospital or a nursing facility or intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded the cost of which could be reimbursed under the State plan," § 1396n(c) and (c)(1). Providers of these services are reimbursed by the Department of Health and Welfare.
Section 30(A) of the Medicaid Act requires Idaho's plan to:
"provide such methods and procedures relating to the utilization of, and the payment for, care and services available under the plan... as may be necessary to safeguard against unnecessary utilization of such care and services and to assure that payments are consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care and are sufficient to enlist enough providers so that care and services are available under the plan at least to the extent that such care and services are available to the general population in the geographic area...." 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A).
Respondents are providers of habilitation services to persons covered by Idaho's Medicaid plan. They sued petitioners-two officials in Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare-in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, claiming that Idaho violates § 30(A) by reimbursing providers of habilitation services at rates lower than § 30(A) permits. They asked the court to enjoin petitioners to increase these rates.
The District Court entered summary judgment for the providers, holding that Idaho had not set rates in a manner consistent with § 30(A). Inclusion, Inc. v. Armstrong, 835 F.Supp.2d 960 (2011). The Ninth Circuit affirmed.
567 Fed.Appx. 496 (2014). It said that the providers had "an implied right of action under the Supremacy Clause to seek injunctive relief against the enforcement or implementation of state legislation." Id.,at 497 (citing Independent Living Center of Southern Cal. v. Shewry,543 F.3d 1050, 1065 (C.A.9 2008)). We granted certiorari. 573 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 44, 189 L.Ed.2d 897 (2014).
II
The Supremacy Clause, Art. VI, cl. 2, reads:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
It is apparent that this Clause creates a rule of decision: Courts "shall" regard the "Constitution," and all laws "made in Pursuance thereof," as "the supreme Law of the Land." They must not give effect to state laws that conflict with federal laws. Gibbons v. Ogden,9 Wheat. 1, 210, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). It is equally apparent that the Supremacy Clause is not the "'source of any federal rights,' " Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los Angeles,493 U.S. 103, 107, 110 S.Ct. 444, 107 L.Ed.2d 420 (1989)(quoting Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization,441 U.S. 600, 613, 99 S.Ct. 1905, 60 L.Ed.2d 508 (1979)), and certainly does not create a cause of action. It instructs courts what to do when state and federal law clash, but is silent regarding who may enforce federal laws in court, and in what circumstances they may do so.
Hamilton wrote that the Supremacy Clause "only declares a truth, which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a Federal Government." The Federalist No. 33, p. 207 (J. Cooke ed.1961). And Story described the Clause as "a positive affirmance of that, which is necessarily implied." 3 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1831, p. 693 (1833). These descriptions would have been grossly inapt if the Clause were understood to give affected parties a constitutional (and hence congressionally unalterable) right to enforce federal laws against the States. And had it been understood to provide such significant private rights against the States, one would expect to find that mentioned in the preratification historical record, which contained ample discussion of the Supremacy Clause by both supporters and opponents of ratification. See C. Drahozal, The Supremacy Clause: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution 25 (2004); The Federalist No. 44, at 306 (J. Madison). We are aware of no such mention, and respondents have not provided any. Its conspicuous absence militates strongly against their position.
Additionally, it is important to read the Supremacy Clause in the context of the Constitution as a whole. Article I vests Congress with broad discretion over the manner of implementing its enumerated powers, giving it authority to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying [them] into Execution." Art. I, § 8. We have said that this confers upon the Legislature "that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers [the Constitution] confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it," McCulloch v. Maryland,4 Wheat. 316, 421, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). It is unlikely that the Constitution gave Congress such broad discretion with regard to the enactment of laws, while simultaneously limiting Congress's power over the manner of their implementation, making it impossible to leave the enforcement of federal law to federal actors. If the Supremacy Clause includes a private right of action, then the Constitution requires Congress to permit the enforcement of its laws by private actors, significantly curtailing its ability to guide the implementation of federal law. It would be strange indeed to give a clause that makes federal law supreme a reading that limits Congress's power to enforce that law, by imposing mandatory private enforcement-a limitation unheard-of with regard to state legislatures.
To say that the Supremacy Clause does not confer a right of action is not to diminish the significant role that courts play in assuring the supremacy of federal law. For once a case or controversy properly comes before a court, judges are bound by federal law. Thus, a court may not convict a criminal defendant of violating a state law that federal law prohibits. See, e.g.,Pennsylvania v. Nelson,350 U.S. 497, 499, 509, 76 S.Ct. 477, 100 L.Ed. 640 (1956). Similarly, a court may not hold a civil defendant liable under state law for conduct federal law requires. See, e.g., Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett,570 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 133 S.Ct. 2466, 2476-2477, 186 L.Ed.2d 607 (2013). And, as we have long recognized, if an individual claims federal law immunizes him from state regulation, the court may issue an injunction upon finding the state regulatory actions preempted. Ex parte Young,209 U.S. 123, 155-156, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908).
Respondents contend that our preemption jurisprudence-specifically, the fact that we have regularly considered whether to enjoin the enforcement of state laws that are alleged to violate federal law-demonstrates that the Supremacy Clause creates a cause of action for its violation. They are incorrect. It is true enough that we have long held that federal courts may in some circumstances grant injunctive relief against state officers who are violating, or planning to violate, federal law. See, e.g.,Osborn v. Bank of United States,9 Wheat. 738, 838-839, 844, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824); Ex parte Young, supra,at 150-151, 28 S.Ct. 441(citing Davis v. Gray,16 Wall. 203, 220, 21 L.Ed. 447 (1873)). But that has been true not only with respect to violations of federal law by state officials, but also with respect to violations of federal law by federal officials. See American School of Magnetic Healing v. McAnnulty,187 U.S. 94, 110, 23 S.Ct. 33, 47 L.Ed. 90 (1902); see generally L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 152-196 (1965). Thus, the Supremacy Clause need not be (and in light of our textual analysis above, cannot be) the explanation. What our cases demonstrate is that, "in a proper case, relief may be given in a court of equity... to prevent an injurious act by a public officer." Carroll v. Safford,3 How. 441, 463, 11 L.Ed. 671 (1845).
The ability to sue to enjoin unconstitutional actions by state and federal officers is the creation of courts of equity, and reflects a long history of judicial review of illegal executive action, tracing back to England. See Jaffe & Henderson, Judicial Review and the Rule of Law: Historical Origins, 72 L.Q. Rev. 345 (1956). It is a judge-made remedy, and we have never held or even suggested that, in its application to state officers, it rests upon an implied right of action contained in the Supremacy Clause. That is because, as even the dissent implicitly acknowledges, post, at 1391 - 1392 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.) it does not. The Ninth Circuit erred in holding otherwise.
III
A
We turn next to respondents' contention that, quite apart from any cause of action conferred by the Supremacy Clause, this suit can proceed against Idaho in equity.
The power of federal courts of equity to enjoin unlawful executive action is subject to express and implied statutory limitations. See, e.g.,Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida,517 U.S. 44, 74, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996). " 'Courts of equity can no more disregard statutory and constitutional requirements and provisions than can courts of law.' " I.N.S. v. Pangilinan,486 U.S. 875, 883, 108 S.Ct. 2210, 100 L.Ed.2d 882 (1988)(quoting Hedges v. DixonCounty,150 U.S. 182, 192, 14 S.Ct. 71, 37 L.Ed. 1044 (1893); brackets omitted). In our view the Medicaid Act implicitly precludes private enforcement of § 30(A), and respondents cannot, by invoking our equitable powers, circumvent Congress's exclusion of private enforcement. See Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern Cal., Inc.,565 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 132 S.Ct. 1204, 1212-1213, 182 L.Ed.2d 101 (2012)(ROBERTS, C.J., dissenting).
Two aspects of § 30(A) establish Congress's "intent to foreclose" equitable relief. Verizon Md., Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of Md.,535 U.S. 635, 647, 122 S.Ct. 1753, 152 L.Ed.2d 871 (2002). First, the sole remedy Congress provided for a State's failure to comply with Medicaid's requirements-for the State's "breach" of the Spending Clause contract-is the withholding of Medicaid funds by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 42 U.S.C. § 1396c. As we have elsewhere explained, the "express provision of one method of enforcing a substantive rule suggests that Congress intended to preclude others." Alexander v. Sandoval,532 U.S. 275, 290, 121 S.Ct. 1511, 149 L.Ed.2d 517 (2001).
The provision for the Secretary's enforcement by withholding funds might not, by itself,preclude the availability of equitable relief. See Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart,563 U.S. 247, ---- - ----, n. 3, 131 S.Ct. 1632, 1638-1639, n. 3, 179 L.Ed.2d 675 (2011). But it does so when combined with the judicially unadministrable nature of § 30(A)'s text. It is difficult to imagine a requirement broader and less specific than § 30(A)'s mandate that state plans provide for payments that are "consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care," all the while "safeguard[ing] against unnecessary utilization of... care and services." Explicitly conferring enforcement of this judgment-laden standard upon the Secretary alone establishes, we think, that Congress "wanted to make the agency remedy that it provided exclusive," thereby achieving "the expertise, uniformity, widespread consultation, and resulting administrative guidance that can accompany agency decisionmaking," and avoiding "the comparative risk of inconsistent interpretations and misincentives that can arise out of an occasional inappropriate application of the statute in a private action." Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe,536 U.S. 273, 292, 122 S.Ct. 2268, 153 L.Ed.2d 309 (2002)(BREYER, J., concurring in judgment). The sheer complexity associated with enforcing § 30(A), coupled with the express provision of an administrative remedy, § 1396c, shows that the Medicaid Act precludes private enforcement of § 30(A) in the courts.
B
The dissent agrees with us that the Supremacy Clause does not provide an implied right of action, and that Congress may displace the equitable relief that is traditionally available to enforce federal law. It disagrees only with our conclusion that such displacement has occurred here.
The dissent insists that, "because Congress is undoubtedly aware of the federal courts' long-established practice of enjoining preempted state action, it should generally be presumed to contemplate such enforcement unless it affirmativelymanifests a contrary intent." Post, at 1392 (emphasis added). But a "long-established practice" does not justify a rule that denies statutory text its fairest reading. Section 30(A), fairly read in the context of the Medicaid Act, "display[s] a[n] intent to foreclose" the availability of equitable relief. Verizon, supra,at 647, 122 S.Ct. 1753. We have no warrant to revise Congress's scheme simply because it did not "affirmatively" preclude the availability of a judge-made action at equity. See Seminole Tribe, supra,at 75, 116 S.Ct. 1114(inferring, in the absence of an "affirmative" statement by Congress, that equitable relief was unavailable).
Equally unavailing is the dissent's reliance on § 30(A)'s history. Section 30(A) was amended, on December 19, 1989, to include what the dissent calls the "equal access mandate," post,at 1394-the requirement that reimbursement rates be "sufficient to enlist enough providers so that care and services are available under the plan at least to the extent that such care and services are available to the general population in the geographic area." § 6402(a), 103 Stat. 2260. There existed at the time another provision, known as the "Boren Amendment," that likewise imposed broad requirements on state Medicaid plans. 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(13)(A)(1982 ed., Supp. V). Lower courts had interpreted the Boren Amendment to be privately enforceable under § 1983. From this, the dissent infers that, when Congress amended § 30(A), it could not "have failed to anticipate" that § 30(A)'s broad language-or at least that of the equal access mandate-would be interpreted as enforceable in a private action. Thus, concludes the dissent, Congress's failure to expressly preclude the private enforcement of § 30(A) suggests it intended not to preclude private enforcement. Post, at 1395.
This argument appears to rely on the prior-construction canon; the rule that, when "judicial interpretations have settled the meaning of an existing statutory provision, repetition of the same language in a new statute" is presumed to incorporate that interpretation. Bragdon v. Abbott,524 U.S. 624, 645, 118 S.Ct. 2196, 141 L.Ed.2d 540 (1998). But that canon has no application here. The language of the two provisions is nowhere near identical; and even if it had been, the question whether the Boren Amendment permitted private actions was far from "settled." When Congress amended § 30(A) in 1989, this Court had already granted certiorari to decide, but had not yet decided, whether the Boren Amendment could be enforced through a § 1983 suit. See Baliles v. Virginia Hospital Assn.,493 U.S. 808, 110 S.Ct. 49, 107 L.Ed.2d 18 (1989)(granting certiorari). Our decision permitting a § 1983 action did not issue until June 14, 1990-almost six months after the amendment to § 30(A). Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Assn.,496 U.S. 498, 110 S.Ct. 2510.The existence of a granted petition for certiorari demonstrates quite clearly that the question whether the Boren Amendment could be privately enforced was unsettled at the time of § 30(A)'s 1989 amendment-so that if Congress was aware of the parallel (which is highly doubtful) the course that awareness would have prompted (if any) would not have been legislative silence but rather express specification of the availability of private enforcement (if that was what Congress intended).
Finally, the dissent speaks as though we leave these plaintiffs with no resort. That is not the case. Their relief must be sought initially through the Secretary rather than through the courts. The dissent's complaint that the sanction available to the Secretary (the cut-off of funding) is too massive to be a realistic source of relief seems to us mistaken. We doubt that the Secretary's notice to a State that its compensation scheme is inadequate will be ignored.
IV
The last possible source of a cause of action for respondents is the Medicaid Act itself. They do not claim that, and rightly so. Section 30(A) lacks the sort of rights-creating language needed to imply a private right of action. Sandoval, supraat 286-287, 121 S.Ct. 1511. It is phrased as a directive to the federal agency charged with approving state Medicaid plans, not as a conferral of the right to sue upon the beneficiaries of the State's decision to participate in Medicaid. The Act says that the "Secretary shall approve any plan which fulfills the conditions specified in subsection (a)," the subsection that includes § 30(A). 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(b). We have held that such language "reveals no congressional intent to create a private right of action." Sandoval, supraat 289, 121 S.Ct. 1511; see also Universities Research Assn., Inc. v. Coutu,450 U.S. 754, 772, 101 S.Ct. 1451, 67 L.Ed.2d 662 (1981). And again, the explicitly conferred means of enforcing compliance with § 30(A) by the Secretary's withholding funding, § 1396c, suggests that other means of enforcement are precluded, Sandoval, supra,at 290, 121 S.Ct. 1511.
Spending Clause legislation like Medicaid "is much in the nature of a contract." Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman,451 U.S. 1, 17, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981). The notion that respondents have a right to sue derives, perhaps, from the fact that they are beneficiaries of the federal-state Medicaid agreement, and that intended beneficiaries, in modern times at least, can sue to enforce the obligations of private contracting parties. See 13 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts §§ 37:12-37.13, pp. 123-135 (4th ed.2013). We doubt, to begin with, that providers are intended beneficiaries (as opposed to mere incidental beneficiaries) of the Medicaid agreement, which was concluded for the benefit of the infirm whom the providers were to serve, rather than for the benefit of the providers themselves. See Pharmaceutical Research and Mfrs. of America v. Walsh,538 U.S. 644, 683, 123 S.Ct. 1855, 155 L.Ed.2d 889 (2003)(Thomas, J., concurring in judgment). More fundamentally, however, the modern jurisprudence permitting intended beneficiaries to sue does not generally apply to contracts between a private party and the government, Astra USA, Inc. v. Santa Clara County,563 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 1342, 1347-1348, 179 L.Ed.2d 457 (2011); see Williston, supra,at §§ 37:35-37:36, at 256-271; 9 J. Murray, Corbin on Contracts § 45.6, p. 92 (rev. ed.2007)-much less to contracts between two governments. Our precedents establish that a private right of action under federal law is not created by mere implication, but must be "unambiguously conferred," Gonzaga,536 U.S., at 283, 122 S.Ct. 2268. Nothing in the Medicaid Act suggests that Congress meant to change that for the commitments made under § 30(A).
* * *
The judgment of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice BREYER, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join Parts I, II, and III of the Court's opinion.
Like all other Members of the Court, I would not characterize the question before us in terms of a Supremacy Clause "cause of action." Rather, I would ask whether "federal courts may in [these] circumstances grant injunctive relief against state officers who are violating, or planning to violate, federal law." Ante,at 1384; post, at 1391 - 1392 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). I believe the answer to this question is no.
That answer does not follow from the application of a simple, fixed legal formula separating federal statutes that may underlie this kind of injunctive action from those that may not. "[T]he statute books are too many, the laws too diverse, and their purposes too complex, for any single legal formula to offer" courts "more than general guidance." Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe,536 U.S. 273, 291, 122 S.Ct. 2268, 153 L.Ed.2d 309 (2002)(BREYER, J., concurring in judgment). Rather, I believe that several characteristics of the federal statute before us, when taken together, make clear that Congress intended to foreclose respondents from bringing this particular action for injunctive relief.
For one thing, as the majority points out, § 30(A) of the Medicaid Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A), sets forth a federal mandate that is broad and nonspecific. See ante,at 1385. But, more than that, § 30(A) applies its broad standards to the setting of rates. The history of ratemaking demonstrates that administrative agencies are far better suited to this task than judges. More than a century ago, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first great federal regulatory rate-setting agency, and endowed it with authority to set "reasonable" railroad rates. Ch. 104, 24 Stat. 379 (1887). It did so in part because judicial efforts to maintain reasonable rate levels had proved inadequate. See I. Sharfman, Railway Regulation: An Analysis of the Underlying Problems in Railway Economics from the Standpoint of Government Regulation 43-44 (1915).
Reading § 30(A) underscores the complexity and nonjudicial nature of the rate-setting task. That provision requires State Medicaid plans to "assure that payments are consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care and are sufficient to enlist enough providers" to assure "care and services" equivalent to that "available to the general population in the geographic area." § 1396a(a)(30)(A). The methods that a state agency, such as Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare, uses to make this kind of determination may involve subsidiary determinations of, for example, the actual cost of providing quality services, including personnel and total operating expenses; changes in public expectations with respect to delivery of services; inflation; a comparison of rates paid in neighboring States for comparable services; and a comparison of any rates paid for comparable services in other public or private capacities. See App. to Reply to Brief in Opposition 16; Idaho Code Ann. § 56-118(2012).
At the same time, § 30(A) applies broadly, covering reimbursements provided to approximately 1.36 million doctors, serving over 69 million patients across the Nation. See Dept. of Health and Human Servs., Office of Inspector General, Access to Care: Provider Availability in Medicaid Managed Care 1, 5 (Dec.2014). And States engage in time-consuming efforts to obtain public input on proposed plan amendments. See, e.g.,Kansas Medicaid: Design and Implementation of a Public Input and Stakeholder Consult Process (Sept. 16, 2011) (prepared by Deloitte Consulting, LLP) (describing public input on Kansas' proposed Medicaid amendments).
I recognize that federal courts have long become accustomed to reviewing for reasonableness or constitutionality the rate-setting determinations made by agencies. See 5 U.S.C. § 706; FPC v. Hope Natural Gas Co.,320 U.S. 591, 602-606, 64 S.Ct. 281, 88 L.Ed. 333 (1944). But this is not such an action. Instead, the lower courts here, relying on the rate-setting standard articulated in Orthopaedic Hospital v. Belshe,103 F.3d 1491 (C.A.9 1997), required the State to set rates that "approximate the cost of quality care provided efficiently and economically." Id.,at 1496. See Inclusion, Inc. v. Armstrong,835 F.Supp.2d 960, 963-964 (D.Idaho 2011), aff'd, 567 Fed.Appx. 496 (C.A.9 2014). To find in the law a basis for courts to engage in such direct rate-setting could set a precedent for allowing other similar actions, potentially resulting in rates set by federal judges (of whom there are several hundred) outside the ordinary channel of federal judicial review of agency decisionmaking. The consequence, I fear, would be increased litigation, inconsistent results, and disorderly administration of highly complex federal programs that demand public consultation, administrative guidance and coherence for their success. I do not believe Congress intended to allow a statute-based injunctive action that poses such risks (and that has the other features I mention).
I recognize that courts might in particular instances be able to resolve rate-related requests for injunctive relief quite easily. But I see no easy way to separate in advance the potentially simple sheep from the more harmful rate-making goats. In any event, this case, I fear, belongs in the latter category. See Belshe, supra,at 1496. Compare Brief for Respondents 2, n. 1 (claiming that respondents seek only to enforce federally approved methodology), with Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae5, n. 2 (the relevant methodology has not been approved). See also Idaho Code Ann. § 56-118(describing in general terms what appears to be a complex rate-setting methodology, while leaving unclear the extent to which Idaho is bound to use, rather than merely consider, actual provider costs).
For another thing, like the majority, I would ask why, in the complex rate-setting area, other forms of relief are inadequate. If the Secretary of Health and Human Services concludes that a State is failing to follow legally required federal rules, the Secretary can withhold federal funds. See ante,at 1385 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1396c). If withholding funds does not work, the federal agency may be able to sue a State to compel compliance with federal rules. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 23, 52 (Solicitor General and respondents acknowledging that the Federal Government might be able to sue a State to enjoin it from paying less than what § 30(A) requires). Cf., e.g., Arizona v. United States,567 U.S. ----, 132 S.Ct. 2492, 183 L.Ed.2d 351 (2012)(allowing similar action in another context).
Moreover, why could respondents not ask the federal agency to interpret its rules to respondents' satisfaction, to modify those rules, to promulgate new rules or to enforce old ones? See 5 U.S.C. § 553(e). Normally, when such requests are denied, an injured party can seek judicial review of the agency's refusal on the grounds that it is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." §§ 702, 706(2)(A). And an injured party can ask the court to "compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed." §§ 702, 706(1). See also Tr. of Oral Arg. 15-16 (arguing that providers can bring an action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) whenever a waiver program is renewed or can seek new agency rulemaking); Japan Whaling Assn. v. American Cetacean Soc.,478 U.S. 221, 230, n. 4, 231, 106 S.Ct. 2860, 92 L.Ed.2d 166 (1986)(APA challenge to the Secretary of Commerce's failure to act).
I recognize that the law may give the federal agency broad discretionary authority to decide when and how to exercise or to enforce statutes and rules. See Massachusetts v. EPA,549 U.S. 497, 527, 127 S.Ct. 1438, 167 L.Ed.2d 248 (2007). As a result, it may be difficult for respondents to prevail on an APA claim unless it stems from an agency's particularly egregious failure to act. But, if that is so, it is because Congress decided to vest broad discretion in the agency to interpret and to enforce § 30(A). I see no reason for this Court to circumvent that congressional determination by allowing this action to proceed.
Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice KENNEDY, Justice GINSBURG, and Justice KAGANjoin, dissenting.
Suits in federal court to restrain state officials from executing laws that assertedly conflict with the Constitution or with a federal statute are not novel. To the contrary, this Court has adjudicated such requests for equitable relief since the early days of the Republic. Nevertheless, today the Court holds that Congress has foreclosed private parties from invoking the equitable powers of the federal courts to require States to comply with § 30(A) of the Medicaid Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A). It does so without pointing to the sort of detailed remedial scheme we have previously deemed necessary to establish congressional intent to preclude resort to equity. Instead, the Court relies on Congress' provision for agency enforcement of § 30(A)-an enforcement mechanism of the sort we have already definitively determined notto foreclose private actions-and on the mere fact that § 30(A) contains relatively broad language. As I cannot agree that these statutory provisions demonstrate the requisite congressional intent to restrict the equitable authority of the federal courts, I respectfully dissent.
I
A
That parties may call upon the federal courts to enjoin unconstitutional government action is not subject to serious dispute. Perhaps the most famous exposition of this principle is our decision in Ex parte Young,209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), from which the doctrine derives its usual name. There, we held that the shareholders of a railroad could seek an injunction preventing the Minnesota attorney general from enforcing a state law setting maximum railroad rates because the Eleventh Amendment did not provide the officials with immunity from such an action and the federal court had the "power" in equity to "grant a temporary injunction." Id.,at 148, 28 S.Ct. 441. This Court had earlier recognized similar equitable authority in Osborn v. Bank of United States,9 Wheat. 738, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824), in which a federal court issued an injunction prohibiting an Ohio official from executing a state law taxing the Bank of the United States. Id.,at 838-839. We affirmed in relevant part, concluding that the case was "cognizable in a Court of equity," and holding it to be "proper" to grant equitable relief insofar as the state tax was "repugnant" to the federal law creating the national bank. Id.,at 839, 859. More recently, we confirmed the vitality of this doctrine in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd.,561 U.S. 477, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (2010). There, we found no support for the argument that a challenge to " 'governmental action under the Appointments Clause or separation-of-powers principles' " should be treated "differently than every other constitutional claim" for which "equitable relief 'has long been recognized as the proper means for preventing entities from acting unconstitutionally.' " Id.,at 491, n. 2, 130 S.Ct. 3138.
A suit, like this one, that seeks relief against state officials acting pursuant to a state law allegedly preempted by a federal statute falls comfortably within this doctrine. A claim that a state law contravenes a federal statute is "basically constitutional in nature, deriving its force from the operation of the Supremacy Clause," Douglas v. Seacoast Products, Inc.,431 U.S. 265, 271-272, 97 S.Ct. 1740, 52 L.Ed.2d 304
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Southwest Exploration Co., respondent in No. 286, contracted to develop certain oil deposits lying off the coast of California by whipstock drilling from sites located on the property of adjacent upland owners. Southwest agreed to pay to such owners 24%% of the net profits for the use of their land. Both Southwest and the upland owners sought to take the statutory depletion allowance of 27%% on this share of the profits. The Tax Court decided that Southwest was entitled to the depletion allowance, 18 T. C. 961, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, 220 F. 2d 58. In the other case, the Court of Claims held that one of the upland owners, Huntington Beach Co., respondent in No. 287, was entitled to the depletion allowance on its share of the net income, 132 Ct. Cl. 427, 132 F. Supp. 718. We granted certiorari in both cases, 350 U. S. 818, because both-the drilling company and the upland owners cannot be entitled to depletion on the same income. We agree with the Court of Claims.
The California State Lands Act of 1938 provided that the State’s offshore oil might be extracted only from wells drilled on filled lands or slant drilled from upland drill sites to the submerged oil deposits. Other provisions of the same statute required that “derricks, machinery, and any and all other surface structures, equipment, and appliances” be located only on filled lands or uplands. It was further provided that the state commission might require each prospective bidder for such a state lease to furnish, as a condition precedent to consideration of his bid, satisfactory evidence of “present ability to furnish all necessary sites and rights of way for all operations contemplated under the provisions of the proposed lease.”
In 1938 California published notice of its intention to receive bids for the lease of certain oil lands pursuant to this statute. At the time Southwest — a corporation organized in 1933 but completely inactive until the transaction at issue here — did not own, lease, operate or control any of the uplands adjacent to the area of oil deposits. It is agreed that there were no filled lands available. Southwest entered into three agreements with the upland owners, and was granted the right of ingress to and egress from the designated uplands and the right to construct, use and maintain all equipment necessary for drilling on the same lands. The upland owners reserved to themselves the right to give easements or subsurface well crossings in the uplands, except that they would not allow such easements for the purpose of drilling into the offshore oil deposits while Southwest retained an interest granted to it by state easement. Southwest’s rights were expressly subject to all rights previously granted by the upland owners. The agreements defined “net profits” and provided that Southwest would pay a total of 24%% of its net profits from extraction and sale of oil to the upland owners. It was also provided that the upland owners did not acquire a share in the lease or oil deposit by virtue of the last agreement and that it was not the intention of the parties to create a partnership relationship.
As a result of these agreements, the upland owners endorsed Southwest’s bid for a lease submitted to the State of California. Southwest, as the only bidder, was granted “Easement No. 392” by the State in consideration of the “royalty to be paid, the covenants to be performed, and the conditions to be observed by the Grantee.” One such condition was that set out in paragraph (1):
“That each well drilled pursuant to the terms of this agreement shall be slant drilled from the uplands to and into the subsurface of the State lands. Derricks, machinery, and any and all other surface structures, equipment and appliances shall be located only upon the uplands and all surface operations shall. be conducted therefrom.”
The agreement further provided that, if Southwest should “default in the performance or observance of any of the terms,' covenants and stipulations hereof,” the State might re-enter, cancel the agreement or close down wells not being operated according to the agreement.
The wells drilled pursuant to this lease have produced oil continuously since 1939. In No. 286, Southwest Exploration Co., the tax years 1939 through 1945 are involved. If Southwest may claim the depletion allow-anee on the upland owner’s share of the profits during this period, its tax liability is reduced by approximately $175,000. In No. 287, Huntington Beach Co., the upland owner is claiming a tax refund of $135,000 for the year 1948 alone.
An allowance for depletion has been recognized in our revenue laws since 1913. It is based on the theory that the extraction of minerals gradually exhausts the capital investment in the mineral deposit. Presently, the depletion allowance is a fixed percentage of gross income which Congress allows to be excluded; this exclusion is designed to permit a recoupment of the owner’s capital investment in the minerals so that when the minerals are exhausted, the owner’s capital is unimpaired. The present allowance, however, bears little relationship to the capital investment, and the taxpayer is not limited to a recoupment of his original investment. The allowance continues so long as minerals are extracted, and even though no money was actually invested in the deposit. The depletion allowance in the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 is solely a matter of congressional grace; it is limited to 27%% of gross income from the property after excluding from gross income “any rents or royalties” paid by the taxpayer with respect to the property.
The complexities of oil operations and risks incident to prospecting have led to intricate, multiparty transactions, so that it is often difficult to determine which parties are entitled to a part of the allowance. The statute merely provides in § 23 (m) that in the case of leases the depletion allowance should be "equitably apportioned between the lessor and lessee.”
In determining which parties are entitled to depletion on oil and gas income, this Court has relied on two interrelated concepts which were first formulated in Palmer v. Bender, 287 U. S. 551. There, the taxpayer, a lessee of certain oil and gas properties, had transferred his interest in these properties to two oil companies in return for a cash bonus, a future payment to be made “out of one-half of the first oil produced and saved,” and an additional royalty of one-eighth of the oil produced and saved. In upholding the taxpayer’s right to depletion on all such income, the Court based its decision on the grounds that a taxpayer is entitled to depletion where he has: (1) “acquired, by investment, any interest in the oil in place,” and (2) secured by legal relationship “income derived from the extraction of the oil, to which he must look for a return of his capital.” 287 U. S., at 557.
These two factors, usually considered together, constitute the requirement of “an economic interest.” This Court has found the requisite interest in the oil in place to have been retained by the assignor of an oil lease, Thomas v. Perkins, 301 U. S. 655, the lessor of oil properties for a share of net profits, Kirby Petroleum Co. v. Commissioner, 326 U. S. 599, and the grantor of oil lands considered as an assignor of drilling rights, Burton-Sutton Oil Co. v. Commissioner, 328 U. S. 25. The Court found no such interest in the case of a processor of natural gas who had only contracted to buy gas after extraction, Helvering v. Bankline Oil Co., 303 U. S. 362, and in the case of a former stockholder who had traded his shares in a corporation which owned oil leases for a share of net income from production of the leased wells, Helvering v. O’Donnell, 303 U. S. 370.
The second factor has been interpreted to mean that the taxpayer must look solely to the extraction of oil or gas for a return of his capital, and depletion has been denied where the payments were not dependent on production, Helvering v. Elbe Oil Land Co., 303 U. S. 372, or where payments might have been made from a sale of any part of the fee interest as well as from production. Anderson v. Helvering, 310 U. S. 404. It is not seriously disputed here that this requirement has been met. The problem revolves around the requirement of an interest in the oil in place.
It is to be noted that in each of the prior cases where the taxpayer has had a sufficient economic interest to entitle him to depletion, he has once had at least a fee or leasehold in the oil-producing properties themselves. No prior depletion case decided by this Court has presented a situation analogous to that here, where a fee owner of adjoining lands necessary to the extraction of oil is claiming a depletion allowance.
Southwest contends that there can be no economic interest separate from the right to enter and drill for oil on the land itself. Since the upland owners did not themselves have the right to drill for offshore oil, it is argued that respondent — who has the sole right to drill — has the sole economic interest. It is true that the exclusive right to drill was granted to Southwest, and it is also true that the agreements expressly create no interest in the oil in the upland owners. But the tax law deals in economic realities, not legal abstractions, and upon closer analysis it becomes clear that these factors do not preclude an economic interest in the upland owners.
Southwest’s right to drill was clearly a conditional rather than an absolute grant. Without the prior agreements with the upland owners, Southwest could not even have qualified as a bidder for a state lease. Permission to use the upland sites was the express condition precedent to the State’s consideration of Southwest’s bid, and it was one of the express conditions on which “Easement No. 392” was granted to Southwest. For a default in that condition the State retained the right to re-enter or to cancel the lease. Thus it is seen that the upland owners have played a vital role at each successive stage of the proceedings. Without their participation there could have been no bid, no lease, no wells and no production.
But Southwest contends that the upland owners here contributed merely property which was useful but not necessary to the drilling operation. The facts are to the contrary. State law required that the wells be drilled either on the uplands or on filled lands, and there were no filled lands available. By hindsight Southwest now suggests that it might have constructed a drilling island which might have been considered as filled land under the statute. Then, too, perhaps the State itself might have changed the law or condemned the uplands under existing law. But none of these possibilities occurred. The fact is that the drilling arrangement was achieved and oil produced in the only way that it could have been, consistent with state law and the express requirements of the State’s lease.
Recognizing that the law of depletion requires an economic rather than a legal interest in the oil in place, we may proceed to the question of whether the upland owners had such an economic interest here. We find that they did. Proximity to the offshore oil deposits and effect of the state law combined to make the upland owners essential parties to any drilling operations. This controlling position greatly enhanced the value of their land when extraction of oil from the State’s offshore fields became a possibility. The owners might have realized this value by selling their interest for a stated sum and no problem of depletion would have been presented. But instead they chose to contribute the use of their land in return for rental based on a share of net profits. This contribution was an investment in the oil in place sufficient to establish their economic interest. Their income was dependent entirely on production, and the value of their interest decreased with each barrel of oil produced. No more is required by any of the earlier cases.
Southwest contends, finally, that if depletion is allowed to the upland owners in this case, it would be difficult to limit the principle in instances of strangers “disassociated from the lease” who may have contributed an essential facility to the drilling operation in return for a share of the net profits. But those problems are not before us in this case where the upland owners could hardly be said to be “disassociated from the lease.” We decide only that where, in the circumstances of this case, a party essential to the drilling for and extraction of oil has made an indispensable contribution of the use of real property adjacent to the oil deposits in return for a share in the net profits from the production of oil, that party has an economic interest which entitles him to depletion on the income thus received.
For the foregoing reasons the judgment in No. 286, as to Southwest Exploration Company, is reversed and that in No. 287, as to Huntington Beach Company, is affirmed.
No. 286, Reversed.
No. 287, Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
In the courts below, the Commissioner took technically inconsistent positions, opposing the depletion allowance in both cases and losing in both. Before this Court the Commissioner urged that depletion be denied the drilling company and allowed to the upland owners on the latter’s 24%% of net profits.
Cal. Stat. (Extra Session 1938), c. 5, § 87,
Id., § 89.
This share was the total of the following percentages of net profits to be paid to the three upland owners:
17.75% to Huntington Beach Company.
1.576% to Pacific Electric Railway Company.
5.174% to Pacific Electric Land Company.
For the tax years 1942 through 1946, Huntington Beach Company claimed and was allowed to deduct depletion on its share of the net profits. The United States is seeking recovery of this money in a suit now pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Southern Division. The amount at issue there is something over $500,000.
Pertinent sections of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 provide :
“Sec. 23. DEDUCTIONS FROM GROSS INCOME.
“In computing net income there shall be allowed as deductions:
“(m) Depletion. — In the case of mines, oil and gas wells, other natural deposits, and timber, a reasonable allowance for depletion and for depreciation of improvements, according to the peculiar conditions in each case; such reasonable allowance in all cases to be made under rules and regulations to be prescribed by the Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary. ... In the ease of leases the deductions shall be equitably apportioned between the lessor and lessee. . . .
“For percentage depletion allowable under this subsection, see section 114 (b), (3) and (4).” 53 Stat. 12, 14, 26 U. S. C. §23.
“Sec. 114. BASIS FOR DEPRECIATION AND DEPLETION.
“(b) Basis for DepletioN.
“(3) Percentage DEPLETION for oil and gas wells. In the case of oil and gas wells the allowance for depletion under section 23 (m) shall be 27% per centum of the gross income from the property during the taxable year, excluding from such gross income an amount equal to any rents or royalties paid or incurred by the taxpayer in respect of the property. Such allowance shall not exceed 50 per centum of the net income of the taxpayer (computed without allowance for depletion) from the property, except that in no case shall the depletion allowance under section 23 (m) be less than it would be if computed without reference to this paragraph.” 53 Stat. 45, 26 U. S. C. § 114.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
This case concerns the amenability of for-profit fundraising corporations to suit by the Attorney General of Illinois for fraudulent charitable solicitations. The controversy arises from the fundraisers’ contracts with a charitable nonprofit corporation organized to advance the welfare of Vietnam veterans; under the contracts, the fundraisers were to retain 85 percent of the proceeds of their fundraising endeavors. The State Attorney General’s complaint alleges that the fundraisers defrauded members of the public by falsely representing that “a significant amount of each dollar donated would be paid over to [the veterans organization] for its [charitable] purposes while in fact the [fundraisers] knew that... 15 cents or less of each dollar would be available” for those purposes. App. 9, ¶ 34. Complementing that allegation, the complaint states that the fundraisers falsely represented that “the funds donated would go to further... charitable purposes,” id., at 8, ¶ 29, when in fact “the amount... paid over to charity was merely incidental to the fund raising effort,” which was conducted primarily “for the private pecuniary benefit of” the fundraisers, id., at 9, ¶ 35.
The question presented is whether those allegations state a claim for relief that can survive a motion to dismiss. In accord with the Illinois trial and appellate courts, the Illinois Supreme Court held they did not. That court was “mindful of the opportunity for public misunderstanding and the potential for donor confusion which may be presented with fund-raising solicitations of the sort involved in th[is] case,” Ryan v. Telemarketing Associates, Inc., 198 Ill. 2d 345, 363, 763 N. E. 2d 289, 299 (2001); it nevertheless concluded that threshold dismissal of the complaint was compelled by this Court’s decisions in Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U. S. 620 (1980), Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947 (1984), and Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781 (1988). Those decisions held that certain regulations of charitable subscriptions, barring fees in excess of a prescribed level, effectively imposed prior restraints on fund-raising, and were therefore incompatible with the First Amendment.
We reverse the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court. Our prior decisions do not rule out, as supportive of a fraud claim against fundraisers, any and all reliance on the percentage of charitable donations fundraisers retain for themselves. While bare failure to disclose that information directly to potential donors does not suffice to establish fraud, when nondisclosure is accompanied by intentionally misleading statements designed to deceive the listener, the First Amendment leaves room for a fraud claim.
I
Defendants below, respondents here, Telemarketing Associates, Inc., and Armet, Inc., are Illinois for-profit fundraising corporations wholly owned and controlled by defendant-respondent Richard Troia. 198 Ill. 2d, at 847-348, 763 N. E. 2d, at 291. Telemarketing Associates and Armet were retained by VietNow National Headquarters, a charitable nonprofit corporation, to solicit donations to aid Vietnam veterans. Id., at 348, 763 N. E. 2d, at 291. In this opinion, we generally refer to respondents, collectively, as “Telemarketers.”
The contracts between the charity, VietNow, and the fundraisers, Telemarketers, provided that Telemarketers would retain 85 percent of the gross receipts from donors within Illinois, leaving 15 percent for VietNow. Ibid. Under the agreements, donor lists developed by Telemarketers would remain in their “sole and exclusive” control. App. 24,93-94, 102, ¶ 65. Telemarketers also brokered contracts on behalf of VietNow with out-of-state fundraisers; under those contracts, out-of-state fundraisers retained between 70 percent and 80 percent of donated funds, Telemarketers received between 10 percent and 20 percent as a finder’s fee, and Viet-Now received 10 percent. 198 Ill. 2d, at 348, 763 N. E. 2d, at 291. Between July 1987 and the end of 1995, Telemarketers collected approximately $7.1 million, keeping slightly more than $6 million for themselves, and leaving approximately $1.1 million for the charity. Ibid.
In 1991, the Illinois Attorney General filed a complaint against Telemarketers in state court. Id., at 348-350, 763 N. E. 2d, at 291-292. The complaint asserted common-law and statutory claims for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. Ibid. It alleged, inter alia, that the 85 percent fee for which Telemarketers contracted was “excessive” and “not justified by expenses [they] paid.” App. 103, ¶72. Dominantly, however, the complaint concerned misrepresentation.
In the course of their telephone solicitations, the complaint states, Telemarketers misleadingly represented that “funds donated would go to further Viet[N]ow’s charitable purposes.” Id., at 8, ¶ 29. Affidavits attached to the complaint aver that Telemarketers told prospective donors their contributions would be used for specifically identified charitable endeavors; typical examples of those endeavors include “food baskets given to vets [and] their families for Thanksgiving,” id., at 124, paying “bills and rent to help physically and mentally disabled Vietnam vets and their families,” id., at 131, “jo[b] training,” id., at 145, and “rehabilitation [and] other services for Vietnam vets,” id., at 169 (some capitalization omitted in quotes). One affiant asked what percentage of her contribution would be used for fundraising expenses; she “was told 90% or more goes to the vets.” Ibid, (capitalization omitted). Another affiant stated she was told her donation would not be used for “labor expenses” because “all members are volunteers.” Id., at 111 (capitalization omitted). Written materials Telemarketers sent to each donor represented that contributions would “be used to help and assist Viet[N]ow’s charitable purposes.” Id., at 8, ¶ 30.
The 15 cents or less of each solicited dollar actually made available to VietNow, the Attorney General charged, “was merely incidental to the fund raising effort”; consequently, she asserted, “representations made to donors [that a significant amount of each dollar donated would be paid over to Viet[N]ow for its purposes] were knowingly deceptive and materially false, constituted a fraud[,] and were made for the private pecuniary benefit of [Telemarketers].” Id., at 9, ¶¶ 34, 35.
Telemarketers moved to dismiss the fraud claims, urging that they were barred by the First Amendment. The trial court granted the motion, and the dismissal order was affirmed, in turn, by the Illinois Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court. The Illinois courts placed heavy weight on three decisions of this Court: Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U. S. 620 (1980); Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947 (1984); and Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781 (1988). Each of the three decisions invalidated state or local laws that categorically restrained solicitation by charities or professional fundraisers if a high percentage of the funds raised would be used to cover administrative or fundraising costs. Schaumburg, 444 U. S., at 620; Munson, 467 U. S., at 947; and Riley, 487 U. S., at 781; see 198 Ill. 2d, at 359, 763 N. E. 2d, at 297.
The Illinois Supreme Court acknowledged that this case, unlike Schaumburg, Munson, and Riley, involves no prophylactic provision proscribing any charitable solicitation if fundraising costs exceeded a prescribed limit. Instead, the Attorney General sought to enforce the State’s generally applicable antifraud laws against Telemarketers for “specific instances of deliberate deception.” 198 Ill. 2d, at 358, 763 N. E. 2d, at 296 (quoting Riley, 487 U. S., at 803 (SCALIA, J., concurring)). “However,” the court said, “the statements made by [Telemarketers] during solicitation are alleged to be ‘false’ only because [Telemarketers] retained 85% of the gross receipts and failed to disclose this information to donors.” 198 Ill. 2d, at 359, 763 N. E. 2d, at 297. The Attorney General’s complaint, in the Illinois Supreme Court’s view, was “in essence, an attempt to regulate [Telemarketers’] ability to engage in a protected activity based upon a percentage-rate limitation” — “the same regulatory principle that was rejected in Schaumburg[,] Munson, and Riley.” Ibid.
“[H]igh solicitation costs,” the Illinois Supreme Court stressed, “can be attributable to a number of factors.” Ibid. In this case, the court noted, Telemarketers contracted to provide a “wide range” of services in addition to telephone solicitation. Ibid. For example, they agreed to publish a newsletter and to maintain a toll-free information hotline. Id., at 359-360, 763 N. E. 2d, at 297-298. Moreover, the court added, VietNow received “nonmonetary benefits by having [its] message disbursed by the solicitation process,” and Telemarketers were directed to solicit “in a manner that would 'promote goodwill’ on behalf of VietNow.” Id., at 361, 763 N. E. 2d, at 298. Taking these factors into account, the court concluded that it would be “incorrect to presume... [any] nexus between high solicitation costs and fraud.” Id., at 360, 763 N. E. 2d, at 298.
The Illinois Supreme Court further determined that, under Riley, “fraud cannot be defined in such a way that it places on solicitors the affirmative duty to disclose to potential donors, at the point of solicitation, the net proceeds to be returned to the charity.” Id., at 361, 763 N. E. 2d, at 298. Finally, the court expressed the fear that if the complaint were allowed to proceed, all fundraisers in Illinois would be saddled with “the burden of defending the reasonableness of their fees, on a ease-by-case basis, whenever in the Attorney General’s judgment the public was being deceived about the charitable nature of a fund-raising campaign because the fund-raiser’s fee was too high.” Id., at 362, 763 N. E. 2d, at 299. The threatened exposure to litigation costs and penalties, the court said, “could produce a substantial chilling effect on protected speech.” Ibid. We granted cer-tiorari. 537 U. S. 999 (2002).
II
The First Amendment protects the right to engage m charitable solicitation. See Schaumburg, 444 U. S., at 632 (“charitable appeals for funds... involve a variety of speech interests — communication of information, the dissemination and propagation of views and ideas, and the advocacy of causes — that are within the protection of the First Amendment”); Riley, 487 U. S., at 788-789. But the First Amendment does not shield fraud. See, e. g., Donaldson v. Read Magazine, Inc., 333 U. S. 178, 190 (1948) (the government’s power “to protect people against fraud” has “always been recognized in this country and is firmly established”); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 340 (1974) (the “intentional lie” is “no essential part of any exposition of ideas” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Like other forms of public deception, fraudulent charitable solicitation is unprotected speech. See, e.g., Schneider v. State (Town of Irvington), 308 U. S. 147, 164 (1939) (“Frauds,” including “fraudulent appeals... made in the name of charity and religion,” may be “denounced as offenses and punished by law.”); Donaldson, 333 U. S., at 192 (“A contention cannot be seriously considered which assumes that freedom of the press includes a right to raise money to promote circulation by deception of the public.”).
The Court has not previously addressed the First Amendment’s application to individual fraud actions of the kind at issue here. It has, however, three times considered prophylactic statutes designed to combat fraud by imposing prior restraints on solicitation when fundraising fees exceeded a specified reasonable level. Each time, the Court held the prophylactic measures unconstitutional.
In Schaumburg, decided in 1980, the Court invalidated a village ordinance that prohibited charitable organizations from soliciting contributions unless they used at least 75 percent of their receipts “directly for the charitable purpose of the organization.” 444 U. S., at 624 (internal quotation marks omitted). The ordinance defined “charitable purposes” to exclude salaries and commissions paid to solicitors, and the administrative expenses of the charity, including salaries. Ibid. The village of Schaumburg’s “principal justification” for the ordinance was fraud prevention: “[A]ny organization using more than 25 percent of its receipts on fund-raising, salaries, and overhead,” Schaumburg submitted, “is not a charitable, but a commercial, for-profit enterprise”;, “to permit [such an organization] to represent itself as a charity,” the village urged, “is fraudulent.” Id., at 636.
The Court agreed with Schaumburg that fraud prevention ranks as “a substantial governmental interes[t],” ibid., but concluded that “the 75-percent requirement” promoted that interest “only peripherally.” Ibid. Spending “more than 25 percent of [an organization’s] receipts on fundraising, salaries, and overhead,” the Court explained, does not reliably indicate that the enterprise is “commercial” rather than “charitable.” Ibid. Such spending might be altogether appropriate, Schaumburg noted, for a charitable organization “primarily engaged in research, advocacy, or public education [that uses its] own paid staff to carry out these functions as well as to solicit financial support.” Id., at 636-637. “The Village’s legitimate interest in preventing fraud,” the Court stated, “can be better served by measures less intrusive than a direct prohibition on solicitation,” id., at 637: “Fraudulent misrepresentations can be prohibited and the penal laws used to punish such conduct directly,” ibid.
Four years later, in Munson, the Court invalidated a Maryland law that prohibited charitable organizations from soliciting if they paid or agreed to pay as expenses more than 25 percent of the amount raised. Unlike the inflexible ordinance in Schaumburg, the Maryland law authorized a waiver of the 25 percent limitation “where [it] would effectively prevent the charitable organization from raising contributions.” 467 U. S., at 950-951, n. 2. The Court held that the waiver provision did not save the statute. Id., at 962. “[No] reaso[n] other than financial necessity warranted] a waiver,” Munson observed. Id., at 963. The statute provided no shelter for a charity that incurred high solicitation costs because it chose to disseminate information as part of its fundraising. Ibid. Nor did it shield a charity whose high solicitation costs stemmed from the unpopularity of its cause. Id., at 967.
“[N]o doubt [there] are organizations that have high fund-raising costs not due to protected First Amendment activity,” the Court recognized; it concluded, however, that Maryland’s statute was incapable of “distinguishing] those organizations from charities that have high costs due to protected First Amendment activities.” Id., at 966. The statute’s fatal flaw, the Court said, was that it “operate[d] on [the] fundamentally mistaken premise that high solicitation costs are an accurate measure of fraud.” Ibid. As in Schaumburg, the Court noted, fraud could be checked by “measures less intrusive than a direct prohibition on solicitation”: Fraud could be punished directly and the State “could require disclosure of the finances of a charitable organization so that a member of the public could make an informed decision about whether to contribute.” 467 U. S., at 961, and n. 9.
Third in the trilogy of eases on which the Illinois Supreme Court relied was our 1988 decision in Riley. The village ordinance in Schaumburg and the Maryland law in Munson regulated charities; the North Carolina charitable solicitation controls at issue in Riley directly regulated professional fundraisers. North Carolina’s law prohibited professional fundraisers from retaining an “unreasonable” or “excessive” fee. 487 U. S., at 784 (internal quotation marks omitted). Fees up to 20 percent of the gross receipts collected were deemed reasonable; fees between 20 percent and 35 percent were deemed unreasonable if the State showed that the solicitation did not involve advocacy or dissemination of information. Id., at 784-785. Fees exceeding 35 percent were presumed unreasonable, but the fundraiser could rebut the presumption by showing either that the solicitation involved advocacy or information dissemination, or that, absent the higher fee, the charity’s “ability to raise money or communicate would be significantly diminished.” Id., at 785-786.
Relying on Schaumburg and Munson, the Court’s decision in Riley invalidated North Carolina’s endeavor to rein in charitable solicitors’ fees. The Court held, once again, that fraud may not be inferred simply from the percentage of charitable donations absorbed by fundraising costs. See 487 U. S., at 789 (“solicitation of charitable contributions is protected speech”; “using percentages to decide the legality of the fundraiser’s fee is not narrowly tailored to the State’s interest in preventing fraud”).
The opportunity to rebut the unreasonableness presumption attending a fee over 35 percent did not bring North Carolina’s scheme within the constitutional zone, the Court explained. Under the State’s law, “even where a prima facie showing of unreasonableness ha[d] been rebutted, the fact-finder [still had to] make an ultimate determination, on a case-by-case basis, as to whether the fee was reasonable — a showing that the solicitation involved... advocacy or [the] dissemination of information [did] not alone establish that the total fee was reasonable.” Id., at 786.
Training on that aspect of North Carolina’s regulation, the Court stated: “Even if we agreed that some form of a percentage-based measure could be used, in part, to test for fraud, we could not agree to a measure that requires the speaker to prove ‘reasonableness’ case by case based upon what is at best a loose inference that the fee might be too high.” Id., at 793. “[E]very campaign incurring fees in excess of 35%... [would] subject [fundraisers] to potential litigation over the ‘reasonableness’ of the fee,” the Court observed; that litigation risk, the Court concluded, would “chill speech in direct contravention of the First Amendment’s dictates.” Id., at 794. Especially likely to be burdened, the Riley opinion noted, were solicitations combined with advocacy or the communication of information, and fundraising by small or unpopular charities. Ibid. The Court cautioned, however, as it did in Schaumburg and Munson, that States need not “sit idly by and allow their citizens to be defrauded.” 487 U. S., at 795. We anticipated that North Carolina law enforcement officers would be “ready and able” to enforce the State’s antifraud law. Ibid.
Riley presented a further issue. North Carolina law required professional fundraisers to disclose to potential donors, before asking for money, the percentage of the prior year’s charitable contributions the fundraisers had actually turned over to charity. Ibid. The State defended this disclosure requirement as a proper means to dispel public mis-perception that the money donors gave to professional fundraisers went in greater-than-actual proportion to benefit charity. Id., at 798.
This Court condemned the measure as an “unduly burdensome” prophylactic rule, an exaction unnecessary to achieve the State’s goal of preventing donors from being misled. Id., at 800. The State’s rule, Riley emphasized, conclusively presumed that “the charity derive[d] no benefit from funds collected but not turned over to it.” Id., at 798. This was “not necessarily so,” the Court said, for charities might well benefit from the act of solicitation itself, when the request for funds conveyed information or involved cause-oriented advocacy. Ibid.
The Court noted in Riley that North Carolina (like Illinois here) required professional fundraisers to disclose their professional status. Id., at 799; see Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 225, §460/17(a) (2001); supra, at 609, n. 4, 611, n. 6. That disclosure, the Court said, effectively notified contributors that a portion of the money they donated would underwrite solicitation costs. A concerned donor could ask how much of the contribution would be turned over to the charity, and under North Carolina law, fundraisers would be obliged to provide that information. Riley, 487 U. S., at 799 (citing N. C. Gen. Stat. § 131C-16 (1986)). But upfront telephone disclosure of the fundraiser’s fee, the Court believed, might end as well as begin the conversation: A potential contributor who thought the fee too high might simply hang up. 487 U. S., at 799-800. “[M]ore benign and narrowly tailored options” that would not chill solicitation altogether were available; for example, the Court suggested, “the State may itself publish the detailed financial disclosure forms it requires professional fundraisers to file,” and “[it] may vigorously enforce its antifraud laws to prohibit professional fundraisers from obtaining money on false pretenses or by making false statements.” Ibid.
Ill
A
The Court’s opinions in Schaumburg, Munson, and Riley took care to leave a corridor open for fraud actions to guard the public against false or misleading charitable solicitations. See Schaumburg, 444 U. S., at 637; Munson, 467 U. S., at 961, and n. 9; Riley, 487 U. S., at 795, 800. As those decisions recognized, and as we further explain below, there are differences critical to First Amendment concerns between fraud actions trained on representations made in individual cases and statutes that categorically ban solicitations when fund-raising costs rim high. See Part III-B, infra. Simply labeling an action one for “fraud,” of course, will not carry the day. For example, had the complaint against Telemarketers charged fraud based solely on the percentage of donations the fundraisers would retain, or their failure to alert potential donors to their fee arrangements at the start of each telephone call, Riley would support swift dismissal. A State’s Attorney General surely cannot gain case-by-case ground this Court has declared off limits to legislators.
Portions of the complaint in fact filed by the Attorney General are of this genre. See, e. g., App. 103, ¶ 72 (asserting that Telemarketers’ charge “is excessive” and “not justified by expenses [they] paid”); id., at 86, ¶¶ 67H-67I (alleging statutory violations based on failure to disclose to prospective donors Telemarketers’ percentage fee). As we earlier noted, however, see supra, at 608-609, the complaint and annexed affidavits, in large part, alleged not simply what Telemarketers failed to convey; they also described what Telemarketers misleadingly represented.
Under Illinois law, similar to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[w]hen the legal sufficiency of a complaint is challenged by a... motion to dismiss, all well-pleaded facts in the complaint are taken as true and [the court] must determine whether the allegations..., when interpreted in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, are sufficient to establish a cause of action upon which relief may be granted.” Connick v. Suzuki Motor Co., Ltd., 174 Ill. 2d 482, 490, 675 N. E. 2d 584, 588 (1997) (emphasis added). Dismissal is proper “only if it clearly appears that no set of facts can be proved under the pleadings which will entitle the plaintiff to recover.” 198 Ill. 2d, at 351, 763 N. E. 2d, at 293.
Taking into account the affidavits, and reading the complaint in the light most favorable to the Attorney General, that pleading described misrepresentations our precedent does not place under the First Amendment’s cover. First, it asserted that Telemarketers affirmatively represented that “a significant amount of each dollar donated would be paid over to Viet[N]ow” to be used for specific charitable purposes — rehabilitation services, job training, food baskets, and assistance for rent and bills, App. 9, ¶ 34; id., at 124, 131, 145, 163, 169, 187, 189 — while in reality Telemarketers knew that “15 cents or less of each dollar” was “available to Viet-[N]ow for its purposes.” Id., at 9, ¶ 34. Second, the complaint alleged, essentially, that the charitable solicitation was a facade: Although Telemarketers represented that donated funds would go to VietNow’s specific “charitable purposes,” id., at 8, ¶ 29, the “amount of funds being paid over to charity was merely incidental to the fund raising effort,” which was made “for the private pecuniary benefit of [Telemarketers] and their agents,” id., at 9, ¶ 35. Cf., e. g., Voices for Freedom, CCH Trade Reg. ¶ 23,080 (1993) [1987-1993 Transfer Binder] (complaint against fundraisers who, inter alia, represented that “substantial portions of the funds from [the sale of commemorative bracelets] would be used to support a message center for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf,” but “did not use substantial portions of the bracelet-sales proceeds to support the message center”).
Fraud actions so tailored, targeting misleading affirmative representations about how donations will be used, are plainly distinguishable, as we next discuss, from the measures invalidated in Schaumburg, Munson, and Riley: So long as the emphasis is on what the fundraisers misleadingly convey, and not on percentage limitations on solicitors’ fees per se, such actions need not impermissibly chill protected speech.
B
In Schaumburg, Munson, and Riley, the Court invalidated laws that prohibited charitable organizations or fundraisers from engaging in charitable solicitation if they spent high percentages of donated funds on fundraising — whether or not any fraudulent representations were made to potential donors. Truthfulness even of all representations was not a defense. See supra, at 612-616. In contrast to the prior restraints inspected in those cases, a properly tailored fraud action targeting fraudulent representations themselves employs no “[b]road prophylactic rul[e],” Schaumburg, 444 U. S., at 637 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), lacking any “nexus... [to] the likelihood that the solicitation is fraudulent,” Riley, 487 U. S., at 793. Such an action thus falls on the constitutional side of the line the Court’s cases draw “between regulation aimed at fraud and regulation aimed at something else in the hope that it would sweep fraud in during the process.” Munson, 467 U. S., at 969-970. The Illinois Attorney General’s complaint, in this light, has a solid core in allegations that home in on affirmative statements Telemarketers made intentionally misleading donors regarding the use of their contributions. See supra, at 608-609.
Of prime importance, and in contrast to a prior restraint on solicitation, or a regulation that imposes on fundraisers an uphill burden to prove their conduct lawful, in a properly tailored fraud action the State bears the full burden of proof. False statement alone does not subject a fundraiser to fraud liability. As restated in Illinois case law, to prove a defendant liable for fraud, the complainant must show that the defendant made a false representation of a material fact knowing that the representation was false; further, the complainant must demonstrate that the defendant made the representation with the intent to mislead the listener, and succeeded in doing so. See In re Witt, 145 Ill. 2d 380, 391, 583 N. E. 2d 526, 531 (1991). Heightening the complainant’s burden, these showings must be made by clear and convincing evidence. See Hofmann v. Hofmann, 94 Ill. 2d 205, 222, 446 N. E. 2d 499, 506 (1983).
Exacting proof requirements of this order, in other contexts, have been held to provide sufficient breathing room for protected speech. See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 279-280 (1964) (action for defamation of public official); Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 502, and n. 19 (1984) (noting “kinship” between New York Times standard and “motivation that must be proved to support a common-law action for deceit”). As an additional safeguard responsive to First Amendment concerns, an appellate court could independently review the trial court’s findings. Cf. Bose Corp., 466 U. S., at 498-511 (de novo appellate review of findings regarding actual malice). What the First Amendment and our case law emphatically do not require, however, is a blanket exemption from fraud liability for a fundraiser who intentionally misleads in calls for donations.
The Illinois Supreme Court in the instant case correctly observed that “the percentage of [fundraising] proceeds turned over to a charity is not an accurate measure of the amount of funds used ‘for’ a charitable purpose.” 198 Ill. 2d, at 360, 763 N. E. 2d, at 298 (citing Munson, 467 U. S., at 967, n. 16). But the gravamen of the fraud action in this case is not high costs or fees, it is particular representations made with intent to mislead. If, for example, a charity conducted an advertising or awareness campaign that advanced charitable purposes in conjunction with its fundraising activity, its representation that donated funds were going to “charitable purposes” would not be misleading, much less intentionally so. Similarly, charitable organizations that engage primarily in advocacy or information dissemination could get and spend money for their activities without risking a fraud charge. See Schaumburg, 444 U. S., at 636-637; Munson, 467 U. S., at 963; Riley, 487 U. S., at 798-799.
The Illinois Attorney General here has not suggested that a charity must desist from using donations for information dissemination, advocacy, the promotion of public awareness, the production of advertising material, the development or enlargement of the charity’s contributor base, and the like. Rather, she has alleged that Telemarketers attracted donations by misleading potential donors into believing that a substantial portion of their contributions would fund specific programs or services, knowing full well that was not the case. See supra, at 608-609, 618-619. Such representations remain false or misleading, however legitimate the other purposes for which the funds are in fact used.
We do not agree with Telemarketers that the Illinois Attorney General’s fraud action is simply an end run around Riley’s holding that fundraisers may not be required, in every telephone solicitation, to state the percentage of receipts the fundraiser would retain. See Brief for Respondents 14-19. It is one thing to compel every fundraiser to disclose its fee arrangements at the start of a telephone conversation, quite another to take fee arrangements into account in assessing whether particular affirmative representations designedly deceive the public.
C
Our decisions have repeatedly recognized the legitimacy of government efforts to enable donors to make informed choices about their charitable contributions. In Schaum-burg, the Court thought it proper to require “disclosure of the finances of charitable organizations,” thereby to prevent fraud “by informing the public of the ways in which their contributions will be employed.” 444 U. S., at 638. In Munson, the Court reiterated that “disclosure of the finances of a charitable organization” could be required “so that a member of the public could make an informed decision about whether to contribute.” 467 U. S., at 961-962, n. 9. And in Riley, the Court said the State may require professional fundraisers to file “detailed financial disclosure forms” and may communicate that information to the public. 487 U. S., at 800; see also id., at 799, n. 11 (State may require fundraisers “to disclose unambiguously [their] professional status”).
In accord with our precedent, as Telemarketers and their amici acknowledge, in “[a]lmost all of [the] states and many localities,” charities and professional fundraisers must “register and file regular reports on activities^] particularly fundraising costs.” Brief for Respondents 37; see Brief for Independent Sector et al. as Amici Curiae 6-8. These reports are generally available to the public; indeed, “[m]any states have placed the reports they receive from charities and professional fundraisers on the Internet.” Brief for Respondents 39; see Brief for Independent Sector et al. as Amici Curiae 9-10. Telemarketers do not object on First Amendment grounds to these disclosure requirements. Tr. of Oral Arg. 43.
Just as government may seek to inform the public and prevent fraud through such disclosure requirements, so it may “vigorously enforce... antifraud laws to prohibit professional fundraisers from obtaining money on false pretenses or by making false statements.” Riley, 487 U. S., at 800. High fundraising costs, without more, do not establish fraud. See id., at 793. And mere failure to volunteer the fundraiser’s fee when contacting a potential donee, without more, is insufficient to state a claim for fraud. Id., at 795-801. But these limitations do not disarm States from assuring that their residents are positioned to make informed choices about their charitable giving. Consistent with our precedent and the First Amendment, States may maintain fraud actions when fundraisers make false or misleading representations designed to deceive donors about how their donations will be used.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The petition for certiorari further alleges that, of the money raised by Telemarketers, VietNow in the end spent only about 3 percent to provide charitable services to veterans. Pet. for Cert. 2, and n. 1; see IRS Form 990, filed by VietNow in 2000, available at http://167.10.5.131/Ct0601_0700/
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Roofing Contractors Association of Southern California, of which respondent was then a member, negotiated a collective bargaining contract with the Roofers Union effective August 15, 1963, establishing compensation levels for the employees of member firms for the next four years. On August 20, 1963, respondent sought to withdraw from the multiple employer bargaining association which had negotiated this agreement. He then refused repeated demands from the union that he sign the contract. At length, the union filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, which found that respondent’s refusal to sign the contract which had been negotiated on his behalf by the Association was a violation of §§ 8 (a)(5) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 61 Stat. 140-141, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(a)(5) and (1). The Board ordered respondent to sign the contract, cease and desist from unfair labor practices, post notices, and “[p]ay to the appropriate source any fringe benefits provided for in the above-described contract.” 152 N. L. R. B. 9, 14 (1965). The Court of Appeals enforced the Board’s order except as it required the payment of fringe benefits. That part of the order, the Court of Appeals said, “is an order to respondent to carry out provisions of the contract and is beyond the power of the Board.” 386 F. 2d 929, 933 (1967). The Government sought and we granted certiorari as to this holding. 391 U. S. 933 (1968).
Believing the remedy provided by the Board was well within its powers, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Section 10 (c) of the Act empowers the Board when it adjudicates an unfair labor practice to issue “an order requiring such person to cease and desist from such unfair labor practice, and to take such affirmative action including reinstatement of employees with or without back pay, as will effectuate the policies of this Act.” 61 Stat. 147, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (c). This grant of remedial power is a broad one. It does not authorize punitive measures, but “[m]aking the workers whole for losses suffered on account of an unfair labor practice is part of the vindication of the public policy which the Board enforces.” Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 177, 197 (1941). Back pay is one of the simpler and more explicitly authorized remedies utilized to attain this end.
Here the unfair labor practice was the failure of the employer to sign and acknowledge the existence of a collective bargaining agreement which had been negotiated and concluded on his behalf. There is no dispute that respondent withdrew from the Roofing Contractors Association too late to escape the binding force of the agreement it had negotiated for him, supplanting previous agreements which had been negotiated in the same way. Nor, in light of the obligation of an employer bargaining in good faith to sign a contract reducing agreed terms to writing, H. J. Heinz Co. v. NLRB, 311 U. S. 514, 524-526 (1941), is it argued that respondent’s failure to sign the agreement was not an unfair labor practice. The judgment of the Board in these respects is not now challenged. The remedy ordered by the Board included a direction to pay the fringe benefits which would have been paid had the employer signed the agreement and thereby recognized his legal obligations which had matured during the collective bargaining process. This is no more than the Act and cases like Phelps Dodge plainly authorize.
The challenge of the employer, in brief, is that ordering the payment of fringe benefits reserved in the contract inserts the Board into the enforcement of the collective bargaining agreement, contrary to the policy and scheme of the statute. Admittedly, the Board has no plenary authority to administer and enforce collective bargaining contracts. Those agreements are normally enforced as agreed upon by the parties, usually through grievance and arbitration procedures, and ultimately by the courts. But the business of the Board, among other things, is to adjudicate and remedy unfair labor practices. Its authority to do so is not “affected by any other means of adjustment or prevention that has been or may be established by. agreement, law, or otherwise . . . .” § 10 (a), 61 Stat. 146, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (a). Hence, it has been made clear that in some circumstances the authority of the Board and the law of the contract are overlapping, concurrent regimes, neither pre-empting the other. NLRB v. C & C Plywood Corp., 385 U. S. 421 (1967); Carey v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 375 U. S. 261, 268 (1964); Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195, 197-198 (1962); Teamsters Local 174 v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 101, n. 9 (1962). Arbitrators and courts are still the principal sources of contract interpretation, but the Board may proscribe conduct which is an unfair labor practice even though it is also a breach of contract remediable as such by arbitration and in the courts. Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195, 197-198 (1962). It may also, if necessary to adjudicate an unfair labor practice, interpret and give effect to the terms of a collective bargaining contract. NLRB v. C & C Plywood Corp., 385 U. S. 421 (1967).
Bearing more precisely on this case, the Board is expressly invited by the Act to determine whether an employer has refused to bargain in good faith and thereby violated § 8 (a) (5) by resisting “the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party . . . .” § 8 (d), 61 Stat. 142, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d); H. J. Heinz Co. v. NLRB, 311 U. S. 514, 524-526 (1941). The Board is not trespassing on forbidden territory when it inquires whether negotiations have produced a bargain which the employer has refused to sign and honor, particularly when the employer has refused to recognize the very existence of the contract providing for the arbitration on which he now insists. To this extent the collective contract is the Board’s affair, and an effective remedy for refusal to sign is its proper business.
Firing an employee for union membership may be a breach of contract open to arbitration, but whether it is or not, it is also an unfair labor practice which may be remedied by reinstatement with back pay under § 10 (c) even though the Board's order mandates the very compensation reserved by the contract. Cf. NLRB v. Great Dane Trailers, Inc., 388 U. S. 26 (1967); Mastro Plastics Corp. v. NLRB, 350 U. S. 270 (1956); Wallace Corp. v. NLRB, 323 U. S. 248 (1944).
The case before us is little, if any, different. The act of refusing to sign the collective bargaining agreement may not have been a breach of contract, but it was an unfair practice. Once adjudicated, it could be remedied by a Board order requiring payment of those fringe benefits which would have been paid had the employer signed and acknowledged the contract which had been duly negotiated on his behalf. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Roofers Local 36, United Slate, Tile and Composition Roofers, Damp and Waterproof Workers Association.
See generally Nathanson v. NLRB, 344 U. S. 25, 29-30 (1952); Note, A Survey of Labor Remedies, 54 Va. L. Rev. 38, 41-95 (1968).
Respondent is a past president of the Association, and thus was familiar with its bylaw that a “labor contract negotiated by the Committee shall be binding upon the Regular Members of this Association separately and collectively ...”
The fact that the payments in question here did not constitute direct pay to the employees is irrelevant in our view of this case. Whether the payments were made to the employees, who then contributed them to union trust funds in the form of higher union dues, or whether as here they passed straight from the employer to the trust funds, the final result is the same. And it is just as much in the interest of “effectuat[ing] the policies of this Act,” and of making the employees whole, to require the payments in either case.
Steelworkers Trilogy, 363 U. S. 564, 574, 593 (1960). Congress established the judicial remedy of § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 156, 29 U. S. C. § 185, in lieu of a proposal to make breach of a collective bargaining agreement itself an unfair labor practice. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 41-42. The House Conference Report asserts that “[o]nce parties have made a collective bargaining contract the enforcement of that contract should be left to the usual processes of the law and not to the National Labor Relations Board,” id., at 42. See Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448, 452 (1957). Cf. LMRA § 201, 61 Stat. 152, 29 TJ. S. C. § 171.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
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